Say, how much more battery draw is there on something like a laptop being
run on a small inverter vs being hot wired directly to the 12 V system as I
was discussing earlier?

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it doesn't
contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

I may have other reasons now for having a new laptop on board and you can't
get one without Vista. I also down't want to do surgery on the battery of a
new one.

--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Say, how much more battery draw is there on something like a laptop
being run on a small inverter vs being hot wired directly to the 12 V
system as I was discussing earlier?

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?



It depends on the inverter. Plugging a laptop into a 4000 watt Heart
beast, whos no-load battery current is more than the laptop's power
drain, isn't going to be very efficient.

So, what we do is to leave the 4000 watt Heart OFF and plug the laptop
power supply into the smallest little inverter that can safely handle the
laptop's maximum load, when it's battery is dead and charging at full
power, its display is on full brightness and its processor/harddrives are
trying to decode high definition TV and save it to a converted-on-the-fly
Divx file...about the most intensive load my laptop has ever performed.
Just playing HDTV from the Hauppauge DTV USB dongle eats the extended
battery in 40 minutes and makes the processor fan run full blast like a
furnace!

Luckily, the power supply brick that came with the laptop has taken all
this into account to save us some time. READ ITS LABEL. If it tells you
its AC power input in watts, that's what we're looking for. If it tells
you it puts out 19VDC at 2500ma, then we multiply the 19V x 2.5A = 47.5
watts. We buy the AC inverter that is just double that need....around
100 watts. If Wally World has the 75 watt on sale at 40% off, we buy
that one, which is still plenty of margin, but can't also charge the
cellphone at the same time.

Practically speaking, I like a small inverter that plugs into a cigarette
lighter, that can handle my small loads; laptop charging, cellphone
charging, any small AC-only gadgets I like to use; simultaneously. Just
add up all their small power drains. If it comes to 148 watts, I buy the
175W inverter Wally sells cheap.

Now, from actual measurement, the unloaded 175w inverter draws about .3A
just sitting there running, including it's fancy blue LED lighting.
Charging the 50W laptop, you may assume it is around 98% efficient, if it
was purchased in the last 5 years. They've gotten so good the 750 watt
inverter in my stepvan shop, a Black and Decker/Vector sinewave inverter
from Wally World, even shuts down its fan when the load is under about 90
watts. Loaded to 250 watts, the case hardly gets warm and the fan runs
on low speed! How warm it gets (or how hot the air is coming out of it
under load), is an indication of how much wasted power it wastes.

The little 175W or my 80W (which is built right into the cigarette
lighter plug, itself) don't even get warm to the touch. The cost of
power conversion using these little units powered from a decent house
battery is totally insignificant and CERTAINLY not worth endangering a
$1500 laptop by plugging it directly into boat batteries to save 1AH/day!

Just don't hook them to the Beast-in-the-Bilge and leave it buzzing....
(c;

Larry
--

On Apr 20, 8:37 pm, Larry wrote:
"Roger Long" wrote :

Say, how much more battery draw is there on something like a laptop
being run on a small inverter vs being hot wired directly to the 12 V
system as I was discussing earlier?

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

It depends on the inverter. Plugging a laptop into a 4000 watt Heart
beast, whos no-load battery current is more than the laptop's power
drain, isn't going to be very efficient.

So, what we do is to leave the 4000 watt Heart OFF and plug the laptop
power supply into the smallest little inverter that can safely handle the
laptop's maximum load, when it's battery is dead and charging at full
power, its display is on full brightness and its processor/harddrives are
trying to decode high definition TV and save it to a converted-on-the-fly
Divx file...about the most intensive load my laptop has ever performed.
Just playing HDTV from the Hauppauge DTV USB dongle eats the extended
battery in 40 minutes and makes the processor fan run full blast like a
furnace!

Luckily, the power supply brick that came with the laptop has taken all
this into account to save us some time. READ ITS LABEL. If it tells you
its AC power input in watts, that's what we're looking for. If it tells
you it puts out 19VDC at 2500ma, then we multiply the 19V x 2.5A = 47.5
watts. We buy the AC inverter that is just double that need....around
100 watts. If Wally World has the 75 watt on sale at 40% off, we buy
that one, which is still plenty of margin, but can't also charge the
cellphone at the same time.

Practically speaking, I like a small inverter that plugs into a cigarette
lighter, that can handle my small loads; laptop charging, cellphone
charging, any small AC-only gadgets I like to use; simultaneously. Just
add up all their small power drains. If it comes to 148 watts, I buy the
175W inverter Wally sells cheap.

