Car charger for Precision M6500?

one option is to use a AC inverter (at least 200 watt) and power your AC adaptor with it.

otherwise the largest car adaptor I have seen is 100 watt, which may not be enough to power the M6500,

You can find a universal car adaptor at Best Buy (i think) and places like ebay

The M6500 requires at least 130W that I recall. Unfortunately that's pushing the amps that a cig lighter can handle. 100W is generally the most you should ever try drawing from a 12V outlet in a vehicle (the fuse is rarely greater than 10A). Any more than that you'll need to link directly to the battery or electrical system. All the inverter does is offer you a cheaper alternative to powering your laptop, it will not overcome the demand requirements placed on the 12V outlet.

I have a 300W inverter hard-wired in my Crown Victoria, it's a police accessory circuit with a 30A fuse and #10 wire.

Now that I'd love to learn how to do

You can use any Dell Car charger that is greater. When any power splly less than 90W, the system will not boot (Flasing mber battery symbol on the system). If the system is not powered, it will charge the battery. M6500 will boot with any Dell power adapter greater than 90W. The boot screen will give warning message. However, performance will be reduce to cope with less than 210/240w adapter. When I am doing lite web surfing, it does run and charge the battery.

I've solved my "car adapter" problems forever. I just installed a $35 Cobra brand AC inverter. It has two regular AC outlets, and is rated to 400W. You just plug in your house charger to the AC outlets on the inverter, and away you go!

Also, the Cobra inverter has a USB power port, in case you have any equipment that uses USB to recharge..

RE: The problem with inverters is that they have a very low efficiency..

I'm not sure that really matters if (like me) you run the inverter in order to operator your laptop while the engine is running.

My particular inverters in my car are:

Cobra 480i
Rated 400W continuous, 800w = peak, input voltage 10.4-14.4 VDC
Output 109V-120VAC, USB output 5V, Outlets: Two
Efficiency half load (12V) = 88%, Efficiency full load (12V) = 83%

AIMS PWRINV5000W
Rated 5000W continuous, 10000W peak, input voltage 10.0-15.0 VDC
Output 120VAC +/- 10%, Outputs: Four (4) NEMA 5-15 Type B
Efficiency 1/3 load = 95%, Efficiency full load = 90%

Those are the specs (from the manufacturer of course) for the two inverters that I use.

Again, for me, I'm only running the inverter while the engine is running, when I get to my destination, I unplug the computer and take it with me.. But in any case, from the various models I looked at, none were below 80% efficiency, and everyone drew less than 500ma in the OFF position, and probably most will wire like I did, so the power goes off when the key is removed.

All my best,

mm1

It is fine musikman (I am with you regarding inverter in a running car), it's just that Mastiff wants to use it on his boat where the engine is not always on - thus the issue with draining the battery

cheers ...

Well drats, I just typed up a perfect reply, and the system failed to take the message.. grr..

Back to using Notepad to do the tech replies, so I don't lose the info!

Where were we? Oh yes:

I wrote: I'm not sure that really matters (DC-AC inverter efficiency) if (like me) you run the inverter in order to

operator your laptop while the engine is running.

You wrote: "It is fine musikman (I am with you regarding inverter in a running car), it's just that Mastiff wants to use

it on his boat where the engine is not always on - thus the issue with draining the battery.."

OK.. here we go:

I also run a 5000W AIMS inverter in my Tahoe. I'm a pit orchestra conductor/pianist for musical theatre, and in the

summer, some of these outdoor theatres have notoriously BAD power.

ENTER THE 5000W Inverter!

This inverter will allow me to run all the amplifiers, keyboards, fans, and orch lights for up to four hours without

having to turn on the car engine.

HOW DOES IT DO THAT?

I have two Scosche 1250A/12VDC gel batteries in the back of the car, next to the inverter. A full charge on the two

gel batteries will allow me to run all my orchestra stuff up to four hours. The inverter gives me four 15A service lines.

SO YOU KEEP THE ENGINE BATTERY FROM GETTING DRAINED.. HOW??

