Black & Decker 100 Watt USB and AC Power Inverter

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New Black & Decker 100 Watt USB and AC Power Inverter, for $7.99 + $5 shipping
Product: 1x Black & Decker PI100SB 100 Watt USB and AC Power Inverter

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how much watts is needed to power a laptop?

Alright, I can use this to charge my pocket powers!

I believe 100 Watts would be good, but I would play it safe with 150 Watts. But I do believe you can also use 75 Watts for a laptop. I work at Radioshack by the way, if that helps.

As long as you aren’t starting with a dead battery, this should keep it charged. If the battery is dead…best give it a minute of charge time before powering on. Even if it isn’t technically enough to power it…it will still work to charge the battery…just seems to do it slowly.

So, wait, you could use this thing to recharge the Black and Decker power inverter from April Fool’s Day?

Most modern laptops (last three years) dont use more then 90 watts
the older ones120. But that is the laptops max. I am sure you will be fine using this with you laptop unless you have one of those hardcore gaming laptops.

Nice. Just the thing to power an Mp3 player on the 8 hour drive back to school. Just in time for back to school, too. Good call, woot!

Well sure… keep the circle of power going :wink:

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-MicroSlim-Inverter-PI100SB/dp/B000SZS9S2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1217654036&sr=8-1
Amazon reviewers give this little guy 3.5 stars.

I had purchased this identical product at one of the large office supply stores.

The first thing to say is this product feels cheap. The plastic is thin, and the plug end is held together by nothing more than a little silver ring.

After three weeks, the little ring that holds the plug end together fell off. It took me a good ten minutes to reassemble the interior parts, get the ring to stay on, and get it working properly again.

I got three months use out of it, and honestly it did work fine while it lasted.

However when driving home one night, I plugged it in and was greeted to a pretty blue spark, and the smell of burning electrical components, and it was dead.

So based on my experience, I’d have to say “don’t buy”.

Will this charge my iPhone 3G? The last two auto USB adapters (purchased elsewhere) haven’t, but they were off brands.

Why would anyone use this to charge their MP3 player? That would be complete & pointless overkill. It would be cheaper and safer to just buy a car charger for your specific brand.

It should really only be bought for laptop use, or as an emergency backup to keep in the glove box in case you have an MP3 emergency, definitely not for daily use.

Probably not powerful enough to power a blender when I take it tailgating.

I use my MP3 outlet plug component and power it through an inverter without having to buy another car adapter. Sometimes life just needs to be simplified.

I’ve been to radio shack. How can you EVER claim that helps? You guys are as clueless as John McCain without a speechwriter.

In the end though - it depends on the laptop itself. look at your AC adapter. Most say 70 or 90 Watts, and that’s OK, but some may say more. My universal is 120 watts, so this will not do.

Probably not - I am in your boat as well and was told that there are 3 manufacturers producing DC adapters for the 3g - They are advertised on Apple’s website. Apple decided to go away from backwards compatability. Something I wish I knew when I bought it and sold my iPod.

You really need to look at your AC power brick. Many low end, and travel laptops will suffice on 75 watts, but a 75 watt power inverter won’t quite be sufficient. The reason is that there is some power lost in the AC to DC conversion, and many manufacturers will spec the power draw instead of the power supplied (its a stupid practice but a good marketing ploy). To make things more difficult, a 100 watt power inverter will get very hot running continuously at 95 watts, so its better to spec a power inverter for at least 15% more power than you need to keep it from getting too hot and risking burning fuses.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable using this inverter for more than a 85 watt power draw on a laptop, and a 75 watt power draw on any type or motor load (because the peak current is much higher with inductive loads).

To give you a comparison, I currently use a Toshiba tablet computer that uses a 75 Watt power brick. When I attach a multimeter to it, I calculate that it outputs 74.6 watts (battery charging and CPU at 100%) and draws 78.2 watts from the AC (Its sorta a cheap True RMS meter so this is a bit questionable), but I used to have a HP dv6000 computer that had a 165 watt power brick. I’d guess that it drew close to 170 watts from the AC.

I’m a mechanical engineering student, so am no expert on power systems, but am reasonably sure the information here is accurate. I’ve used power inverters in a number of automotive and robotics applications and have learned the hard way (blown fuses and inverters that have melted carpet) that its always better to overspec your inverters.

might come in handy. in for 1