Is This Possible And How Laptop in Car

[Beacon]

What i want to do is:

I can get my hands on a laptop for $300 pretty good nick but unused by my work!
What i want to do is put it in my car!
So i can play MP3's, games, etc. now is this possible?

I mean how would i connect it to the battery etc. Also making sure that it doesnt drain the battery or blow the laptop up.

How could i connect it to my speakers or through the cd player?
Would a sound card do it?

Any suggestions?

[Wynd]

Maybe you can plug it into the cigarrete lighter

[kovan]

hehe nice try

cig lighter uses a 30 volt fuze
for laptop
your looking at 300watt power..
bahh
your screwed

[aknisely]

You could use a diesel generator. Though that'd probably kill you.

[kovan]

or you could plug it in to your wall with a REALLY long extension cord

*Kids dont try this at home

[scsa20]

Originally posted by kovan
or you could plug it in to your wall with a REALLY long extension cord

*Kids dont try this at home

LOL

[Beacon]

hmmmmmm

Thank how do they run those car fridges then?
I think it can be done!

[Tygur]

Originally posted by kovan
hehe nice try

cig lighter uses a 30 volt fuze
for laptop
your looking at 300watt power..
bahh
your screwed

I don't know electricity too well, but isn't volts different from watts?

[Paul Warren]

Just off the top of my head - put a wind turbine on the roof, fill the backseats with batteries and hey presto - power. I'm not an electrical engineer but I am a genius.

[chenko]

You could probaly try getting a in-car adapter
Also you can get adapters which plug into the tape deck of the car radio and plug into the headphone socket I use one for my MD player.

[Bonker Gudd]

I have a laptop in my car, I've called it Dwaine. I let it drive this morning, not bad driving at all, only killed one pensioner!
I remain in strict control of the Radio though, Dwaine has a liking for Westlife.

[HarryW]

Laptops are specially designed to be low-power, so I think 300 watts is a bit high. Most desktops only have 230 watt PSUs and they don't use all that. I'd guess maybe less than 100 watts? Dunno, check the transformer that came with the power lead to find out its requirements.

A standard car battery (all the ones I've seen anyway) will give you 12 volts, not sure about the amperage though. I doubt you'll need much more than 5 amps though. So long as the voltage * amperage is less than the required power, you can get a transformer to step up or step down to get the required volts and amps.

Wiring up the speakers shouldn't be so hard, you just need to get to the wires behind your stereo and clip some extension wires onto them. Not sure how you wire quadrophonic sound for a laptop though... stereo shouldn't be a problem anyway.

Of course, what you really want is two laptops - one in the boot to act as a server, with all the wires connected up, and one in the front with you, connected up via 11 Mbps wireless LAN cards

[Paul Warren]

There's one really, really obvious question here - why would you want to ?

[filburt1]

Originally posted by aknisely
You could use a diesel generator. Though that'd probably kill you.

Or a power inverter.

[HarryW]

Or a flux capacitor.

[NotLKH]

ION POWER!

-Lou

[filburt1]

Originally posted by HarryW
Or a flux capacitor.

The laptop would recharge itself.

[filburt1]

I rule, and this is why.

[Serge]

I have bought a car adapter for my 13" TV. It's working great. This adapter looks like a power extension which plugs into the cigarette lighter. I bought it in Radio Shack, so I can assume that pretty much all stores that sell electronic products, should have it in stock. The price is about $70-100

Good luck

[filburt1]

I still rule for another reason.

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by filburt1


Or a power inverter.

I have one of these and my laptop runs just peachy...

[kovan]

i still think my idea of a long cord beats all

[Wynd]

Heh, just don't use that car for a getaway car, you'll be really easy to track

[JungleMan]

[kovan]

[Beacon]

Thanks ppl, harry, serge etc.



Paul- One extremely good reason is as Filburt has pointed out MP3's.
Why would i want MP3's? Heaps of reasons cheaper, better selection etc.

Harry: Yeah stuff that have the server then 5 clients one for each seat + one to analyze the input coming from the 20 cameras located at different points on the car so it can drive, all with Matrox 3d cards in em and playing Half-life or another game.
6 12 inch subs, 5 capacitators, 10 pioneer v12 amps, range of mb quart splits in front and rear, 1 or 2 equalizers and sub controllers.
Park it near maccas drive through with another 10 car batteries charging up whack on the air con(coz it'll get heated) and prepare to be get the living s h i t blown out of you!