Laptop charge

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jesse

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jesse
What are my options to recharge my laptop while I'm there? The only real way I'm going to be able to come is if I can code a few hours a day while there and at least get some work done. This is going to require that I have an easy way to recharge every day. I'm not exactly fond of leaving a $3,500 laptop laying around.

My useful load is super limited.
 
Both shower buildings have multiple outlets in the North 40. That said, they tend to get quite busy during the morning and evenings.

When load-limited the computer is the first thing to go from my aircraft.
 
Would solar charges be up to the task? I've been seeing several models being marketed to the hiking and camping crowd.

Perhaps make good friends with someone in a vendor booth and offer a small gratuity to baby sit your laptop during the day while it charges. Or if you need to "vanish" while you work, just drag up a chair to the back of that booth, plug in, and start coding.


Whenever I finally get the opportunity to addend Airventure, I have a similar power need for a CPAP machine. Likely a battery solution is best, but not sure which just yet.
 
Mike5250 said:
What days will you be at north 40 camping?
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If I can sort out some of these logistics probably the entire week.

steingar said:
Both shower buildings have multiple outlets in the North 40. That said, they tend to get quite busy during the morning and evenings.

When load-limited the computer is the first thing to go from my aircraft.
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Yeah I knew about those, but realistically it'll probably take two hours to charge my laptop, and I don't want to stand there for that..nor can I leave it.

The only way I can come is if I have it as I need to get several things launched before September and can't lose a week to no development.

AggieMike88 said:
Would solar charges be up to the task? I've been seeing several models being marketed to the hiking and camping crowd.

Perhaps make good friends with someone in a vendor booth and offer a small gratuity to baby sit your laptop during the day while it charges. Or if you need to "vanish" while you work, just drag up a chair to the back of that booth, plug in, and start coding.


Whenever I finally get the opportunity to addend Airventure, I have a similar power need for a CPAP machine. Likely a battery solution is best, but not sure which just yet.
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Solar is possible, I'm sure, but likely prohibitively expensive/large for what I'd need. I guess I don't know that for sure though.
 
I had one day where I had to work last year. I just took a chair and parked my butt near those charging outlets near the bath house during the daytime one day when they were quieter. A little hot in the sun and screen glare is a problem, but it worked. I got a little done there and finished up in the shade somewhere.

A Belkin three port self-contained power strip with USB was also useful in that I could plug in everything to one plug and not be a plug hog. That got the iPad ready for the flight out, and I turned it off to conserve its battery after that. We have a charger for in-flight use but it only maintains the iPad and won't actually charge it.

Keeping the iPhone alive to meet up with people was harder than the couple of hours with the laptop.

Now... A couple years prior on the trip we broke down in Nebraska... I had a 75 lb sealed UPS battery on board and an inverter. Would've worked well too. ;)
 
I will be there probably monday thru early saturday morning in my camper at scholler. If needed I will gladly charge it for you in the evening while I'm lounging with generator going if you want.

I need a nice lap top anyway:D

Seriousy let me know if you want, its no biggie.
 
If you want to be a good neighbor, bring along a 6 or 8 port power strip. Plug into the shower outlets, and let everyone plug in behind you on the strip. Take a chair over, and make the best of it.
 
docmirror said:
If you want to be a good neighbor, bring along a 6 or 8 port power strip. Plug into the shower outlets, and let everyone plug in behind you on the strip. Take a chair over, and make the best of it.
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Yeah, just watch out for someone with a hair dryer popping the breaker on it. Haha. People don't quite get Ohm's law.
 
Right behind the Vintage Red Barn there is a charging depot. You can drop of your laptop or cell phone and they'll hold it there.
 
jesse said:
Solar is possible, I'm sure, but likely prohibitively expensive/large for what I'd need. I guess I don't know that for sure though.
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I bought this solar powered charger last year to take to OSH. The solar charger works well for my iPad and it doesn't weigh much, maybe 2 pounds. Don't know how long it would take to charge a tablet. It sure comes in handy here at the farm when we lose power. Although, I can't seem to get the wall charger part of mine to work.

Last year in the North 40 there was a restaurant near the newer shower building that had charging stations at some of the tables inside (under the open tent). There will be a different restaurant there this year, so don't know if they will have the same charging stations this year.

In the past, I have taken my chair to the North 40 shower building and I sat there surfing while my devices were charging. Watched the afternoon air show once while sitting there charging.
 
