Laptops and Gensets - safe?

[letz4wheel]

I know several people that run thier laptops off a generator with no ill effects. I use a small inverter on mine all the time.
You will find that the power supplies in the laptops are pretty durable. On my dell the power actually filters thru the battery as a buffer. Kinda like the inverter charges the battery and the battery powers the laptop. Make any sense...if so you might need to be commited

[the_experience03]

I wouldn't worry about it. Let's say you have a 14.8 volt battery. Your power supply is going to put out near this much (slightly more typically). That is DC mind you.

So...we have 120 volts coming off the generator at one point and that is good for 15 volts DC out of the laptop power supply. Now the generator fluctuates down to 105 volts. That's about a 14% difference from a big swing in genset voltage. When you're on battery power you have about 3.7 volts per cell or 14.8vdc when fully charged from a 4 cell battery. When fully discharged you're going to see about 2.8vdc per cell or 11.2vdc from that 4 cell pack. That's a difference of about 24%. Guess what? That's a difference of nearly 25% and the computer functions flawlessly!

No one might argue that the waveform from a generator or the frequency might not be up to snuff, but this might only cause havoc with the "fuel gauge" portion of the charger. It might have a hard time calculating total capacity or time to recharge. But lets face it. Those things aren't real accurate anyway. The waveform and frequency really isn't going to matter in terms of the output voltage because you are still using a diode rectifier bridge to convert from AC power to DC.

Long story short...don't worry about it.

[KC10Chief]

You can plug pretty much any laptop into a power source that is 100 to 240 volts, and 50 to 60hz. You can take your laptop over to Europe (240V and 50hz), and plug right in. If you look at the little box on your laptop's power cord, it will say the same thing.

[Steve]

Actually laptops are very safe because their power supplies are made to be used in every country by just replacing the cord that plugs into it. The brick I have for my laptop says it will work with an input voltage of 100-240V in 50-60 Hz