Laptop Charging Problems

So, I’ve been having problems charging my laptop in Wanda. It has not been all of the time, just when I use my inverter. (As in the box that changes 12V DC to120VAC)

You see, when I plug my laptop charger into my Generator, or into a regular power outlet, everything is fine. When I use my inverter, then the laptop doesn’t like it.

What happens is that this little light . . . 

  

As in the one on the laptop that indicates that the laptop is charging. When it is amber, like it is now, it is charging, when it turns blue, it is charged.

When I am using my inverter, it blinks on and off erratically. This is a problem as each time it is off, it is not charging. 

This then seriously drops the efficiency of the charging session. As in I am giving it resources but it is not being used effectively. 

I know that the problem is that either my laptop AC adaptor or the Laptop itself is not liking the type of AC power coming out of my cheap inverter.

The obvious solution would be to spend some serious coin on a “True Sine Wave Inverter.” 

I won’t go into the details of it but, let’s just say it does a better job of mimicking line power and some devices like that better.

Not wanting to pay big coin, but still wanting to solve my problem, I came up with this little thing . . . 

   

That little box is a DC to DC converter, or more specifically (9V – 14V) to 19V. (I bought it online.)

That means that if I give it somewhere between 9V to 14V DC in it will give me a steady 19V out.  Why is 19V out important? Here’s why . . .

  

If you look closely, on the bottom of my laptop (and all, I believe) it tells you that it wants 19V DC in (and 2.38 amps) in order to function.

So, after finding this little gem online, all I had to do was connect it up.

   

There are wires for input and two wires for output. I connected the input wires to a jack that you can shove into a cigarette lighter outlet (or the round car power outlet for you youngsters). 

The output wires I connected to the barrel connector wire that I salvaged from the now dead power supply that came with the laptop.

Thus I was able to do this last night . . . 

   

It worked perfectly. In the workshop I had a meter on each side of this charging unit and everything seemed fine. The highest volts I got was 19.1 V DC, I can live with that.  

It seems to take about 10 Watts when charging, steadily less when it nears 100%. Just FYI, I never run the laptop when it is charging as I find it charges faster that way.

Again, I got lucky, with being able to find a DC to DC converter that can give my laptop what it needs to charge. 

It is possible that this could cause irreparable damage to the laptop . . . but this is a cheap laptop and I had to try something. 

For now, everything seems to be working fine.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!