Inverter for charging laptop???

I have a 1500w in mine as well and I keep mine plugged in all the time when I'm out. It works as advertised and is reliable for power, IMHO. There is also no need to have anything else in between the charger and inverter. (I.E. a surge protector)

I also have never had an issue of power fluctuation when the APU kicks in or shuts off, as the inverter draws it's power from the batteries first

 

If it's the 1800 watt Xantrex that comes stock with the APU, I've had no issues with mine other than it runs things with motors extra fast. My vacumn cleaner works extra good but I actually had a Dremel explode in my hand when it revved to about 36 billion RPM.

My microwave buzzes like hell on the inverter versus plugging it into a wall, but it still works and has been in the truck over two years. I've had a Frigidaire dorm fridge in there for about the same length of time... no issues.

 

I've got a 300w Jensen and a 400w Tripp Lite and they charge my laptops and tool batteries just fine. No issues so far anyways.

 

It will get the job done but will really rape batteries bieng charged. They won't hold a charge like they should.

 

A pure sine wave inverter is better, but the regular ones usually do the job.
My microwave use to buzz with the modified sine wave inverters, but when I switched to a pure sine wave inverter, it works quieter now.

 

It will be fine. If it's not a pure ( true ) sine wave your power block will get hotter along with any thing else you run off it.
Also if it's not pure sine it will tend to eat up your rechargeables IE toothbrush, razor , phone battery and laptop battery. I know this from personal experience.
I've had to replace toothbrush chargers in lease than a year and same with electric razor and brand new laptop battery.

 

If a "car charger" (12vdc to required dc volt/amp) is available for your laptop, (preferably OEM from the laptop manufacturer) I'll always recommend this option. Most have an available car charger option and can be typically be found on amazon.

But if you have a sizable laptop, it helps also if you have a cig lighter circuit that's not busy running other devices if you go this route.

 

I had a little Dell laptop the Theoratical Max Wattage power was literally a 125 watt bulb when the CPU and it's cooling block was counted. Backed by a hard drive that drew another 25 watts at 12 volt (Eliminated with a simple SSD which draw power values so low it's ridiculous. And that's a good thing here. A 300 watt inverter convering 15 amp, 12 volt power to something like 280 watts and 12 volts at 15 amps input.;. it worked out well for years. Even supporting a GPS system in real trucking time of the day and or night. Sometimes my trainer would lean over that screen and soak in what is necessary to support a team a couple of years and later on video operations into little rock traffic.

If I wanted a replacement it would be a little bit bigger at 500 watt, 15 amp 12 volt input, fused this time.. and so on.

I look at it this way, half the vehicle is a computer now. I would be less worried about hooking up a simple laptop and feeding it with converted power. Ultimately all you are doing is taking a milliion winds around a pair of posts and pesto. Big time 120 volts on tap. Where you need it suh!

 

To answer your question, no you don't need to put or add anything between. You can plug straight into inverter or run an exstenion cord from the inverter and plug in to it.
I've always used a exstenion cord. I currently have to wall plugs mounted in two locations from The inverter and a power strip plugged in one of them which I run my laptop , coffee pot and charge my phone from.
The power strip is one of those with surge protection just in case.