I’m looking to run a desktop computer in my cab to keep me amused of an evening. It’s around 600 watts 5-6 amp draw.
I’m a bit worried I’ll flatten the battery in the vehicle for the morning and was wondering if anyone who does something similar could give me some pointers?
Am I ok using pure sine wave inverter and running from truck battery a couple of hours a Night?
I was thinking I could put a secondary battery in the cab and charge from the 24v socket during day. Or would that not be necessary?
Prawn:
I’m looking to run a desktop computer in my cab to keep me amused of an evening. It’s around 600 watts 5-6 amp draw.
I’m a bit worried I’ll flatten the battery in the vehicle for the morning and was wondering if anyone who does something similar could give me some pointers?
Am I ok using pure sine wave inverter and running from truck battery a couple of hours a Night?
I was thinking I could put a secondary battery in the cab and charge from the 24v socket during day. Or would that not be necessary?
Cheers for your help.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Have not tried but would think a laptop or tablet would be better option. Desktop pc doesnt really need to be power efficient whereas portable stuff will be designed throughout to make the most of the battery.
600 watts is a lot, are you into serious gaming ? think my desktop ticks over at about 90w
600w at 24v would be 25 amps, (watts = volts x amps) and that would flatten the batteries.
seems daft taking the wagons 24v dc converting it to 240 volts AC then for the desktop to convert it all back to 12v dc… (all the power inside the desktop will be 12v, 5v & 3.3v DC)
there must be a conversion for a desktop to run direct from a 12v supply without the need for AC inverters ?
Think you need to run your maths again. On a 24v system I work out 600 watts to be 25 amps. You must check that your sockets can handle that as most won’t and you’ll pop a fuse. You’ll probably need to run an anderson lead if you have one installed. I wouldn’t really bank on being able to run it without running it down for more than maybe 1-2 hours. Keep an eye on the voltage on the dash.
Edit to add: Consider as conor said below getting a laptop, but I always found a laptop to be ■■■■■■■■■■ even in the cab. Consider the nintendo switch and a mounted monitor. The switch plugs in just like a phone will and you can HDMI to a monitor. A monitor power consumption is something like 30 watts, just over 1 amp (about half a headlight) so you can run that all weekend if you wanted to. Games aren’t as high fidelity as a desktop but for a mobile platform it’s impressive. It’ll probably cost about the same as such a high power pure sine inverter too so you won’t really lose anything.
Prawn:
I’m looking to run a desktop computer in my cab to keep me amused of an evening. It’s around 600 watts 5-6 amp draw.
Get a laptop. Unless you’re wanting it for gaming I’d get a refurbished Thinkpad T430/440/450 from Ebay. Ex corporate laptops which were over £1000 new and are bombproof, will draw 65W maximum but most of the time half or less of that. Get one with a SSD hard drive.
Generally no I don’t get time but there are days where I end up knocked off early and nothing to do. Never get time to use the bloody thing at the weekend because kids, Mrs, jobs etc so would have been nice if could get it in the cab.
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
It’s actually about 400 watts… reading up on it a bit more it looks like I’d need a ■■■■■■■■ of battery to get it to work.
A gaming laptop will get you there.
Sold it now, but I had a gtx 980, intel i7 4.5ghz laptop that ran games better than my desktop with the same setup.
They aren’t cheap, but £700 would you a last gen laptop and be a hell of a lot easier than a desktop.
Also bear in mind desktops aren’t designed to be bashed around in moving vehicle. Laptops are much more rugged.
Prawn:
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
I fear your view of laptops may be stuck a little in the past. There is almost nothing these days that a desktop can and a laptop can’t do. Razer have made a whole business from gaming laptops. A desktop in the truck just seems and incredible faff for no reason to me
Prawn:
Generally no I don’t get time but there are days where I end up knocked off early and nothing to do. Never get time to use the bloody thing at the weekend because kids, Mrs, jobs etc so would have been nice if could get it in the cab.
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
It’s actually about 400 watts… reading up on it a bit more it looks like I’d need a [zb] of battery to get it to work.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
get a wee generator you can fire up outside the cab - others won’t love you too much, but no worse than a fridge.
I have something very simillar to this to keep our central heating running at home when we get power cuts (need a bit of leccy for the pump) machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke- … gJ4I_D_BwE
you could probably run one of those virtual reality prawn movies
Prawn:
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
PC World do the Asus ROG Strix and several other models which are gaming laptops and I bet they’d give your PC a run for its money. It is certainly faster than my Core i5 1060GTX gaming desktop. As far as I remember it only uses a 100W PSU.
Bit loathed to fork out a grand or so on a gaming laptop when I’ve got a beast of a computer just sat there gathering dust. As for the size of it its a mini-ITX SG13 case which is only about a foot cubed, and has a VR headset so no need for a monitor. was just going to chuck it in a foam lined protector case to get it there.
Would it kill the battery if I just left the engine running while i was using it? Thanks for all the replies guys.
If engine running then it’ll keep charging and you could run it for 20 mins every hour I guess. Get yourself a voltage monitor which okugs into a cig lighter and watch it.
I think your bigger problem will be finding an inverter you can plug into a hella socket even that can run 600w. Most above 300w seem to be direct to battery type to prevent frying electrics, so ideally you need the workshop to fit a good inverter permanently if you have same truck.
Inverter will need to be 1000w cont (not peak!) pure sine wave then it should be able, but will need battery regularly charging although many have an auto shutdown on low batt. Don’t buy one without.
Prawn:
Generally no I don’t get time but there are days where I end up knocked off early and nothing to do. Never get time to use the bloody thing at the weekend because kids, Mrs, jobs etc so would have been nice if could get it in the cab.
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
It’s actually about 400 watts… reading up on it a bit more it looks like I’d need a [zb] of battery to get it to work.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
get a wee generator you can fire up outside the cab - others won’t love you too much, but no worse than a fridge.
I have something very simillar to this to keep our central heating running at home when we get power cuts (need a bit of leccy for the pump) machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke- … gJ4I_D_BwE
you could probably run one of those virtual reality prawn movies
I think that generator may not be clean enough to run a pc. The Honda suitcase ones are invertor type so ok for the task. Not cheap though, I’m sure there are similar copy ones.
Prawn:
Generally no I don’t get time but there are days where I end up knocked off early and nothing to do. Never get time to use the bloody thing at the weekend because kids, Mrs, jobs etc so would have been nice if could get it in the cab.
Yea I want it for games and stuff so a laptop not gonna get me there.
It’s actually about 400 watts… reading up on it a bit more it looks like I’d need a [zb] of battery to get it to work.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
get a wee generator you can fire up outside the cab - others won’t love you too much, but no worse than a fridge.
I have something very simillar to this to keep our central heating running at home when we get power cuts (need a bit of leccy for the pump) machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke- … gJ4I_D_BwE
you could probably run one of those virtual reality prawn movies
I think that generator may not be clean enough to run a pc. The Honda suitcase ones are invertor type so ok for the task. Not cheap though, I’m sure there are similar copy ones.
I just have this vision of wagon parked up, noisiest stinkiest generator running flat out, cable in through drivers window, curtains pulled but glowing with bright flickering lights, whole cab vibrating with some nutter in side screaming and shouting, its 3am and its been going on like that non stop for the past 7 hours.
