Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Thanks

Mark

"Mark Trueman" wrote:
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

Maplin do a couple of laptop power supply car adaptors:
http://tinyurl.com/ofvb9

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Pass.

"Mark Trueman" wrote:
What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

12VDC to 240 Volt AC Power Invertor?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=power%20invertor&doy=8m5&sour ce=15

Mark Trueman wrote:
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

The best way is a special power supply designed for your laptop.
The slightly less better way is to simply buy a 100W inverter, and plug
your laptop PSU into this.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

It depends.
Laser printers can use up to a kilowatt of power, which isn't practical
for most inverters, certainly not the cigar lighter socket.

Inkjets mainly 20W or so, so could share the above inverter.
If using them at the same time often, I'd go up to 150W or so rating.

This will drain the car battery in about 3-5 hours, so a secondary
battery, or having the engine running may be a better option.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mark Trueman wrote:

Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter
socket. The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Thanks

Mark

You could really do with a DC to DC converter with a 19v output - but
assuming that you're going to use the laptop's mains power supply, you'll
need an inverter to generate mains from 12v. You'll need something in the
region of 75 watts or more which, allowing for inefficiency, will draw
something like 7 or 8 amps from the cigar lighter socket. Best not to do it
for more than a couple of hours without running the engine. If you want to
run a printer as well, you'll need a bigger inverter - which will use even
more current. You'll have to work out what you need from the printer's power
requirements - and then check whether the socket can deliver sufficient
current.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

12V DC to 240V AC power inverters are very cheap now, e.g. £20-40 for
a 300-600W unit

For occasional use, they're just the biz - I keep one in the glove box
for laptop/camera and cordless power tool charging.

see
http://search.ebay.co.uk/power-inver...Z2QQsb rbinZt

"Mark Trueman" wrote;
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Thanks

Mark

If you go down the 12 to 240 volt inverter route be aware that if it is a
higher wattage model the current drain on the wiring to the cigarette
lighter can blow the fuse on that circuit and in the worse case scenario
could melt the wiring to the cigarette lighter socket.

Mark Trueman wrote:
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

For ~£20 IIRC I bought a "Universal" Laptop car power supply on ebay
(new) made by "Trust". Only used it a couple of times, but no problems,
definitely fit my Compaq, Toshibas and a Vaio.


--
Spamtrap in use
To email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder dot co dot uk

I bought this,

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...rt or&doy=8m5

Laptop uses 60 watt, printer uses 12, so that should be enough to cover
it.

Thanks for the help

Mark

"Mark Trueman" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi,

What is the best way to power a laptop from a car ciggy lighter socket.
The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Thanks

Mark


I've used something like
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...7711& doy=8m5
for running a laptop and it would probably run a printer as well.

Peter

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

The transformer for the laptop outputs 19volts, 3.16 amps.

What about powering a desktop printer. Is this possible or do i need a
generator.

Thanks

Mark


--
geoff

Phil Anthropist wrote:

in the worse case scenario
could melt the wiring to the cigarette lighter socket.

Only if an inappropriate fuse has been fitted?

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 :-)