Wonder if anyone can help me out here.

I play in a band and we're off on tour in April, i'm taking my laptop with me but wanted to know what the best way to keep power to it is whilst on the road? I've seen the cigarette lighter adapters but are these any good and more to the point are they safe!?

We have a converted horse box that all 6 of us will be in for a week so should be fun lol

If the horse box is being converted can't they put a mains inverter in there to run from the power supply of the vehicle? This would be the best way to do it as you could then use all the standard mains adapters.

Only proviso is that there is a current limit on the inverter, but a couple of plugs for a couple of laptops shouldn't pose any issue as they draw next to nothing on the whole.

Maplin has loads of them, would these be ok ?

Maplin > In-Car Power Adaptors

You're going down totally the wrong path there.

You want something like this:

600W:

600W DC 12V to AC 230V Power Invertor > Maplin

That would give you 230V, and 600W sustained total, so about 2.5 Amps.

Should be able to run a Laptop, Phone Charger or shaver charger etc off that. Just get it wired in and it will provide a single plug.

This would be even better for six of you as two things can then run at once although it is more expensive:

1000W DC 12V to AC 230V Invertor > Maplin

This means you don't have to mess about buying the correct 12V charger for everyone's phones, laptops, shavers etc and can just use low power devices with UK plugs on as is.

6 laptop chargers would probably set you back a lot more than this device.

Edited 5 March, 200917 yr by cheezemonkhai

I'll be honest i'm hoping i won't be using the bus to charge the laptop too much so don't really want to run it if i can help it as i can always charge my phone and stuff when we're in the venue.

Wouldn't this be any good ?

90W Laptop Power Supply with USB Charging Socket > Maplin

No point it's only £5 cheaper than the original inverter at 600W spec, so just get use the wires that come with the inverter and connect them via a fuse to the car battery.

A lot of laptops pull 90W or more if you're running them flat out and Dells etc will often refuse to boot with an underspecification or non genuine charger attached. The actual Output Power (Max) is 54W according to the specs too, so not 90W sustained at all.

Also you would have to make sure the tips are correct and that nobodies equipment uses voltages that the item can't supply (I know my laptop wants 14V, which that doesn't provide).

I'd seriously spend the extra £5 and a bit of effort wiring it up than waste £30 on the 90W charger

Also looking at the spec that thing says it needs 100-240V input which your car won't provide.

For me it's the single socket inverter every time.

Edited 5 March, 200917 yr by cheezemonkhai

I've got an inverter I got from Maplins I used when I drove down to Dubrovnik last May, it powered my laptop fine also very usefull for charging camera batteries whilst on the move.

Can't remember the exact figures on my one but I think I had a choice of 300w or 600w and I spent the extra £10 and got the 600w one.

If it was a 300W or 600W with £10 difference it's that one I posted above which has a 300W one available, however the 600W one is on offer so it's really not worth even considering the 300W version for the difference.

They are so useful and the inverter plus paying for fitting would be less than a 12V/24V adapter assuming you can get them for your laptop.