I SHALL BE TAKING MY LAPTOP WITH ME IN THE TRUCK SOON WHEN I START TRAMPING.
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CHARGE IT IN THE CAB.
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.
get a good invertor - this turns 24v into 240 - do not get a soft start one as it will start off at 0v and ramp it up - the switching part of your laptop charger will sense 110v and when the invertor gets up to 120-130 it’ll shut down the charger
a 300 w one will be fine -
cheers
Steve
Getting a laptop power inverter from www.Maplin.co.uk. is best option as you re only converting 12v to your 16/18v rather than up to 250v and back down to 16/18v. The drain from your truck batteries is then minimal. Downside REMEMBER to use 12v dropper built into modern trucks when using laptop power supply!
I see invertors around at various prices, what would be a good price to pay for one & should in be wired in by an Autoelectrician or can it just be plugged into one of the dash sockets? I’d like to carry my Laptop but I don’t want to damage the lorry or the Laptop by buying the wrong Invertor or powering it incorrectly.
BB
check what the wattage is of you laptop charger and then get one for that. a 150w will charge up my dell brilliantly.
and my dell takes alot of power.
check out the buy and sell section mate, im selling 1 cheap
Get a inverter for laptop with relevant volt.
I got a 24-12v dropper and a 100w universal laptop car charger (not the horrible cheap looking ones) off the auction site for about £35 in total, the dropper was also useful for other things like phone chargers etc.
All was good until I was watching a film on a night out, forgot what I was doing and plugged the laptop charger straight into 24v socket (fizz, bang!) luckily the old man’s an electronics genius and sorted it for me and the laptop wasnt plugged in. Then I had issues with the dropper cutting out (thermal cut out) when I had a 12v immersion heater (kettle element) plugged into it. I decided to screw a cpu heatsink and fan (conveniently 12v) to it. I made a nice job of it but when I re-wired it, I got the wires round the wrong way and put 24v in where 12v should come out and it made some spectacular crackles and flashes before it died 
Cant decide whether to get another dropper or not now; I might look into getting an inverter as theyre probably just as useful - ah, problem - 24v or 12v!? could do with one thats fine with both if there is such a thing?