Guidelines needed for sole battery loads (1 Viewer)

[T Y L E R]

Ok , I'd like to get some feedback on what sort of draw this is going to be, or what kind of load my single battery will experience. My concern is that I might be pulling more juice than my alternator is putting back in.

I am running a laptop, with a gps. I just finished up the connections for it. Originally the laptop required 12vdc as did the gps unit. You remember that thread I began on the regulated power supply I built into my Tripmate gps unit, well I ripped all that out, and did a little testing on the laptop. It turns out that my USB port puts out 5.x VDC. The serial cord for the GPS has 5 wires, and with my 'auto-on' mod, I only required 3 wires in the bundle. So I cut the end off a GPS cable, and fed the ground and +5VDC from it into the GPS side of the serial cable.

Works like a charm ... so now I plug the laptop into the 140W invertor that came with it, and use onboard USB power for the GPS. Really helps clean up the mess I used to have with the separate GPS power supply.

The 140W invertor works fine with the laptop, though when I have loaded it down with bigger loads it sounds an alarm

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I'd just like some assurance that this setup won't slowly drain my battery as I tool around town each day.


TY

 

[bkgiii]

I'd just like some assurance that this setup won't slowly drain my battery as I tool around town each day.

TY

Tyler, I used to use a Kingson KV150 inverter (150/300W) for laptop use, too, on long trips, together with 'always on' gps, camcorder battery recharging and the like. To make a long story short, I never had a moment's problem with drain-down or alternator not keeping up.

Dont know if that helps or not

 

[LX_TREME]

 

[T Y L E R]

Time will tell, but that is the reassurement I am looking for. I keep having pangs of guilt for not at least putting in a second battery setip .. eventually though I'll do just that.

 

[T Y L E R]

Pic for LX_TREME,


This just shows the serial gps, USB power and LT power connections. The vehicle mount I ordered a while ago, is in town, and 'out for delivery' *crossing fingers*

 

[97 FZJ80]

I put a PriorityPlus! on my aux circuits, including the 12V power outlets used to power the cooler and other electrical items such as battery charger for my cameras. The PriorityPlus! removes the circuits when the battery drops below 40% charge, allowing enough juice left in the battery to start the engine.

 

[Riley]

Tyler - you should be fine. The alternator will keep up just fine as in the big scheme of things the laptop doesn't really draw that much.

With the engine off it should be pretty good as well but just to be safe, you could run the AC power to the laptop from switched power. That way when the engine is off, you are running from the laptop battery. Even if you didn't do that AND your battery is in good shape (I recall it's new) then it should a pretty long time.

 

[nyk438]

I put a PriorityPlus! on my aux circuits, including the 12V power outlets used to power the cooler and other electrical items such as battery charger for my cameras. The PriorityPlus! removes the circuits when the battery drops below 40% charge, allowing enough juice left in the battery to start the engine.

Is there a webiste for priority plus?

 

[Stone]

TY:

No problem. Your 140W inverter only draws 11.66A at full capacity. Depending on what else you have on, you should have plenty of juice left from the alternator.

 

[miked]

what you need my friend is an Ideal current clamp meter. hehe...