Out and About with Air Nav

[Balding Badger]

Good evening folks,

For those of you that take your air nav out and about what do you do about lap top battery life? My PC will only last about 30mins! I've seen one or two people charging via car batteries but I'm pretty sure my own is sealed and how do you get the juice back into the car?

[testmonkey]

I have a spare battery and they each last about 1.5hrs which is pretty good considering I have a high end laptop that really eats the juice. I'm also looking to get a car adaptor as well just for that extra life when needed.

[Balding Badger]

Thanks Test Monkey. I will stuggle getting extra batteries as my laptop is six years old. Any ideas where you can get a car adaptor from?

[RodBearden]

I bought an inverter from Argos - Halfords do them as well - then you can run the laptop from the car battery. For a laptop you only need a low power one. Cost is around 25GBP.

Remember to run the car engine occasionally so that you don't discharge that too!

Rod

EDIT Just checked Argos http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7402216/Trail/searchtext%3EINVERTER.htm

I must have bought mine on a special offer!

EDIT AGAIN: This thread refers to this topic: http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=746

[nortonbeak]

Staples appear to offer a good deal. That is, if 140 W is enough to keep your laptop up and running.

http://tinyurl.com/6dugzb

[Allocator]

I use one of the car "power packs" from Halfords.  This gives you a 12v output and/or a 240v inverter. I haven't actually used it with RadarBox out and about yet, but it runs the laptop OK at home.  No idea how long it will run for though.  At least this way I won't end up with a flat battery and not be able to start the car.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_180794_langId_-1_categoryId_31335

I'm sure I only paid GBP 79 for mine though - also, I blew the first one up by switching the light on at the same time as I was charging it - hmmm.......!  Halfords replaced it, I just told them it didn't work.

[testmonkey]

Not sure what I can do for juice other than get more batteries. My power pack pumps out at 20v - I did say it was a meaty laptop!

Prior to RB it's not really been an issue as the laptop was just turned on for a few minutes at a time to transfer images from my camera - a quick switch of memory card and then transfer via an external reader whilst I keep shooting. A single battery just about did the trick timewise to transfer the 2k+ photos I'd normally take a day and a quick bit of reviewing during quite periods.

Now obviously with RB it's a bit different is it needs to stay on permanently. I've been looking at getting one of those Belkin wireless USB thingies so that I can attach an external aerial in the loft and still move around the house with the laptop. I'd be interested to know if that could be powered by a 12v source. Thinking along the lines of attaching the aerial to the car roof (to increase the ground-plane) and leaving the box running inside whilst still being able to take the laptop over to one of the viewing pods at Manchester to get some good photos.

[Paulc]

I have an adaptor that runs off the cigarette lighter - works well so far and if you run the car for a few mins every so often a flat battery should not be a problem. Car adaptor is also much more portable than some power supplies - ideal for taking abroad with a hire car.