I have had good luck with the Lind DC -> DC adaptors.  My Dell just thinks
it's on AC.  Too avoid clutter, I have permanently installed the Lind
adapter for my Dell Inspiron in my under sink cabinet.  My friend has also
permanently installed a Lind for his always on DVD/navigation laptop.
Neither of us have ever had a problem.

Lind makes Air/Auto adapters for about every laptop out there. ~$100, if I
remember.

I have a link to Lind on my Westy page.
http://www.oz.net/~tyg/TyG/Westy.htm

TyG

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
Of t
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2000 3:27 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: power in bus for a PC (little Vanagon)

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/