My wife attends a number of business events where she needs to be able to print forms from the internet. We are equipped with a laptop, hot spot, and AC printer. So far we have been using an old Miata battery (small and lightweight to carry) with an inverter. It worked well in the beginning, and we would take the battery back to the hotel and night and recharge it for the next day. Business is increasing and she is spending more time using the equipment, to the point where the battery won't last the day. It's an old battery, so that could be part of the problem. I need some help with suggestions on the best way to get power to a remote area. The smallest Honda generators are still pretty pricey, and the larger ones I suspect are too noisy and too bulky for what we are trying to do (including transport in a Suburban with the tent and all of the other stuff). The specs on the current printer (new Canon, 0.6 amp rated current, 20W power normal consumption, 2.9W power in sleep mode). Laptop is a Toshiba mid-life cycle, energy star compliant, with a 45W power converter. It's old enough that the battery has 2-3 hours of life, so it needs to be plugged in to make it through an 8 hour day.
I can buy a deep cycle battery and live with its extra weight over the Miata battery as long as it will last for a day. Before I do this, any other (better) thoughts on how to make this work?
A second Miata battery?
Larger battery in laptop?
Different laptop? Can a Chromebook do the job? Does a Chromebook use less power, last longer?
Is tablet the answer?
i don't gather you're working straight out of the truck and can just use the inverter via the truck?
how about a big semi truck battery.
Problem is that it's not just the laptop but the printer that also needs AC. Sometimes we are under a Pop-up and the truck isn't there as backup. I can do a large battery, but it's got to be transported and lifted into the Suburban, so the smaller and lighter the better in this case. I guess I'm also trying to figure out how much power I'm actually using and how that aligns with battery output. A quick search shows lots of CCA ratings but not much for amp-hr or anything else.
Information on CCA etc. The important number for you will be reserve capacity.
http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/articles/battery-articles/battery-basics.html#4
I say instead of bringing more juice, look at using less juice. What's the budget? There are mobile printers you can buy that are built to run on low energy and use built-in batteries. Some good ones are less than $150 - but you'll be paying for ink cartridges.
Would a thermal printout be acceptable? (like the way most receipts are printed...they'll fade away after a few months). These are cheaper up front and cheaper to run (no ink), but the battery life isn't as good.
There are also USB-powered printers that will take power from the a laptop's battery.
I would think a new deep-cycle marine battery such as you would use to power a trolling motor would do the job. I assume your inverter is sufficiently sized to meet your needs. A new battery would be the most economical move.
GameboyRMH wrote: I say instead of bringing more juice, look at using less juice. What's the budget? There are mobile printers you can buy that are built to run on low energy and use built-in batteries. Some good ones are less than $150 - but you'll be paying for ink cartridges. Would a thermal printout be acceptable? (like the way most receipts are printed...they'll fade away after a few months). These are cheaper up front and cheaper to run (no ink), but the battery life isn't as good. There are also USB-powered printers that will take power from the a laptop's battery.
+1 on a small mobile printer, and look at a low powerdraw laptop (LED screen and Solid State drives go a looooong way to increasing battery life).
You could watch slickdeals or techbargains and get a SSD for the laptop under $150. Then take a look around ebay for a replacement laptop battery. Then get a marine deep cycle battery. All in I think it should be less than $300.
Just be carefully selecting the SSD, not all of them are real low power devices.
Better battery.
Curious what is being done on the computer. There are some crazy low power computers out now. Hell, a Raspberry Pi can do most office-like tasks (yes, it will easily print forms from the internet) and is < 1 Watt MAX. Couple that with a LED display and you've got a much lower power consumption computer. People have been known to run Pis for extended periods of time off a AA battery... or a tiny solar panel.
You could also do a DC-DC converter (on existing laptop as well) to remove one [inefficient] power conversion from the process as well.
For the batteries... just get several small auto batteries, hook them up in parallel. They can be unloaded easily one at a time, then just connected with short jumper cables.
Edit: 1 WATT max
Just plug into the crop circle plasma generation field.
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