Now, from actual measurement, the unloaded 175w inverter draws about .3A
just sitting there running, including it's fancy blue LED lighting.
Charging the 50W laptop, you may assume it is around 98% efficient, if it
was purchased in the last 5 years. They've gotten so good the 750 watt
inverter in my stepvan shop, a Black and Decker/Vector sinewave inverter
from Wally World, even shuts down its fan when the load is under about 90
watts. Loaded to 250 watts, the case hardly gets warm and the fan runs
on low speed! How warm it gets (or how hot the air is coming out of it
under load), is an indication of how much wasted power it wastes.

The little 175W or my 80W (which is built right into the cigarette
lighter plug, itself) don't even get warm to the touch. The cost of
power conversion using these little units powered from a decent house
battery is totally insignificant and CERTAINLY not worth endangering a
$1500 laptop by plugging it directly into boat batteries to save 1AH/day!

Just don't hook them to the Beast-in-the-Bilge and leave it buzzing....
(c;

Larry
--

I have to agree with all that Larry said. See above.

Also, my older IBM Think Pad is regularly used with a 75 watt
cigarette lighter inverter with no trouble at all. I added a
cigarette lighter socket to the back of the chart table a few years
ago just for this, though it's handy for other things as well. I
have, on occasion, used the laptop on a larger inverter that displays
output in watts and don't remember ever seeing it draw more than 40
watts. I'm not in the habit of letting the laptop battery run down
too far before recharging as I see it as a backup power supply and
don't want it dead if we're using the lap top for navigation.

On Apr 20, 9:00 pm, "Ken Heaton, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia"
wrote:
On Apr 20, 8:37 pm, Larry wrote:





"Roger Long" wrote :

Say, how much more battery draw is there on something like a laptop
being run on a small inverter vs being hot wired directly to the 12 V
system as I was discussing earlier?

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

It depends on the inverter. Plugging a laptop into a 4000 watt Heart
beast, whos no-load battery current is more than the laptop's power
drain, isn't going to be very efficient.

So, what we do is to leave the 4000 watt Heart OFF and plug the laptop
power supply into the smallest little inverter that can safely handle the
laptop's maximum load, when it's battery is dead and charging at full
power, its display is on full brightness and its processor/harddrives are
trying to decode high definition TV and save it to a converted-on-the-fly
Divx file...about the most intensive load my laptop has ever performed.
Just playing HDTV from the Hauppauge DTV USB dongle eats the extended
battery in 40 minutes and makes the processor fan run full blast like a
furnace!

Luckily, the power supply brick that came with the laptop has taken all
this into account to save us some time. READ ITS LABEL. If it tells you
its AC power input in watts, that's what we're looking for. If it tells
you it puts out 19VDC at 2500ma, then we multiply the 19V x 2.5A = 47.5
watts. We buy the AC inverter that is just double that need....around
100 watts. If Wally World has the 75 watt on sale at 40% off, we buy
that one, which is still plenty of margin, but can't also charge the
cellphone at the same time.

Practically speaking, I like a small inverter that plugs into a cigarette
lighter, that can handle my small loads; laptop charging, cellphone
charging, any small AC-only gadgets I like to use; simultaneously. Just
add up all their small power drains. If it comes to 148 watts, I buy the
175W inverter Wally sells cheap.

Now, from actual measurement, the unloaded 175w inverter draws about .3A
just sitting there running, including it's fancy blue LED lighting.
Charging the 50W laptop, you may assume it is around 98% efficient, if it
was purchased in the last 5 years. They've gotten so good the 750 watt
inverter in my stepvan shop, a Black and Decker/Vector sinewave inverter
from Wally World, even shuts down its fan when the load is under about 90
watts. Loaded to 250 watts, the case hardly gets warm and the fan runs
on low speed! How warm it gets (or how hot the air is coming out of it
under load), is an indication of how much wasted power it wastes.

The little 175W or my 80W (which is built right into the cigarette
lighter plug, itself) don't even get warm to the touch. The cost of
power conversion using these little units powered from a decent house
battery is totally insignificant and CERTAINLY not worth endangering a
$1500 laptop by plugging it directly into boat batteries to save 1AH/day!

Just don't hook them to the Beast-in-the-Bilge and leave it buzzing....
(c;

Larry
--

I have to agree with all that Larry said. See above.

Also, my older IBM Think Pad is regularly used with a 75 watt
cigarette lighter inverter with no trouble at all. I added a
cigarette lighter socket to the back of the chart table a few years
ago just for this, though it's handy for other things as well. I
have, on occasion, used the laptop on a larger inverter that displays
output in watts and don't remember ever seeing it draw more than 40
watts. I'm not in the habit of letting the laptop battery run down
too far before recharging as I see it as a backup power supply and
don't want it dead if we're using the lap top for navigation.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

PS: Most of the time that inverter read 10 watts when running only
the laptop. 10 watts was the lowest output that inverter will
display, other than 0 watts.