Diana said:
In the past, I have taken my chair to the North 40 shower building and I sat there surfing while my devices were charging. Watched the afternoon air show once while sitting there charging.
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Yeah, right, you were there to watch the news walking in and out wearing towels! :D
 
I bring a miserly netbook to do that sort of work on the road. My job is just editing text files, though, so it suffices. The itty bitty keyboard is annoying, but getting paid to fly planes or hang out at airshows makes it worthwhile. I use RDP to shell to my battlestation computer at home if I'm doing anything remotely CPU intensive.

I admit that I write really bad code in the air, even on autopilot. Maybe I should start flying pressurized stuff more often.

Also my netbook is $300 to replace, so I won't be worrying about it. I don't think I'd bring a rolex MBP or similar to Osh. :D
 
Mike5250 said:
I was planning on getting an external battery for the ipad which should also help if we need juice in flight.

2 for $18 today... http://www.nomorerack.com/daily_dea...s_for_cell_phones___tablets___assorted_colors
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FYI, you will not get much iPad charge out of those batteries. The latest iPad has a battery capacity of 11,560 mAh while your external batteries only hold 2600mAh each. Absolute best case scenario you get about 40% charge from both of them, likely far less in real-life (maybe 15% per battery). I also bet they don't supply enough current to charge an iPad when you're using it.

What you really want is something like this: http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-iCa...1373558803&sr=8-2&keywords=trent+ipad+battery

Whichever battery you end up getting, be very careful to check the reviews and find a high quality battery. Some of the cheaper ones have been known to catastrophically overheat, or less dramatically just stop working after one or two charge cycles. Obviously if you're going to be charging from one of these batteries in the air you want to keep an eye on it and have a plan if it starts smoking. There's a reason the airlines won't technically let you charge a battery on a plane. The LiPo battery in the iPad is not a huge risk, but trying to draw from a small LiON battery too quickly could theoretically end badly with a poorly made (cheap) battery.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Would solar charges be up to the task? I've been seeing several models being marketed to the hiking and camping crowd.
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They do exist, but it's likely not worth the cost and weight for a laptop-sized system if you have some kind of access to power on the ground. You'd need to find an appropriate step-up adapter for your laptop to charge from the 12V DC many panel output, or an inverter for the solar panel to deliver AC to your normal charger. You would also need a battery for the panels to charge because you'll never get a large enough solar panel to charge the laptop directly. I don't think it can be done for under $200. Even then you have to find a place to leave the panels and the battery, then let the laptop charge from the battery for a few hours.... it's just not practical if you have (even an inconvenient) source of free AC power.
 
AggieMike88 said:
at $3500, that's gotta be one that would make Sheldon Cooper drool with envy.
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nddons said:
:) no wonder Jesse is weight limited. Would $3500 laptop have a 27" screen? :)
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It's actually a little closer to $4,000 ($3,798 to be exact) for our laptops now. The best macbook pro that you can buy...with all of the upgrades. Our full workstation setups cost around $6,000 as we all have dual 27" Cinema Displays with full AppleCare on everything.

I had to send my laptop out for repair last week. I went back to the laptop that I had used just last year and I couldn't believe how much less productive I was. I actually had to wait for applications to start.
 
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douglas393 said:
Solar power chargers for laptops seem to exist.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=solar+power+chargers+for+laptops&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC

How good they are? I do not know.

Prices seem to range from $100 on up, and my bet is you get what you pay for. That being said it is a $3500 lap top so a few hundred on a solar charger may not be out of the realm of reality.
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I didn't see anything for close to $100 that would power a laptop. There were a few 3-10W phone chargers in that price range, but a laptop is simply too much power. There's a reason most laptop power "bricks" supply 65-100W from the wall.
 
dukeblue219 said:
I didn't see anything for close to $100 that would power a laptop. There were a few 3-10W phone chargers in that price range, but a laptop is simply too much power. There's a reason most laptop power "bricks" supply 65-100W from the wall.
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Just did the search, and as I said I do not know whether they are feasible. I did not look at the specifics, but some of them claiming to be able to power laptops were in the 100 to 200 dollar range. Now whether the do it or not I do not know, but from your post my guess is probably not. There were a few higher priced, and again I can not tell you whether they would work, but at least it is something that can be researched and see if it does work.
 
jason said:
I actually had to wait for applications to start.
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Which proves a theorem I've been expounding for some time now...

"The faster we make the computers, the more impatient the humans become"
 
AggieMike88 said:
Which proves a theorem I've been expounding for some time now...

