charging laptop

[charles_reed]

I did have a problem with DC to DC when the PC delayed start up to tell me that I was using an unrecognised power source, however it seemed to accept it after a while but although it ran ok it didnt seem to charge the battery.

Very true of Dell, which is also a pain to find the right charger "nose". On all the other laptops (MSI, ThinkPad, HP), I've found the DC/DC convertors, from Maplins or Amazon to work OK.
If the laptop and boat batteries are low and you turn on the laptop the battery drain can be enormous, so when not on shorepower I only recharge laptops turned off.
Conversely I've had nothing but trouble from inverters, one of which, though rated @ 300w blew up completely, when faced with the Dell 65w charger.
I also have a dual-input charger for the Panasonic camera batteries which seems to work OK, both on 230AC and 12v DC.