I have installed up front a "battery isolator." My Tahoe has a 250A alternator. 4ga Wire goes from the

ALTERNATOR to the ISOLATOR. The ISOLATOR has two "outputs," so the FIRST OUTPUT is a 4ga wire with 100A

inline fuse close to the ISOLATOR feeding the car engine battery (Sears Platinum 700CCA).

The SECOND OUTPUT on the ISOLATOR is a 0/1 ga w/200A inline fuse near the ISOLATOR, feeding/charging the

two large gel batteries in the back.

The purpose of the ISOLATOR is to prevent the CHANNEL TWO (big gel batteries) from sucking power from the

CHANNEL ONE (car engine) battery if the CHANNEL TWO batteries run low, which is the exact function of a

battery isolator.

TO RECAP:

Wire from ALTERNATOR to ISOLATOR - feeds ALTERNATOR 12V current into ISOLATOR.
CHANNEL ONE output feeds/charges the car engine battery.
CHANNEL TWO output feeds/charges the aux batteries for the inverter.

So Mastiff can setup an AUX battery from an Isolator in his boat, and prevent the engine battery from being sucked

dry. The size of the AUX batteries, of course, depend upon the amount of current he needs to draw for his "toys,"

and how LONG he needs to draw that current. My particular 5KW inverter draws 86A/hour (for full load, which I

never even come close), so I have 2500A of batteries for it.

he he he ... This is very good. Give it a shot Mastiff I will give it a shot for sure myself

cheers ...

The isolator/aux batteries ended up being a really nice thing for other pursuits.. anytime we go out to one of the parks to camp (this will really make you sick):

I can power a "portable AC unit" that I place inside our 4 person double lined tent. Next to the portable AC unit (that draws 12A, so it's alone on one of my four 15A feeds), I usually bring my small microwave, it pulls 9A, so it's the second feed.

The third and fourth 15A feeds are a line for inside the tent, for computers, radios and the like, and one line outside of the tent for late nite reading, watching a DVD or whatever.

EVERYONE SAYS: That really doesn't sound like camping to me..

Me either, but I HATE camping and will only go along if I can hookup my "toys." Sometimes, I'll drag my keyboard, amp and a couple of small speakers so we can have a semi-quasi-karaoke or "stump the band" nite. I've got two wireless mics setup in my amp rack, one is a headworn (think Britney Spears videos), the other is a regular hand held.. but they can be a lot of fun!

And with a Verizon card in my laptop, I can get a 'net feed anywhere I can get a cell phone signal. Oh, and in the car, I have a cell phone amplifier, which will pickup my .5W cell signal from my computer OR phone (there's an antenna behind the dash), and it sends it out an external antenna on the roof at the full 3W allowed. If I am within 35 miles of a cell tower, I can usually get a line out..

Gadgets, gadgets...

Women won't let their husbands near my computer room. The first thing I do is squinch up my eyes as I ask them, "What do you MEAN, you don't have dual 28" monitors on your computer at home? How do you cope?"

(tigerdirect had them onsale for $269 each, I couldn't resist! I have them on a KVM switch so I can run dual monitors on both my office and server machine..)

mm the instigator

RE: Expensive in Norway

Ouch, I had no idea. Down here, the 250A Battery Isolator ran $80US, and the two 1250A 12V Gel Batteries were like $129US each. The most expensive thing HERE was the 20' of 0/1 cable and the 100A and 200A inline fuse kits!

And the 5KW 120VAC inverter ran about $600US two years ago, they are actually down to about $450US for the same model today..

mm1

My Sears Platinum claims 700CCA (cold cranking amps) and is sold all over the US for around $149.00..

RE: $250 for a 100W inverter?

Do Norway $=US$? Heck, if you guys are on a 12V neg ground system, why not order an inverter from the US? The Cobra i480, which is a 400W inverter, runs between $30-$35US. I keep that one up front for plugging in the laptop while I'm on long trips.

I've got the Seagate Momentus XT 7200RPM 32MB cache, 4GB SLC flash memory, 500GB hard drive, and they pull a little more power than a standard drive, something like 7W instead of 2W or so with "standard" HD's. But man, the difference in performance is HUGE!