In a message dated 23/06/2007 16:20:47 GMT Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I am planning on taking my laptop on a two-week narrowboat trip in August. I would be looking at recharging the laptop by plugging into the boat's 240VAC sockets which run off an inverter. However I am a little worried having heard a couple of tales about electrical surges on narrowboats damaging laptops. My (admittedly expensive) answer was to get an 'aircraft' power lead from the manufacturer (Dell) and this allows you to plug in either a 100-240V AC or a 11-16VDC to one side of the power supply and it sorts out what it has to do to deliver 19.5VDC on the output. This was about GBP50.00 but it means I only have to carry one power supply for use in buildings or most forms of transport. I think the main situation that causes surges that damage the laptop is starting the engine. So long as the laptop is not plugged into the 240V side when you start (or restart) the engine it should be OK. This is the advice that Ownerships have issued and I didn't have any problems when I used the laptop on board last March - I may have been lucky. ;-0 DaveD [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
