How do you charge a laptop

Honestly the 400 watt plug-in inverters can not put out 400 watts plugged in. So getting one is a waste of money. Most laptops need 70 watts, FYI. So the little 100 or 200 watters work great.

I had the cupholder cobra one for a while, but it sucked, i couldnt put it in a cupholder because of my truck. Big, ugly. Then it shorted out and blew my fuses for my cigarette lighters.

Anyhow, those 400 watt inverters, can only run that much power if hooked directly to the battery. I had one for a while i think it was rated at 200 watts from a cigarette lighter.

 

I'm having issues with my laptop charging. I have a inverter that , plugs into the 12v plug its a power-drive 300w, blk/yellow the ones found at pilots/tas etc.

When i have the truck turned off and attempt to use the inverter with the laptop it gives charges at second intervals. For example laptop recognizes charge for a few seconds then doesn't. The inverter sounds like its turning off and on. Now if i have the truck running there is no issue.

I know the truck has some sort of safety shut off for power reserve, but is there anyway to still get power from the truck to the laptop when the truck is not running?

 

It depends on how big your computer is. I have a laptop with a 17" monitor and an intel i7 processor. The 150 watt inverter I have won't charge it. Anything over 150 or 200 watts you need to hard wire.

 

If you can't use an inverter...

Lind Electronics makes laptop 12v power supplies for most laptops... same ones used in many law enforcement vehicles... not cheap... $100-$150... but don't overheat or cause radio interference like many cheaper options.

http://www.lindelectronics.com/cgi-bin/store/shop.cgi/!ORDERID!/aaa/x/dbx_gen_aaa_mfgs/

 

yes, i think i have the same inverter as you. the trick is to charge your laptop battery up to full while you're driving down the road. then when you turn off your truck and run your laptop, it's only pulling enough juice to run the laptop, and it's not trying to charge the battery at the same time.

another trick you can do is to go to power settings and play around with stuff. i use two power profiles on my machine:

1) balanced - cpu and gpu limited to 40% capacity, screen brightness turned down to limit peak power draws while running off the truck's battery.

2) high performance - when i'm plugged into a wall outlet, everything's at 100% (except brightness because it just hurts my eyes.)

 

Wanted to pass along my latest find. I too had issues with laptop charging. And when I found solutions to charge the laptop in the truck I wasnt able to use it while charging. Prior the inverter I was using was a 300w 12v plug-in style. I just tried a 100w 12v plug-in style and it does the trick. No more waiting to charge the laptop before using it.

 

plug it into the AC by the sink when you shower.

mark

 

we have this and it works just fine

http://www.powerdriveinverters.com/rppd150.html

 

They have universal laptop power supplies that run on 12 volt dc cigarette lighter. I have one and it works perfect. plug it in and go even when sitting with motor off draw is minimal

 

They now have cigarette plug in's that are USB chargers. They will work for cell phones or computers.