How Do I Rechartge my LapTop my Ipad and my Phone when not in a Marina

Flica said:
That is one viewpoint, but if you like to keep in touch with people during six months cruising in foreign parts....
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Send a letter when you reach a port. Or use a pay phone.
 
Lighten up guys. Your taking yourselves far too seriously.
 
jdc said:
Anther vote for a small inverter which generates mains from 12V DC. You don't really need a fancy inverter as all lap-top power supply 'bricks' for laptops and mobiles are switching devices these days so there's no need for sine wave, and probably not for 50 or 60Hz. And 99.9% (you best check yours) are able to accept anywhere from 100V to 250V so 'mains' can be 110V or 230V.
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I have a small inverter - the "cup-holder" type - which I can use to charge my laptop. It's grossly inefficient, though: inverter + 240V charger hammers the battery but a 12V charger for the same laptop hardly dents them.
 
Flica said:
Your choice - I'm sure your doings are profoundly uninteresting to the rest of the world.
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Let's face it - most of our doings are profoundly uninteresting even to the rest of the sailing world. As YM manages to prove, month after month, with other people's cruise reports.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I have a small inverter - the "cup-holder" type - which I can use to charge my laptop. It's grossly inefficient, though: inverter + 240V charger hammers the battery but a 12V charger for the same laptop hardly dents them.
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I'm surprised; that's not been my experience. The inverter takes an almost unmeasurable amount when on but with no load - less than the resolution of my ammeter (100mA, so 1.2W) and is, or so it claims, 92% efficient. And the tiny charger bricks are very efficient as well, often in excess of 95% otherwise they'd get very hot - the power has to go somewhere! But I guess older technology may be worse, or maybe pseudo-sinewave inverters are less efficient than my cheapo square-wave one (bought in the US).
 
jdc said:
I'm surprised; that's not been my experience. The inverter takes an almost unmeasurable amount when on but with no load - less than the resolution of my ammeter (100mA, so 1.2W) and is, or so it claims, 92% efficient. And the tiny charger bricks are very efficient as well, often in excess of 95% otherwise they'd get very hot - the power has to go somewhere! But I guess older technology may be worse, or maybe pseudo-sinewave inverters are less efficient than my cheapo square-wave one (bought in the US).
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Dodgy putting square or modified sine wave inverters on to electronic gizmos,. Electronics dont like them, particualrly if they have inductive components which can fry other components. I've managed to kill two chargers with them. I am told that the sudden changes in voltage of a square or modified sine wave inverter can induce voltage spikes powerful enough to kill solid state electronics. Have a look at the Maplins range of 12v laptop supplies. They use significantly less power than the very inefficient inverter taking it up to mains then back down again to low voltage, gobbling power out of your service batteries!
 
jdc said:
I'm surprised; that's not been my experience. The inverter takes an almost unmeasurable amount when on but with no load - less than the resolution of my ammeter (100mA, so 1.2W) and is, or so it claims, 92% efficient. And the tiny charger bricks are very efficient as well, often in excess of 95% otherwise they'd get very hot - the power has to go somewhere! But I guess older technology may be worse, or maybe pseudo-sinewave inverters are less efficient than my cheapo square-wave one (bought in the US).
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Mine is square-wave, I think, and it gets very warm. That's not a good sign!
 
oldharry said:
Dodgy putting square or modified sine wave inverters on to electronic gizmos,. Electronics dont like them, particualrly if they have inductive components which can fry other components.
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I'm sorry you have killed kit. But generally I believe normal switch-mode supplies merely full-wave rectify the input AC to drive the switcher with DC. So it should not much matter what the waveform is so long as it is not too spiky relative to nominal rated voltage. The inductive transformer is driven by the switcher at high frequency so is well isolated from the input waveform.

Mike.
 
Sandgrounder said:
I have a Westerly 33 which has shore power so charging these things is easy when in a marina. I also have 1 x 1 charging point which offers 1 x 1w usb plus 1 x 2.1w usb. The boat has a decent electrical set up so charging when at anchor should be no problem but how do I charge e.g a LapTop which is designed to charge from 240v via a transformer?
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I have one of these: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-90w-universal-laptop-power-supply-with-travel-adapter-plugs-n40hj

It means not only can I charge my laptop, I can also charge my handheld VHF/DSC, spare handheld, DAB radio and any other mains only item that gets brought on board that needs 12V+. Beware that to get a decent charge you need to set the voltage a bit higher eg for my 12V VHF/DSC I set the voltage to 16V otherwise I don't get a full charge. (Start low and find the right voltage in steps though, otherwise you could fry it.)
 
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