Topic: Powering laptops in the field

[creekfreak]

Ok, got a laptop unexpectantly at no cost. 1.7gHz, 512MB ram, onboard DVD/CD burner, the works.

Think I might give it a spin in the field at some point. Wonder of ways to power it in the field. I see the powerpads, but those are a bit pricey, heard you can use a 12vot SLA and some inverter for it like you would use in a car...what would I need for that outside of the batter...where to get it.

Looking at the M-Audio firewire dojabbie that will pass my V3 24bit96khz signal to the lappy via firewire....

[AT853rxwh]

Ok, got a laptop unexpectantly at no cost. 1.7gHz, 512MB ram, onboard DVD/CD burner, the works.

Think I might give it a spin in the field at some point. Wonder of ways to power it in the field. I see the powerpads, but those are a bit pricey, heard you can use a 12vot SLA and some inverter for it like you would use in a car...what would I need for that outside of the batter...where to get it.

Looking at the M-Audio firewire dojabbie that will pass my V3 24bit96khz signal to the lappy via firewire....

Big prob with inverters is they really suck back the juice.  How long are you planning on recording?

[creekfreak]

I don't intend to do a ton right off th bat. Want to try it out for a show, got a big 12v volt 7ah battery...how long would that power a lappy? The firewire audiophile can also be powered by the firewire cable from the laptop, so how much more drain would that put on...If I can get 5hours I would be happy for now.

[caymanreview]

is it able to work with the bateryspace.com universal packs?

there are also some universal packs similar to what people are using for the ua5s now on ebay, meant for laptops

[creekfreak]

have to check my lappie specs, that place does have a good bat back for the firewire audiophile though

[creekfreak]

is it able to work with the bateryspace.com universal packs?

there are also some universal packs similar to what people are using for the ua5s now on ebay, meant for laptops

Battery for my new lappy is 11.1V 3800mAh, AC power adapter says 19volt output.....confused....There is one pack that outputs 19.2volt to fit any 14.2v-18v dc input laptop.... This is all greek to me..what will work, there are some others that are 10-12 volt DC input that say if your battery voltage says 10.4-12volts then you should be ok...what do I need here?

[sygdwm]

valence ncharge

[creekfreak]

yea, I plan to check out the more expensive solutions if I dig doing it, for now, something cheaper to get me there.

[peeeper]

First thing I suggest is not to go the DC/AC inverter route.  The process of changing DC to AC creates high amounts of RF noise which could cause other electronic devices, such as your recording equipment, not to perform as desired.  Whether or not this is noticeable in the recording, the potential is there.  Being a taper that uses a laptop, I would get one of these;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=42167&item=3487313147&rd=1 
This will change the input voltage of 12 volts to your 19 Volts I believed you said you need.  This will also take less energy then using a DC/AC inverter, which means more battery life.  Use a $10 to $20 12volt 7Ah SLA battery to power the DC/DC converter.  I currently use two of those batteries in parallel which gives me about 7.5 to 8 hours of power for everything including the laptop, so just using one of the batteries would be great for a good four hours.

[creekfreak]

cool, thanks for the input, more to look at

[Willie T.]

Battery for my new lappy is 11.1V 3800mAh, AC power adapter says 19volt output.....confused....There is one pack that outputs 19.2volt to fit any 14.2v-18v dc input laptop.... This is all greek to me..what will work, there are some others that are 10-12 volt DC input that say if your battery voltage says 10.4-12volts then you should be ok...what do I need here?

I have often wondered about that, I think the extra voltage/ampage is to charge the battery, it would run at the higher v/a while charging, and drop closer to the battery specs when not.  Not sure but it's the only thing that has made sense to me.

[scb]

>>heard you can use a 12vot SLA and some inverter for it like you would use in a car<<

like peeeper said, it's not an inverter, but something that just boosts the dc voltage from 12 to whatever the laptop needs

when i ran an ibook in 02, i used a car adapter from lind electronics to power it for 4 hours off of a 12v 7 amp hour sla.  if that died, there was then still the fully charged internal battery.  the adapter was 50 bucks and battery 15.  very affordable option