Ken,
Even with new laptops that do not have the old Nicad batteries and
therefore supposedly do not develop a memory, it is still advisable to
remove the power suppl,y occaissionly and let the battery run flat.
This is recommended by both IBM and Toshiba.

Incidentally, if I run my laptop off inverters, no matter when they
are far away or near, big or small, I get visible noise when pulling
down weather faxes - not so bad most of the time that the chart is
unusable but annoying. I used to just run the laptop on its internal
battery at fax times. In the Canaries I bought a small "voltage
converter" that is switchable at increments of 1 and 2 volts from
between 15 to 24 volts output for 120 watts. It is not a small radio
shack type and is quite heavy and solidly built. - Cost - $35 Euros or
about US$46. The French boats use them a lot. It never shows any noise
to interfere with reception. This particular one is "Noru" - works a
treat.

regards
Peter

I have to agree with all that Larry said. See above.

Also, my older IBM Think Pad is regularly used with a 75 watt
cigarette lighter inverter with no trouble at all. I added a
cigarette lighter socket to the back of the chart table a few years
ago just for this, though it's handy for other things as well. I
have, on occasion, used the laptop on a larger inverter that displays
output in watts and don't remember ever seeing it draw more than 40
watts. I'm not in the habit of letting the laptop battery run down
too far before recharging as I see it as a backup power supply and
don't want it dead if we're using the lap top for navigation.

On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:37:32 +0000, Larry wrote:

Larry, really appreciate your posts. Very informative and useful to
anybody considering various good options - electrical and otherwise -
for their boat.

Kudos to you.

--Vic

Vic Smith wrote in
:

Larry, really appreciate your posts. Very informative and useful to
anybody considering various good options - electrical and otherwise -
for their boat.

Kudos to you.



Aw, P'shaw.....(blush)....Twern't nuthin'....(chortle)

Larry
--
Nothing is funnier than a sailor with a new 4KW inverter carrying his
electric heater down the dock with that big smile on his face....(c;

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

I may have other reasons now for having a new laptop on board and you
can't get one without Vista. I also down't want to do surgery on the
battery of a new one.


Vista sucks and will for 3 more years as user/guiney pigs do all of
Billy's R&D for free, finding its flaws, security holes and testing its
STUPID copy protection schemes.

XP sales have skyrocketed since its introduction......

The day Vista came out, its first-day sales more than doubled XP's first
day sales. That was the "official" story and sounded great!

What they FAILED to mention was on Vista's first day, XP sales for that
day were 2.8 TIMES what Vista sales were....on that first day...(c;

Larry
--
Someone mentioned Billy was thinking about buying Japan, just for the
hell of it. He can afford it.....and have money left over for a new Chia
Pet.

Why didn't I buy more Micro$oft stock back in 1973...Why, why....WHY!!
God I'm STUPID!

On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:42:21 +0000, Larry wrote:

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

I may have other reasons now for having a new laptop on board and you
can't get one without Vista. I also down't want to do surgery on the
battery of a new one.


Vista sucks and will for 3 more years as user/guiney pigs do all of
Billy's R&D for free, finding its flaws, security holes and testing its
STUPID copy protection schemes.

XP sales have skyrocketed since its introduction......

The day Vista came out, its first-day sales more than doubled XP's first
day sales. That was the "official" story and sounded great!

What they FAILED to mention was on Vista's first day, XP sales for that
day were 2.8 TIMES what Vista sales were....on that first day...(c;

Guinea pig is right. And 3 years sounds right too. Long time.
Besides, why would somebody let a computer mfg dictate what OS they
should use?
That's already changed and you *can* get a new laptop from Dell with
XP, and others will probably follow.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200...D8OJVLTO0.html

--Vic

Larry wrote:
"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Does anyone have any solid info on whether Vista will crash if it
doesn't contact Micro$oft via the Internet occasionally?

I may have other reasons now for having a new laptop on board and you
can't get one without Vista. I also down't want to do surgery on the
battery of a new one.


Vista sucks and will for 3 more years as user/guiney pigs do all of
Billy's R&D for free, finding its flaws, security holes and testing
its STUPID copy protection schemes.

XP sales have skyrocketed since its introduction......

The day Vista came out, its first-day sales more than doubled XP's
first day sales. That was the "official" story and sounded great!

What they FAILED to mention was on Vista's first day, XP sales for
that day were 2.8 TIMES what Vista sales were....on that first
day...(c;

Larry

Dell will now supply you with a new laptop with XP installed. It would seem
they've had enough of Vista!