raden wrote:

In message . com, Mark
Trueman writes
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.

TBH ...

Charge it up before you go

C'mon Geoff: that's obvious and unhelpful and doesn't address the
question.
You are presuming that the laptop has a battery in it (it may be at the
end of
its lifetime hence it doesn't hold a charge for long).

I bought a mains inverter a few years ago and found it to be fine for
the long
car journeys where the kids want to watch a DVD via the laptop.

Another purchase I made was a 12v electric blanket plus heavy lead-acid
battery
(bought from Woolworths a year or so ago - reduced from £60 to £30
and then in
mid summer I got it for £15) to keep my bones warm whilst the kids
play ice
hockey at some god forsaken unheated ice rink.
The battery has a cigarette lighter plug for charging as well as a
cigarette lighter
socket for the electric blanket plug.

Haven't done it yet but I guess I could always string the (portable)
battery via the
inverter to get some mains power without connecting to the real mains
(lots of places scream Health and Safety if you try and plug in a mains
appliance to
their nice mains sockets - the energy stolen is nothing of course, the
chance of
them getting sued when someone gets electrocuted is their main
concern).
This would be a rough workaround to powering my camcorder so that I can
video
the matches without the battery dying on me.
Losses would be horrible of course, but its worth a try.

The other issue is being allowed to video kids... sigh.

Mungo (father of three, no ulterior motive for videos rather than
posterity :-)