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Inverter/Car Adapter/Plane adapter for XPS

post #1 of 6
4/1/04 at 4:14pm
Thread Starter 
Has anyone had any luck finding/using any inverters for car/plane outlets for an XPS?

I just took a vacation to California the past week, and my rental car had an outlet that apparently limited it's output to 120 watts and the inverter that I bought (180w) would not stay on, it would just power off... which kinda sucks cuz I could at least charge the laptop a LITTLE with 120...

I haven't seen anything official from Dell's web site regarding the XPS, but I would really like to see at least SOMETHING so that I can use my laptop as a navigation map or just use software/games on the go...

I don't use planes often (probably not again in the next year or so), so it's mostly just a car adapter that I would need...

Anyway, anyone else have any luck in this area?
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post #2 of 6
4/1/04 at 5:40pm
TheNixxed,

There will be probably NO car/air adaptor that will EVER run the XPS or 9100. If you look at the adaptor, it is rated at 150W. My guess is that the XPS is squeezing every last ounce of power out of that thing. Dell does sell an Auto/Air adaptor for their Latitude boxes, but I know that it is only 60W. The XPS and 9100 will probably throw that poor little thing into shutdown the second it gets plugged in.

Sorry, but I would believe you are stuck with a wall being nearby.
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post #3 of 6
4/1/04 at 6:29pm
There are plenty of 200W power inverters out there. AAMOF that is the MOST I've seen that will run on a cigarette lighter. Anything more and you will have to connect directly to the battery. But if the adapter really is rated to 150W that should do just fine.
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post #4 of 6
4/2/04 at 2:02pm
Thread Starter 
I found a 400w adapter that you have to connect directly to your car's battery, but I think by the time I had tried that one, we blew the rental car's fuse for the socket (it also offered like 200w from the socket)...

Ah well... 2 hours on the go is OK I suppose...
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post #5 of 6
4/2/04 at 2:33pm
If you really want to run a DTR notebook in a car you should buy a PURE SINEWAVE inverter that supports a continuous 200w min. 400w surge, and has heavy guage wire for direct battery hookup.
For a permanent setup in your own car: Wire the inverter directly to the battery with an inline 30amp fuse using heavy guage insulated cables. The supplies for this are cheap and usually found in kits for hooking up beefy sound system amps. Mount the inverter where ever it can get proper airflow over the heatsink.
DO NOT cheap out and try to use the common cheapo MODIFIED SINEWAVE inverters as they will most likely harm your laptop.
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post #6 of 6
4/2/04 at 2:55pm
i jsut got the one they sell at target, and it works fine with my 8600. i was playing farcry on my trip to colorado from illinois. lol
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