"The faster we make the computers, the more impatient the humans become"
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Sure. But it's not just impatience. When I'm sitting at my desk watching icons bounce and spin, it costs my company money. When we have a computer glitch in the data center, it takes less than 30 seconds for our phone system to light up like a Christmas tree. Our most expensive resource, by far, is labor. It's not worth it to us to make them wait all day.
 
jason said:
Sure. But it's not just impatience. When I'm sitting at my desk watching icons bounce and spin, it costs my company money. When we have a computer glitch in the data center, it takes less than 30 seconds for our phone system to light up like a Christmas tree. Our most expensive resource, by far, is labor. It's not worth it to us to make them wait all day.
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And a minute into the outage, after all the channels on all the T1s have maxed out with inbound calls, the last thing you want is to have the people that can fix it waiting on spinners and bouncing icons.

Technology matters when you're a technology company.
 
energizer xp18000. charge it separately (leave at a charging station). NEVER leave your laptop. About $140. Not cheap, but it'll run a 19V machine for maybe six hours....
 
nddons said:
:) no wonder Jesse is weight limited. Would $3500 laptop have a 27" screen? :)
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I have the same laptop Jesse does (though I only maxed out the RAM and SSD when I speced it, not the CPU or anything else so I was more in the $3100 and change range).

It's not a 27" screen, it's 15"... But whereas a "normal" 15" laptop resolution is, for example, 1366x768 (source: dell.com), and even the Apple 27" Cinema Display is 2560x1440, the resolution on these is is 3840x2400 pixels. So, it's somewhat like having a 42" display squeezed into a 15" form factor. :)
 
I have no love for my HP EliteBook from work, but they do make a piggyback battery that acts as a stand for the thing. I have one.

Makes the laptop heavy as hell, but gives "all day" power. 19VDC + big amp charger brick, slams power back into both batteries in about 3 hours flat, too.

Apple needs to do something like that for longevity for those that need it. They refuse to put docking station hardware on the "pretty" flat bottom, but it'd be really nice if they did. Piles of cables coming out the side is so 1995. ;)
 
denverpilot said:
I have no love for my HP EliteBook from work, but they do make a piggyback battery that acts as a stand for the thing. I have one.

Makes the laptop heavy as hell, but gives "all day" power. 19VDC + big amp charger brick, slams power back into both batteries in about 3 hours flat, too.

Apple needs to do something like that for longevity for those that need it. They refuse to put docking station hardware on the "pretty" flat bottom, but it'd be really nice if they did. Piles of cables coming out the side is so 1995. ;)
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No they don't need to do that. They just made laptops that actually do last all day, without big clunky additions needed.

Mine, which Apple doesn't claim to have all-day battery in, I've been using for about 5.5 hours now (no real heavy lifting, just browsing, emailing, typing text) and my battery is still at 64%. If that's correct, it'd last around 15 hours of light use (IE, not doing heavy processing work - Not sure how much that'd take out of it) and really, the proportion of people who can't find an outlet after 15 hours of use is ridiculously small and doesn't even come close to justifying a big clunky mess. If you need it that bad, bring a car battery and an inverter with you. ;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
No they don't need to do that. They just made laptops that actually do last all day, without big clunky additions needed.

Mine, which Apple doesn't claim to have all-day battery in, I've been using for about 5.5 hours now (no real heavy lifting, just browsing, emailing, typing text) and my battery is still at 64%. If that's correct, it'd last around 15 hours of light use (IE, not doing heavy processing work - Not sure how much that'd take out of it) and really, the proportion of people who can't find an outlet after 15 hours of use is ridiculously small and doesn't even come close to justifying a big clunky mess. If you need it that bad, bring a car battery and an inverter with you. ;)
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You must own stock. LOL. Every time I point out a real Apple flaw, you claim it's a feature. ;)

And you know I actually prefer Apple (for their OS... their hardware prices are inflated but you pay for the software they include so it's about right, considering all)...

But no way does any Apple out there beat that EliteBook with the extra battery strapped to the bottom. It's heavy and clunky and not aesthetically pleasing at all, but if I truly have to WORK all day without power, that's my go-to machine. Not my various Apples.

Only way I can get through a full day with Apple products is to have both the iPad (and Bluetooth keyboard) and a MacBook, and switch when one dies. (Or the ludicrous battery plus inverter... which I've been geek enough to do in the past, but with an option, I'll take the behemoth double-battery laptop nowadays). ;)

The EliteBook, plus add on battery, will (in one package that will charge fully in three hours) do a 12-16 hour day without being dead. Closer to 16 unless you're hammering it.

I like my Apple stuff, but they don't have anything that'll keep up with that feature, if you need it.

Slap Linux on the EliteBook and you have an "almost Apple" and it'll run all day.

