Whats the most economical way of powering 2 laptops

[Byeckerslike]

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone can recommend the most effective / economical way of powering 2 laptops whilst on board?

 

Currently, we have an Adverc 600w inverter,which soon drains the otherwise healthy domestic batteries. SWMBO is a digital artist, using Photoshop CS5, and when she is mid flow, she is reluctant to shut her 'puter down. Any advice will be gratefully received!

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob n Heather.

[by'eck]

You can get laptop DC adapters that offer a range of output voltages & plug-in power connectors to suit virtually every laptop made. Used individually they are marginally more efficient, but you would need one for each laptop.

 

As things stand there is probably not much to be gained over running both off your relatively modest sized inverter as long as its not running anything else you may have forgotten about at the same time.

 

A more relevant factor is the relatively high current that a fast processor on a laptop draws. Just feel the heat that comes out of them to get an idea, especially when using graphics intensive programs like PhotoShop.

 

Newer laptops or better still netbooks using the latest processors are much less power hungry & rely on a large cache on the processor itself plus high speed internal bus, rather than fastest possible speed.

 

If you want to stretch your available battery power, that might be a better direction to look in for one of them at least.

Edited April 26, 2011 by richardhula

[bottle]

Fit a 1000 amp hour battery bank, a decent generator and a 'big' charger.

 

or

 

connect to a shore line.

[NB Lola]

Genny?

 

We use it to charge a spare laptop battery, giving 2 hours plus after 8pm, if needed

[Graham Bowers]

I presume you are using Windoze. If so, perhaps putting the machine in to hibernation would be a viable and no-cost solution if its the current drain whilst its not being used you are trying to mitigate.

 

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions

 

Regards

Graham

[Robin2]

I believe you need the proper balance between battery capacity and generator capacity to meet your daily demand. Buying more batteries or a separate generator may not be economical unless you achieve the correct balance. If your battery capacity is too low you will need to run your engine for extra time to supply enough amp-hours each day, regardless of how big your alternator/generator is. Similarly a huge battery cannot supply any more power than you put back into it every day. If your battery capacity is sufficient you may find that your engine alternator(s) is quite adequate to keep it charged. I would do my calculations very carefully, and check them thrice, before concluding that it would be worth investing in a separate petrol/lpg or diesel generator just to save money.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Robin2

[Lady Muck]

Disclaimer: I am no battery guru and can not claim to be any sort of expert on battery management, but this is what works for us - our last set of batteries lasted five years, the current set is three years old so we must be doing something right!

 

I would look at your other power use as well. We have a very unsophisticated set- up, only three leisure batteries, but when we're away and off shore power in the summer, we still manage to run our two Win 7 laptops (we use CS5 as well) without caning our batteries. We use the Maplin 12v adaptors, have done for five years with no problems at all. We did consider a bigger battery bank, but I agree with Robin2, bigger battery bank = more time spent keeping it charged. We don't want to have to run the engine for hours on end every day.

 

We have a genny but used it about twice last year, it's only really there as a back up should something go wrong. If we need to charge our batteries, then we cruise the boat.

 

Have you considered -

 

Reducing power use in other areas? I defrost our 12v fridge (the number one power drain on the boat) every month when we are cruising and always try to keep it full. I swapped our regular bulbs for LED's. We don't have a tv, washing machine or hair straighteners. . I'm not suggesting you chuck these items if you feel you need them, only to recognise they all add up.

 

How about solar panels? Ok, they are next to useless in the Winter, but in the summer, thanks to our panels, we find we can go a day or two without running our engine and there's still enough power for the lappys.

 

And I agree with Richardhula about newer laptops being more energy efficient. Ok I have an old laptop, but since I installed a new OS a few months back, it runs about 30 degrees cooler than it used to - and that's with the more processor caning CS5 (used to use CS3 on Vista).

[Byeckerslike]

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone can recommend the most effective / economical way of powering 2 laptops whilst on board?

