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Equipping the Bike - what's the best gear? Anything to do with the bikes equipment, saddlebags, etc. Questions on repairs and maintenance of the bike itself belong in the Brand Specific Tech Forums.
Photo by George Guille, It's going to be a long 300km... Bolivian Amazon

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by George Guille
It's going to be a long 300km...
Bolivian Amazon



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  #16  
Old 16 Feb 2009
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Here's one from Maplin

Alternatively try here

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  #17  
Old 16 Feb 2009
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Best solution I've found was to use a regular domestic charger and one of these.

Ring Powersource Inverter 75W from Halfords Price £24.99

Absolutely brilliant. I've yet to try it on a laptop though.

EDIT: Just looked at the links in Tim's post. Tim's recommendation is better than mine if you're only planning on running a laptop. It's obviously more powerful than mine but only runs DC. I've only used mine on mobile phones, PDA's and GPS receivers and it does a cracking job for what I need.
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  #18  
Old 18 Feb 2009
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On the recent sojourn to Russia I used a monkey.

Really - they're very good. They come with all sorts of adaptors for lots of different things (including USBs) and you only have to charge that up rather than have lots of chargers - it's also quite small and takes up no room.

https://powertraveller.com/

The monkey wasn't powerful enough to deal with a laptop (even my eeePC) though - but since my trip they've announced a gorilla which is powerful enough.

https://powertraveller.com/iwantsome.../powergorilla/

and have a couple more things coming out which will solve your problems powerwise on the road.

Really nice guys from Hampshire in the UK - worth giving a try.

m
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  #19  
Old 18 Feb 2009
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look look!

They're even making a baby gorilla that charges iccle laptops like the eeePC

baby/mini gorilla - 8.4v, 9.5v & 12v charger for mini laptops & Tablet PCs

https://powertraveller.com/iwanta/000095/
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  #20  
Old 24 Feb 2009
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Too much power consumption for a laptop?

We took a laptop on our trip through Africa and used it for everything from route planning (using Maps4Africa) to updating our website. I wired a hard saddlebag with power using a relay so that it was only on when the ignition was on. The theory was that I would charge the laptop during the day while riding so that I could use it at night. Unfortunately I only had a 60 W inverter and the laptop takes 75 W so I blew the fuse on that quite quickly. Then I had second thoughts about running 75 W all day and what that would do for the charging system when riding slowly. So the laptop was charged at campgrounds and hotels. Our laptop lasts about 6 hours on a charge so we didn't need to charge it every single night. All the other electronics (e.g. cell phone, pocketpc, camera) don't take much power and were charged using a different plug on the bike overnight.

Hope that helps!
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  #21  
Old 23 Mar 2013
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Seperate the battery?

Hey all

Ive got a dell Latitude e4300 which I want to take on the road with me (I want to be editing videos wile on the trip), I can see a problem with keeping the thing charged as the power supply is a 90W unit! BUT that is designed for running the laptop + charging the battery, I only want to charge it - the battery is only 11.1V.

Has anyone seen a separate battery charging unit for laptop batterys? (yes I have been searching google before you ask) - if I can isolate the battery, then in theroy at 11.1 the bikes power system should be able to cope with that - either that or I need to find a smaller laptop that can deal with editing and posting vids - any suggestions?

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  #22  
Old 23 Mar 2013
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I used a cheap 12/230 volt converter wich worked great :-)
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  #23  
Old 3 Apr 2013
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You just need a car charger which transforms 12V to the voltage of your Laptop.

For example this one:

http://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B002HG5T4M

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  #24  
Old 4 Apr 2013
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When using an inverter just be aware and learn about your particular bikes charging system

I killed a rectifier/regulator on my Vstrom because I was using the inverter to run the laptop at campsites. The Vstrom uses a shunt regulator and the amount of heat generated burnt it out, if the bike is running and moving it is probably ok to charge it

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  #25  
Old 4 Apr 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TravellingStrom View Post
I killed a rectifier/regulator on my Vstrom because I was using the inverter to run the laptop at campsites. The Vstrom uses a shunt regulator and the amount of heat generated burnt it out, if the bike is running and moving it is probably ok to charge it
Err that would be with the engine running ..but the bike stationary.

Best is if you charge the batteries while you ride along.
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  #26  
Old 4 Apr 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Warin View Post
Err that would be with the engine running ..but the bike stationary.

Best is if you charge the batteries while you ride along.
In the case of a Vstrom, at $300 a pop, I would not be running an inverter off the battery ever again, even with the engine running and stationary. The amount of heat generated is too much.

There is an after market R/R which is supposed to run a lot cooler due to a better heatsink, I would be doing some testing on that before I was confident enough to use it.


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