Laptop Power

I imagine a 12v adapter will warm up also, I put my inverter in the dash above the glove box of the gu and added an addittional cooling fan i pulled out of a pc power supply and hooked it to the inverter switch, this sort of thing should overcome the heating. In the laptop power seetings there should be a wake up setting for when power comes on and just have the touch screen off the accessories.
I would be interested in how you go as I want to do the same sometime.
NickR

Hi Troll,

lots on this in archives.

I run mine off a 12V regulated laptop power supply, have had no dramas with it. got mine cheap on ebay...however some others prefer to spend $$$ on a brand name one to protect their asset. each to their own.

Is easily wired up to power screen when accessories on, and similarly to power laptop.

However, the laptop itself needs to be switched on, The fact that the power supply is only half there.

If you cant be stuffed reaching under the seat to switch the laptop on OR have a power button hidden by the screen...you will need to sort out a remote turn on lead with a momentary switch on the dash.

That was u can drive away, then push the dash button to power up your laptop.

check post ID 28431

Cheers

Rev

There has been a lot of debate for and against inverters or adaptors for laptops. There are some good arguments for and against, I personally prefer a 12 adaptor because I belive them to be more efficient, just my opinion.

Having the laptop fire up when the acc switch is turned on in another story.

Some touch screens have this feature built in, you just need to switch the feature on, usually from a menu, sometimes by entering a code from the remote (as is the case with the lilliput screens)

If the feature is not built in then there are modifications that can be done, some involving relays that sense the ignition voltage and trip the power button on the screen. details of these circuits and mods can be found at www.mp3car.com.

As for the laptop this is a bit tricky. I am not aware of any laptop that will switch itself on and off when its detects and external voltage, alot of desktops have this feature usually in the BIOS under a setting such as AC BACK.

The other issue is a laptop needs a proper shut down procedure so it cant just cut off when the power is switched off, although having a battery helps with this.

Once again a possible solution lies with a circuit that will sense the ignition voltage and a trip the power button on the laptop. Powering off is another issue.

I started to muck around with the types of circuits mentioned above but franky got a bit jack of it and simply wired a switch into the laptop that in mounted on the dash (the laptop lives under the seat). A quick press of the button and its on press again and its off. The switch is not hard wired into the laptop but rather is on a cable with a plug on the end ( a headphoneplug actually, its all I had on me at the time. Then I wired a socket into the back of the laptop that is wired to the power switch on the laptop.

All alot of fun really

Stephen

Thanks for the help so far. Forgot to mention that it's a old Dell and you have to open it to get to the power switch. I just checked the bios and have changed it so that if you close the lid the power stays on. I get back in Aus on Sunday 2 July and this is going to be my project for the day so I am most likely going to be posting and asking for help while I do it.

I had a look at this issue myself as I would love to do an in car PC setup (there have been a few threads on this lately). One solution I saw in the US of A was a dedicated Car PC which is a complete PC in a casing similar to an inverter that is easy to install in a vehicle either under a seat or on a cargo barrier. It drinks 12 volt DC and has all the regular ports for screen and keyboard/mouse/trackball and stuff.

They are ruggedised for in vehicle use but one interesting thing was the power management. They boot up when you start the vehicle and then automatically shut down 1 to 2 hours after the ignition is switched off. This means that if you are in and out of the vehicle it is not starting up and shutting down all the time. But is does not stay on long enough to consume too much battery. Something to think about.

There were several competing brands of these car PC's and it seems to be a market that is expanding. There was also mention of a "Windows XP Automotive Edition" but I have not looked any further into this yet. All I can say is that they are doing some very nice gear in the states and that Google is your friend if you want more details.

Oh and it helps if the Credit Card is fully charged!!! The really whiz bang stuff is not cheap.

Muddy