Inverter for charging a Laptop?

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Originally Posted by Tombie

Perhaps because a well built power supply doesn't expect to be connected to a cheap square wave inverter :)

Power supplies are designed for relatively stable sine wave domestic power sources, not cheap, noisy low end inverters...

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Hi

Possibly, but if the design is like the one described here it seems there would not be a problem because the AC is rectified and filtered before being switched by the PWM circuit

Switched Mode Power Supplies

If it was me, I would shell out the $70 for sure ;)

Steve

HI

Gives me an idea, I have a cheap inverter for emergency use, I might hook it up to a CRO and see what it looks like :D

Steve

A switch mode wont have any issue with a cheap inverter, the first thing it does it rectify it to DC anyway. The worse you will get is a slightly lower voltage on your filter cap, which isnt an issue as you will find the PSU is probably designed to run down to 100volts.

But still as said using an inverter is very much the less efficient way of running the laptop.

I've been using a cheap 300 watt unit from Dick Smith for 3 years in my work vehicle to keep my laptop charged - works fine, don't know what all the fuss is about.

We have 30 Sales vehicles running around with these units and we haven't had a computer power supply damaged yet....