Mark,

I tried two inverters, and ended up with a cheap 700 watt inverter from Harbor Freight rather then a more expensive one that was very noisy.  I think it was $39 on sale at HF.  It worked well for me on two trips (almost two weeks of traveling) to charge up to 2 computers, and a cell phone, and a small fan several hot nights - still use it to plug in my phone when driving.  They have a 400 watt one on sale now for $29.99 - it'll have as much power as you'll need.  I looked into it and a computer takes about 100 watts to charge, add to that a phone (it's got a nice USB plug that charges quickly), and you have power to spare.  

http://www.harborfreight.com/automotive-motorcycle/power-inverters/400-watt-continuous-800-watt-peak-power-inverter-66814.html

I wired a female cigarette lighter outlet (maybe that should be called a Aux Power Outlet now...) straight onto the the two leads to the aux battery, and attached a male cigarette lighter plug to the inverter that I got at Radio Shack - the male plug has a switch on it so I can turn off the inverter.  This is important because the inverter does draw power.  If I forget to turn off the switch, I come out to the car after a few days and the inverter is doing it's warning beeb saying that the aux battery is down to 10.5 volts.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3802148&filterName=Category

The system works well and was cheap.

Hope that helps,

Dan
Los Angeles, CA
"Winky" the '85 Westy Weekender

On Nov 10, 2011, at 2:22 PM, Mark Tuovinen wrote:

> We need to add a power inverter to our van as we will be traveling and want
> to be able to charge the laptop computer battery.  Would any List Member
> whom has knowledge on this subject please advise/assist in helping me
> choose a unit that we be sufficient for this and maybe able to handle a bit
> more should need arise.  For now our primary concern is the computer but if
> there is a unit that can handle more for a reasonable price I would
> probably purchase it as our needs may change in the future.
> 
> TIA
> 
> Mark in AK
> `87 Westy Syncro