Do laptops only work on APUs?

The laptop charger works on AC which is generated by an inverter connected to the trucks batteries. An APU would only be charging the trucks batteries in this instance. They make 12V DC adapters to charge a laptop also.

 

There is no special "setup" for a laptop. If your laptop charger is 120v you need a small inverter. If it's 12v you need a cig lighter plug.

And don't worry about pure sine wave inverters for laptops. Not needed. The laptop battery smooths out the signal for ya.

 

All of my laptops will drain the truck battery relatively quickly. Especially in the winter when the bunk heater is also drawing current. A couple hours at night is ok, but on a 34 you will have problems without an APU. Unless you can idle the truck.

Newer trucks should do "load shedding" and shut down everything if the battery starts getting too low. it's supposed to save enough juice to start the struck. I wouldn't count on it.

 

Good information above ... and I agree, laptops should be a pretty simple setup on a truck.

But, I find it hard to believe that a little bitty laptop battery would drain those huge truck batteries... just what kind of Super Gaming Setup do you have, how many hours of that reset are you gaming, and how many watts is that Bad Boy pulling?

 

Even the little one with the i-3 processor will do some damage in a day.

 

Crazy... CraaZee

 

It's probably time for new batteries.

I've had no problems using laptop and watching tv. Both on a 140 watt invertor plugged in to a cigarette socket.

I wouldn't leave a laptop on with truck starting though. Suffice it to say. Laptops will croak with voltage spikes. Just because there's a charger and a battery doesn't mean they're immune. I had one croak at 3 months and another one croak at 6 months. Another got dropped and cracked the screen. Another one got rained on as i left the window open not knowing it would rain on a partly cloudy day. My 5th and last laptop I still have after 3 years.

I hated shutting them down as I don't like to make the cops wait when they want to see my logs. After the second one croaked. I just left the laptop on but unplugged. Plugged it in on my breaks.

 

Dang, you are hard on PCs.
I bought a 2010 Apple MacBook Pro...

I used it for a year then gave it to my oldest daughter for college, both fours years for her Bachelors and another two years for her Masters, and then she returned it to me after I bought her a new Apple MacBook Air... I’ve been using it since, both personally and as a Realtor (No, it’s not as rough as OTR for sure... LOL)

I have recently upgraded just about everything inside the case that I can... new battery, swapped out the HDD for a sweet fast little SSD... and dropped 8 Gb of memory in it... I can still double that to 16Gb should I feel the need for it...

Other than the macOS is now maxed out with High Serra... the only reason I would need to get a new one is to be able to upgrade to the new macOS Mojave coming out in a week... oh and of course just because I would LOVE a new MBP... lol

It’s still a solid little machine so if the day ever comes that I am blessed with a newer model, I would probably strip out the now maxed out macOS and make it into a Linux Laptop just for skittles and giggles.

 

I had a high end gaming PC laptop that did fine the first year at home but the power supply got trashed after 2 weeks in the truck with factory charger on a 1500 watt inverter [from the truck factory, forget the brand]

On the flip side, my MacBook Pro seems to love the trucking lifestyle the past 5 years on similar inverters