KW951

I'm thinking of doing this so I'll have a way of plugging in my laptop while driving (no luck finding a car adapter for it). Anyone done this? Any sites to check out? Thanks!

SidViscous

Never done a permanent install, but hooked plenty up over time.

Things to think of are...

1. Get the highest wattage you can afford, not a matter of plugging a bajillion things in, just want to reduce the load and heat output.

2. Use big fecking wires in the install to the battery.

3. attach DIRECTLY TO THE BATTERY. This is the only way you can get full wattage. And installing into the car wiring is to much of a strain on it.

4. Include a cutoff switch, to easy to drain the battery.

5. Best place in a water pumper (IMHO) to install it would be in the spare well.

6. To make it look nice looking and usefull. get some conduit and a regular household gang box (some carpet would be handy) My best idea for that would be behind the rear seat under the C-pillar.

crazandy

I've got one hard wired in my truck. I would recommend getting at least 700W (only about 80 dollars). Don't get those ****ty little ones that plug into the cigarette lighter, they aren't worth crap. If you plan on running power tools off of your inverter keep the vehicle running and get a bigger inverter. Hardwire it to the battery like SidViscous said. I would try to put it on one of the side walls under the dash, that way its easy to get to and its not that obvious.

Good luck

SidViscous

Would be easy to get too there, unfortunately they through off a fair amount of EM that could interfere with the stereo. Better to put it out of the way and wire up an outlet somewhere convinient. Though i wouldn't recomend all the way to the dash as that is a fairly long run and I would prefer to use conduit. Running conduit from the rear to the dash would be a serious pain.

If you do decide for a long complex run, what you want to buy is called Romex. Think that is a brand like Q-tip that has been assigned to a certain style. Basically its just the three wires inside of a super heavy duty insulator. Flexible and tough.

If you want to go the super duty route get flexible conduit with the wires pre installed.

tazman

If I were going to run a high voltage line in a car I would use SJ or SJO cord. It is something like what extension cords are made of. You can tear the jacket on romex a little to easy in my opinion.

Bill

I got a $hity little one (40w) that plugs into the lighter and it works great!

I use it on long trips in the mini van. I plug in the laptop, insert a DVD and the kids are quiet for a hour and a half with their ear plugs on. The 8 hour drive to Disneyland last month, was a very peaceful and pleasant drive for my wife and myself.

It cost me $35 dollars at Frys Electronics. Best $35 dollars I ever spent.

Super Dave

I have a hotshot trucking business and run my P1.7 gig hz laptop constantly off my $19.95, one outlet 140w, just plug it into the cig lighter, Fry Electronics special for over 3 years now. Its really not that big a deal. Geeesss

Super Dave

OH I forgot to mention that I only am in my truck for 2500 to 3200 miles a week while running the laptop.

SidViscous

Yeah but your alternator puts out a tad bit more juice and the cheepo inverter you have is but a pebble in a small pond.

In a car that when the cooling fans turn on the idle changes it's a littel bit different.

Not to mention I don't think he wants all those wires and boxes floating around and he would want to just plug in his computer.

Remember you truck has a bit more space in it


edit. Typical Lappie wattage.

1. 7GHz Pentium 4 65W
2. High-wattage AGP card 20 - 50W
3. RAM 8W per 128MB
4. 7200rpm IDE hard drive 5 - 15W
5. Motherboard (without CPU or RAM)20 - 30W


And that's just the basics.

Hey Ice how much W for the stock bulbs?

951Gary

I bought a car type power supply for my laptop from
<a href="http://lindelectronics.com/cgi-bin/Store7/PerlShop.cgi/!ORDERID!/aaa/x/dbx_gen_aaa_mfgs/http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=lind" target="_blank">Lind</a>
I've been pretty happy with it.

My 140W inverter would not run the laptop charger if the laptop battery was very low. It would be OK if you started with the laptop charged and kept it so.

The 12V unit from LIND is able to take the load when charging a dead laptop battery plugged into the same cigarette lighter outlet that the inverter and standard charger would not work from. BTW, that outlet is not in my 944, I've never tried it there.

Their cables are not very long though...
Gary

Super Dave

Ok i buy the 2 batteries in my Cummins Dodge. But I also run the thing in my 1.8L Jetta with the kids in the back playing DVDs. Anyway what ever works, works.

A 7ghz P 4???????

crazandy

Laptops don't use all that much juice when they have a full or semi full battery, but if he ever wants to use anything that doesn't come with a battery already in it he would need something a little more powerful. The way I figure it if your gonna do it, do it right. Its not that much more money for more wattage, unless your going up to the 3000-5000W range (but what would you use? a clothes dryer or a refridgerator?), then it can get pricey.

SidViscous

Got cut of 1.7.

Me and my numbering. Of course I calculates that post on a pentium so that could have been part of the problem