I suspect you and Jesse can't use that option because you need Xcode for some stuff, though...
 
honestly... nobody steals in the north 40. put the charger outside on a long cable and leave the laptop in the tent or plane.



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
 
denverpilot said:
You must own stock. LOL. Every time I point out a real Apple flaw, you claim it's a feature. ;)

And you know I actually prefer Apple (for their OS... their hardware prices are inflated but you pay for the software they include so it's about right, considering all)...

But no way does any Apple out there beat that EliteBook with the extra battery strapped to the bottom. It's heavy and clunky and not aesthetically pleasing at all, but if I truly have to WORK all day without power, that's my go-to machine. Not my various Apples.

Only way I can get through a full day with Apple products is to have both the iPad (and Bluetooth keyboard) and a MacBook, and switch when one dies. (Or the ludicrous battery plus inverter... which I've been geek enough to do in the past, but with an option, I'll take the behemoth double-battery laptop nowadays). ;)

The EliteBook, plus add on battery, will (in one package that will charge fully in three hours) do a 12-16 hour day without being dead. Closer to 16 unless you're hammering it.

I like my Apple stuff, but they don't have anything that'll keep up with that feature, if you need it.

Slap Linux on the EliteBook and you have an "almost Apple" and it'll run all day.

I suspect you and Jesse can't use that option because you need Xcode for some stuff, though...
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The newly released 13" Macbook Airs have a legit 12 hour battery life...and weigh less than 3 pounds.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/b...macbook-air-beats-competitors-mile-6C10378534
 
denverpilot said:
You must own stock. LOL. Every time I point out a real Apple flaw, you claim it's a feature. ;)
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Wait... Not making a big clunky add-on that a only a tiny fraction of a percent of users will ever need is a "flaw"? No way. It's good business. I'd rather the R&D budget get spent elsewhere. I'm sure there are more elegant third-party solutions than the "car battery and inverter" I mentioned, but it's not something Apple should be spending money on.

I suspect you and Jesse can't use that option because you need Xcode for some stuff, though...
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Not for work - I could use a Windows laptop for work. I choose to use the Mac, and switch into Windows when necessary. There's only one piece of software I *need* Windows for, and I do a lot of work on remote servers which could handle that aspect for most clients anyway. I do choose to use both operating systems because it's a lot nicer to only have the VPN running on the Windows side. I choose to use a Mac due to a gazillion reasons we don't need to go into here!
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wait... Not making a big clunky add-on that a only a tiny fraction of a percent of users will ever need is a "flaw"? No way. It's good business. I'd rather the R&D budget get spent elsewhere. I'm sure there are more elegant third-party solutions than the "car battery and inverter" I mentioned, but it's not something Apple should be spending money on.



Not for work - I could use a Windows laptop for work. I choose to use the Mac, and switch into Windows when necessary. There's only one piece of software I *need* Windows for, and I do a lot of work on remote servers which could handle that aspect for most clients anyway. I do choose to use both operating systems because it's a lot nicer to only have the VPN running on the Windows side. I choose to use a Mac due to a gazillion reasons we don't need to go into here!
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All fine and good, but for those who need it, it's still a flaw. Just like for those who need to haul big loads, the C-152 is flawed.

They're just tools for a job. Your use of Mac is similar to mine. But I have the EliteBook for those days when there isn't going to be a power plug available. ;)
 
denverpilot said:
All fine and good, but for those who need it, it's still a flaw. Just like for those who need to haul big loads, the C-152 is flawed.

They're just tools for a job. Your use of Mac is similar to mine. But I have the EliteBook for those days when there isn't going to be a power plug available. ;)
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Well you could say that for those who need Windows, the Mac is flawed - And I'm one of 'em! Do I blame Apple for not making Windows available? No! There are third-party tools for that. Apple need not supply the tools for every single possible job, that's what third parties are for.

So, if you think there's a big enough market to justify the R&D for a Mac-only add-on power solution despite their lengthy battery life, why don't you develop one?
 
Fwiw Nate the dock thing is much less of an issue if you're running cinema displays. I plug in two small cables to power my laptop and drive two 27" displays. The displays have onboard audio, Ethernet, USB, and chain together.
 
jesse said:
Fwiw Nate the dock thing is much less of an issue if you're running cinema displays. I plug in two small cables to power my laptop and drive two 27" displays. The displays have onboard audio, Ethernet, USB, and chain together.
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Damn. I knew someone would bring that up. Heh.

I'm too cheap to buy $3000 monitors!!!! ;)
 
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