How can I charge a laptop in the truck

My laptop power supply lasted years at home and only 2 months being powered in a cig lighter 150 watt inverter that wasn't PSW. The brick got hot within 10 minutes and the cord from the power brick to the laptop got very hot. I could recharge the laptop battery while it was off without any problem, but not run the laptop and charge the battery. If the laptop power brick doesn't get warner than usual, I would expect no problems. If it gets warmet than at home, you are on borrowed time, IMO.

 

You might not need laptop. I used too have laptop but do everything on cell phone now. It not perfect for watching movies or YouTube but it works for me. I can Bluetooth cell phone to truck stereo and it work good for streaming podcast or music. When I stop I can watch YouTube or Movies.

You will need a data plan for your laptop or Hotspot with cellphone. My cellphone plan has unlimited high speed data to 60GB+ they never slow me down yet. Most cell phone plans limit Hotspot data, mine is 5GB

My company truck has 2000 watts pure sine wave inverter from factory with 4 regular house 120v plugs. So you truck might already have inverter. It’s not standard in all trucks but lots of companies put them in today. Since trucks have microwaves that plug into regular house power

 

Just like violating Newton's Law of gravity might break your neck after a fall. Violating Ohm's Law might get your truck destroyed by fire. Ohm's law never changes. To get amps WITH ANY INVERTER you divide the Watts by 12 on the supply side of the inverter. That 65 Watts is still almost 5 and a half amps on the battery. I have no idea what the typical fuse/circuit breaker Amp rating is for a lighter circuit. If that circuit can handle 6 or 7 Amps then you will be OK, if not the inverter will blow the fuse or trip the breaker when you use it.

 

Over the last few years, I have moved from my laptop to my iPad. I can even print documents from my iPad. Sometimes I sit with my iPad watching a YouTube video or a downloaded movie while waiting for a doctor's appointment. (with headphones of course)

 

I have heard both sides of this debate many times. I spoke to a man much more knowledgeable on this subject and he told me most modern laptops have a power supply that can use both safely.

 

You may not have as much time as you think you will. Best piece of advice I got and I can give is sleep as much as you can for the times that you have to push through and are tired. I had a laptop with me and we used it for me movies. Had a 400w inverter and charged it that way or I would charge it at the truck stop while eating.

 

@CrappieJunkie is right. People just entering trucking VASTLY overestimate how much free time they will have inside the truck. There is BARELY enough time to sleep and still make appointments and that often requires you work like a rented mule up until the very minute you are required to GO TO SLEEP NOW!. In that 10 hour break you must sleep, eat a meal, shower, brush your teeth, use the restroom, deal with issues back home, fix the thing you have no tools or time to fix, etc.

 

There is app for almost everything today for Apple or Android. The truck stops have apps so you can reserve a shower or parking spot. 10 hours is not much time off to sleep, shower and eat. I run 5 days a week and two day off at the house every week. My company wants us to run the full 14 hours and get up and rolling again after 10 hours off. When I was out driving for weeks, driving cross country I had more free time. Because you could gets load that don’t deliver on weekends. That was also kind before ELDs they can make getting the job done more difficult because you can just do whatever you want anymore.

 

Many trucks already come with an inverter in the sleeper.

 

I'm sorry Kemo, but you're wrong.

Your power supply might get hot. But it has nothing to do with the type of inverter. What makes something hot electrically when it comes to computers is amp draw. Not current type. A laptop power supply is a power supply that takes AC current and converts it to a very pure DC current to charge the battery in the laptop. Pure or not pure sine wave doesn't matter. It does the same thing. My power supply for my laptop gets very hot and its plugged into a PSW inverter. Why? Because I have two gaming laptops that draw over 200 and over 300 watts each. The power supplies are huge and STILL get hot.

PSW inverters are good for appliances. TV's microwaves, freezers, etc. But laptops with a power supply external are one of the ONLY things that doesn't benefit from a PSW inverter. The laptop gets its power from the internal battery and that's charged by the power supply. So any impurity that makes it past the power supply is filtered by the battery itself so your laptop will never see anything but pure DC current no matter what you plug the power supply into.

Remember both laptops and desktops run on DC current. So ALL have an inverter somewhere. For a laptop, its in the box that you trip over whenever you try to get up after someone bangs on your door telling you that you're empty and can go get your paperwork. For a desktop, it's inside the main cabinet where the power wire goes in from the wall. The desktop computer doesn't have a battery to make the current more pure like a laptop does, so they are more vulnerable if you have a cheap power supply. But laptops are safe.

Modern laptop power supplies can use either PSW or non-PSW power sources and be fine. PSW inverters definitely cost more. You're right about that.