DC to AC Inverter / Converter

Lil306

Has anyone used these for consumer products?

I've been contemplating buying one so I can use my laptop inside my car for long periods as opposed to on the batteries. It's a 12v DC to 230v AC converter.

Are the voltages stable?
Is it safe?

As I understand with sensitive electronics, it's generally safer to over supply power than undersupply it and limit the power through regulators however I don't know whether these things are self-regulated and give continous power output at a certain wattage or if it's self-adjusting...

My laptop has a 90w power pack so only draws around 0.3A of power under full load.

globalds

If you are plugging it into the cigarrete lighter then you will only draw abot 150w max...Any more and you will have to connect straight onto the battery.
I bought this one
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=224796

For work ....it has an alarm that goes off that was annoying until I worked out you need to plug the inverter in and power it up before plugging the laptop in.

It worked . I was driving and the guy I was with was typing up the reports for the job.
We also left the engine running when we used it on site for test data , so I don't know if it drains the battery ..We drove over 500 miles that day so I reckon it was being charged up pretty well.

As for the stability ..you are really only charging the battery up and not directly powering the lappy so I can't see any problems.

Most problems with inverters is that they overheat ..I was told you need to buy one witha fan built in to cool it.

inmypocketnottheirs

I bought one of these:

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php/1632/ring-e-can-plus-inverter-with-usb-charger

and it does the job very well. Built in fan too.

alanrowell

Seems to be a bit odd to convert from 12V DC up to 240V AC then back down to something like 15V DC.

Why not just get a laptop car converter like this one

Lil306

globalds wrote: »

If you are plugging it into the cigarrete lighter then you will only draw abot 150w max...Any more and you will have to connect straight onto the battery.
I bought this one
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=224796

For work ....it has an alarm that goes off that was annoying until I worked out you need to plug the inverter in and power it up before plugging the laptop in.

It worked . I was driving and the guy I was with was typing up the reports for the job.
We also left the engine running when we used it on site for test data , so I don't know if it drains the battery ..We drove over 500 miles that day so I reckon it was being charged up pretty well.

As for the stability ..you are really only charging the battery up and not directly powering the lappy so I can't see any problems.

Most problems with inverters is that they overheat ..I was told you need to buy one witha fan built in to cool it.

Thanks, this was actually the one I was looking at (but from machinemart). The battery would drain because your taking power directly from the 12v.

alanrowell Seems to be a bit odd to convert from 12V DC up to 240V AC then back down to something like 15V DC.

Why not just get a laptop car converter like this one

I do like this one better however, because you can regulate the voltages through the adaptors and selector switch. It's more suited to the job