Question from a friend about laptops and powering them

[kuba]

The real question is in bold if you want to skip all this.
But this was the email I got.

I have a laptop(Presario 2500) that I will be using in my 24 ft enclosed car trailer next season. The 'puter will be hooked up to a weather station that will record the weather changes,and also be used as a "log book" to keep track of all my runs,BUT,it also has the ability to PAGE me with weather updates,PLUS,it can also predict the cars ET on the next run,based on the previous run and the weather conditions!!!

ANYWAY......I may not ALWAYS be able to plug the trailer(and the computer) in to a local track recepticle.

I may have to run it from a generator from time to time. I know they have newer gen-sets that have very "clean" power,but I already have a little Coleman 1850 watt generator that should provide more than enough juice.

Now....I have a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery in the trailer.....and an 800 watt DC/AC invertor wired to that.....If I use the invertor to power the laptop,and the generator to just charge the deep cycle battery,will that provide clean enough power to the laptop so that I don't blow it up or melt it down??

I really don't want to drop the coin on a new generator if I don't HAVE to.....BUT if you think it would be best.....
Any thoughts or ideas on this will be greatly appreciated!

 

[pkme2]

I've used a power inverter for my laptop off my car's cigarette lighter. I also ran the same inverter off my power generator using the same inverter with another plug adapter.

I've never had a problem. Here's an example. I got another adapter to plug cigarette lighter plug to adapt to regular AC plug.
Power Adapter

 

[kenji4life]

laptops have ac-dc-power converters just like desktop computers. however if you are really worried about clean power get a small UPS to use as a buffer.

 

[Rubycon]

Small UPS systems should not be connected to unregulated gen sets! Your best bet is to use a linear battery charger - that's a cheap battery charger designed to put out perhaps 10 amps or so - to keep your deep cycle battery charged while the inverter runs off it. This will provide the safest means to power the portable PC.

The power packs are designed to run off 120VAC utility power OR stepped approximation to sine wave (small UPS) on an INTERMITTENT basis. Running them for a long time on non utility power will most likely cause them to fail. So this brings the next question - how good is the output of the inverter?

For long term "away" useage for WX recording you may want to find a 12V DC-DC upconverter that will run the notebook PC directly off the DC of the battery. This way the RV's charger/converter will keep the deep cycle battery charged and the PC will run - if the power is interrupted it will run for a long time off the coach battery then it has the internal battery of the PC if it's in good condition. This should provide good running power for all but the longest blackouts.