 

Currently, we have an Adverc 600w inverter,which soon drains the otherwise healthy domestic batteries. SWMBO is a digital artist, using Photoshop CS5, and when she is mid flow, she is reluctant to shut her 'puter down. Any advice will be gratefully received!

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob n Heather.

Many thanks all for your prompt replies!

Our NB has:-

1 x 110Amp Starter Battery

3 x 110Amp Domestic Batteries

70 Amp Alternator Driving a Sterling Alternator Controller

1 Victron 60Amp battery charger

1 Kawasaki 1200w Genny

SHMBO has a new Dell Studio W7 Laptop

and I have a Samsung NC10 Netbook, running on XP.

 

I will indeed look at those Maplin's 12V 'puter adaptors (need to run some cables to the pullman diner area (not a huge task) to do that. I keep my follicle challenged scalp hair fairly short, SHMBO uses neither hair drier or straighteners, we do have a 12v fridge, which is turned off overnight. We have no domestic gizmo's like microwaves, toasters etc. All, in all, a fairly simple installation(less there is, the less there is to go wrong)!

 

Rob

[canaldrifter]

Could it be that you are not running the engine for long enough to fully charge the batteries?

 

I have a similar battery and alternator set-up, but a 1500W inverter. I find that I need to cruise or run the engine for at least five hours a day if I'm using the 'puter all evening.

 

Tone

[dor]

Are you sure your batteries are healthy? We use a Dell laptop regularly and even with significant use it makes little impact on our batteries, and that is through an 1800 PSW Powermaster inverter.

If your batteries are getting sulphated, then they will have lost capacity. A reasonably efficient laptop shouldn't draw much more than an average of about 3 amps at 12V.

[Chris Pink]

Assuming your use is largely daytime I can run my laptop all day on 120w solar (since early march) and still have enough for evening iplayer. Processor intensive stuff too and the not insignificant dongle.

 

I have used the generator once ( rainy week) and my batteries are fully charged most of the time. As the alternative is £30 a month petrol in the winter this is very economical.

[deletedaccount]

A better, less power hungry laptop also helps.

[Chris Pink]

But is not an 'economical' solution

[deletedaccount]

Well, it's def worth thinking about when the time comes to replace the old one.

[WotEver]

... and that's with the more processor caning CS5 (used to use CS3 on Vista).

You might not be aware of one of the Prefs settings available on some of the CS5 apps; namely telling it how much memory to leave unused. If you don't try to multi-task then there's no point in leaving memory unused, and the more it puts in memory the less it has to disk-swap. I know that Illustrator just does what it wants, but certainly AE and I think PS have this setting. If the app of your choice has the setting then set it to zero.

 

Tony

 

edit because seeting made no sense

Edited April 27, 2011 by WotEver

[ymu]

It depends a lot on how much you use them. We both use laptops for 12-16 hours a day and this seems to work for us:

 

- good battery lives (use powerhouse laptops/PCs only when the engine is running or their power-supply batteries are full)

 

- keep them plugged in whenever the engine is running (free leccy when in absorption charge, and no losses via storing energy in the battery before using it)

 

- unplug and run them off battery when the engine is off

 

- if they need recharging before the engine is run again, try not to have more than one laptop re-charging at the same time (Peukert), and unplug as soon as they're topped up enough to get to the next engine run

 

If you don't have/want any solar panels for the boat electrics, you can get handy kits designed to charge laptops. You could probably feed the leads through a mushroom, to minimise other power use before dark.

[David Mack]

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone can recommend the most effective / economical way of powering 2 laptops whilst on board?

 

Currently, we have an Adverc 600w inverter,which soon drains the otherwise healthy domestic batteries. SWMBO is a digital artist, using Photoshop CS5, and when she is mid flow, she is reluctant to shut her 'puter down. Any advice will be gratefully received!

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob n Heather.

 

Take the laptop and its mains charger to the pub with you. In my experience most seem to be quite happy to let you plug a laptop in as long as you buy a beer or two.

 

David