Ah... no.

Cheap inverters make square waves, do not attenuate spikes(in the
megavolt range) and are generally unhealthy for the inner components of
a Computer quality AC/DC converter. Pay the bucks to buy a good one or
get a regulated DC/DC converter. Persoanlly, I would buy whatever the
manufacture sold as there is no question when the system stops running
whos fault it is. Second choice would to build a little regulator and
place it in line with the output from the cigarette plug. It may turn
out that all you need is a simple 12 volt regulator depending on the
input requirements of the computer.

tim o'brien
BS Computer Engineering, Univ. Mass. with a specialty in
Vanagon masochism.

"Karl F. Bloss" wrote:
>
> Buy a cheap inverter and you're done.  The inverter comes in handy for other
> stuff like digital camera charging and other small appliances.  $60-$70 will
> get you a 300W continuous /600W surge, which is way more than you need (check
> the power rating on the power cube that comes with the laptop.  Mine says 1.5A
> @ 120V, which is less than 200W.
>
> -Karl
>
> Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
> '87 Westfalia Weekender  "Beverley" - 197K miles
> http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/
> PA/NJ Vanagon owner's mailing list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/pavanagon/