Buy a kill-a-watt for about $26 to find out how many watts your stuff takes at 110V (worst case). If you find a better solution with DC-DC, use that / subtract difference to see efficiency improvement.
Walmart and other stores carry car boosters, one of which I got which has tire inflator, 12V, 110V inverter, and around 70WA of juice. It takes a few hours to recharge, usually once every few days of use with 45W heater and autoguider on LX200. No laptop yet, but one test I did ran >12h with all 3 attached.
Rogelio Bernal Andreo <rba@No-Spam> wrote:
> What is really great to see is all the first timers who are signing up. There has been an effort
> to encourage more beginners to see what a real dark sky is like. Look at the percentages of first
> timer attendees on the poll:
I'd be a first timer but still thinking about it. Wife isn't used to
this hobby of mine yet that requires me to dissapear for 4 days
somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other "weirdos like
myself" (so she says, don't take it personal :-)
One concern... How do people who need power most of the time (and I mean
to operate laptops, mounts, etc. - leave aside basic needs) deal with
that? I've read the TAC wiki about batteries, and I noticed that when
this issue surfaces in the list many ppl go "here we go again" but I'm
still not sure what would be best for my needs (ok, a bit selfish but
before I can figure it out for someone else, i'd need to know what'd
suit me best, right?)
Since I mentioned "my" needs I'd spell it out: My basic need is life of
battery rather than power, and I wouldn't be using much, as I'd only
need to keep alive a 12v mount (EM400), a laptop (researching dc-dc
issues to avoid using the laptop's 120v converter), dew heater and a
120v plug to recharge my Canon's battery from time to time (I've got two
- I could recharge those at the inn I guess, not the "big" battery, as I
wouldn't be able to recharge it fully from one day to another). As far
as astro gear I think that'd be it. Did I mention I've never been at a
star party before?
Rogelio
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Received on Wed Mar 26 15:51:15 2008