Laptops have made working away from the home or office more convenient for everyone. Taking a business trip or vacation can now be done without much worry of who will do your work while you're traveling. Simply pack up the laptop and hit the road. The main problem you will have is the battery life of the laptop. A laptop battery will only hold a charge for a couple of hours, and if you are in your car or truck traveling you will notice it is very difficult to find a wall outlet in your vehicle.  RV's on the other hand do have 110V outlets, but can only be used with a hookup to shore power or while running the generator.

The first thought that comes to a persons mind is to find a power cord that can plug straight into the laptop from the lighter socket

, allowing you to power your laptop from the vehicle battery. This is normally based on the fact that the laptop power cord indicates a conversion from 110V AC to some DC voltage. Unfortunately such a power cord does not exist. The reason being: the “power bricks” that come with laptops do not always use 12 volt power, most of the time a laptop will be somewhere around 13v to 19v.

When your vehicle is off the power coming from the lighter socket can be anywhere from 11v to 14v. When the vehicle is running the power will fluctuate depending on the strength of your alternator and how many RPMs the motor is turning. If you had a straight power cord from lighter socket to laptop, and your laptop were expecting 13v, when you started up the engine the laptop would be smoked. This would clearly not be the solution to keeping your laptop battery charged while out on the road.

So how do you power or recharge a laptop in your car, truck or RV? Using a small power inverter is the best solution. The laptop power cord expects 110v – 120v and converts to the proper voltage for your laptop. By using a power inverter in your car, truck or RV you are able to plug the inverter into the lighter socket and plug the laptop's power supply into the inverter. The inverter then converts the 12 Volt DC power from your vehicle into 110 Volt Household AC Power, perfect for charging the laptops battery with the laptop power cord. So the next time you plan to hit the road and take your laptop along, make sure you take a power inverter to keep your laptop charged and ready for use.

 

Power Inverters

Comments   

+1 #3 Maribelle D. 2012-09-20 10:45
After reading this it was as if a light bulb went off. Finally, a solution.
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0 #2 Keith E. 2012-08-15 12:00
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I looked all over the place for an answer to this question. I tried a couple different "solutions" with little luck. This is by far the easiest and best solution for my laptop.
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0 #1 James Davis 2012-08-09 11:00
Great info here. I've been trying to get a rock solid solution for my laptop while on the road. This is a great help. Thank you!
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