On 7/14/10 10:51 AM, Tom wrote:
During an upcoming vacation in an RV, our family will want to charge their Apple laptops and iPods as usual, but of course there won't be any wall outlets like there are in a house. Instead, we have a little gadget called a power inverter from Radio Shack, made in Taiwan by Enercell, that can be plugged into an electrical outlet connected to the car's battery. Here's a picture of the thing:<http://tinyurl.com/ 23fequ8>. I wonder if it's safe to the electronics to use this inverter?
I do it all the time. I have a 400W inverter attached to a portable battery pack and use solar panels to charge it. I've had my laptop running off the inverter for long periods and it all works just fine.
It says on the package: "150-watt power inverter. Equips your vehicle with a household electrical outlet and USB port! Power your home electronics from your car! Continuous AC power: 150W. Peak power: 300W for one cycle. Output voltage 115 VAC + - 10 VAC, 5 VDC + - 0.25 VDC. Output frequency 60Hz + - 3Hz. No-load current draw 0.4A. Caution: total combined power of devices plugged into this inverter should not exceed 150W. Anybody see a problem with plugging a Powerbook, a MacBook, or an iPod into this thing? (Not all at once, of course).
Modern inverters are protected from overload so it won't hurt them to plug in two laptops and an iPod all at once. The iPod draws so little power that it won't matter either way. A PowerBook, Macbook and iPod likely won't draw to much power under any conditions. If the inverter does shutdown due to overload, just sleep one of the laptops and there should definitely be enough power for all of them.
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