What batteries would power a home PC ?

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by alexander

oh and transformers do work on variable DC...

Well yes, they do work on pulsating DC but I was taught that this was a poor design practice because of a poor efficiency in operation.

[alexander]

Alex, couldn't you have posted an attachment with a nice thumbnail? The thread would be easier to read!

is that better?

[Boerseun]

Dude - the fact that you've even contemplated throwing 20 car batteries in the back of your van, tells me that the safest route for you would be to go the inverter route. No hassles, no funky circuit designs, no stress about sine waves. Forget the wastefulness. Plug and Play. And as a bonus you get a cup of coffee on site as well.

[alexander]

Wasnt the original design requiring you to be able to care the computer, if not, heck, 8 bike batteries and some 0 or 4 gauge wire to the car battery into a simple inverter should work out just fine, and your milage wont get killed from all the extra weight, and the computer will be able to safely run for 9-10 hours without having to start the engine to recharge the batteries... actually if you can get your hands across some silver batteries used on the space shuttles, those are about 1/2 the size and hold waay more charge for much longer. I've talked to a guy who had one in his car instead of the original battery, didnt need switching for 20 years, he switched 3 cars and never had to change that battery...

[alexander]

Well yes, they do work on pulsating DC but I was taught that this was a poor design practice because of a poor efficiency in operation.

that is true, but it very much depends on the transformer you use, I saw some website that can't recall for the life of me, that had somparison in efficiency of different makes of tranformers while using square wave, but I'll ask around, i know someone who is a radio engineer but worked for years designing power supplies for the new equipment that the institute developed, see what he says...

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by alexander

Wasnt the original design requiring you to be able to care the computer, if not, heck, 8 bike batteries and some 0 or 4 gauge wire to the car battery into a simple inverter should work out just fine, and your milage wont get killed from all the extra weight, and the computer will be able to safely run for 9-10 hours without having to start the engine to recharge the batteries....

At my last job I made a little wireless cart that the warehouse used to enter inventory. It was a no frills desktop box and flatscreen monitor with a bar code printer. The whole thing ran on a single 400 CCA 12V car battery connected to a 500W inverter. It was used 8 to 10 hours a day and connected to a trickle charger at night. We never had trouble making it through the day. A deep cycle marine battery would last much longer than this even. OTOH, if I rebuilt it today I'd use a notebook. You could run it for days on a single charge.

[Dark Mind]

Awaiting C1ay's reply...

Been working on it since 7:15

[Dark Mind]

God I have horrible timing .

I mean, what were the chances???... Wow...

[Dark Mind]

Originally Posted by C1ay

At my last job I made a little wireless cart that the warehouse used to enter inventory. It was a no frills desktop box and flatscreen monitor with a bar code printer. The whole thing ran on a single 400 CCA 12V car battery connected to a 500W inverter. It was used 8 to 10 hours a day and connected to a trickle charger at night. We never had trouble making it through the day. A deep cycle marine battery would last much longer than this even. OTOH, if I rebuilt it today I'd use a notebook. You could run it for days on a single charge.

I wish I had a background in Electronics/Engineering so that this would make sense. Ahh well, someday...

By the way, I knew C1ay took 7 minutes to reply to that post because I checked his last activity in his profile and saw the "Replying to thread: What batteries would power a home PC ?" and thought I'd wait and see what he'd say. Just in case any of you thought I was stalking him or something . Then I got impatient and showed I was awaiting his response (7minutes later) right when he replied . Bad timing...

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Dark Mind

I wish I had a background in Electronics/Engineering so that this would make sense.

It's not that complicated. A desktop needs 120V or 240V AC power. A small inverter converts the DC from a battery to the needed voltage for 120V or 240V appliances. It's basically the way a UPS works, ie you have a battery on continuos charge and an inverter to supply power to your equipment. If the power goes out it only kills the battery charger while the connected equipment continues to run off of the battery.