Powering Laptop in the field from 12v battery
This is the small project for making a power box to power my Laptop in the field from 12v battery. My Laptop rated at 19v and 3.5A = 66W, so I got on ebay for $7.5 DC to DC step-up power supply (LTC1871) which can boost up to 35v and output power of 75W with adjustable potentiometer. According to the size of the power module I got a small project box, a cig lighter plug, plug with 2.5mm pin for the Laptop, couple of screws, a copper wire 2 x 0.75 and red clear acrylic sheet of 3mm thickness.
First I cut the project box almost in half leaving just enough for the module to fit in. Then I marked the red acrylic sheet for the box's size and cut it.
Used strong glue to glue the red acrylic to the cover.
The red clear acrlylic were used to let me see what's happening with the module and what voltage it outputs. Also it will help to dim the brightness of the LCD and other leds that on board.
Drilled four holes on the bottom of the box's plate and secured the module with screws.
Connected it to my 12v battery to adjust the output voltage to desired 19v. I put little bit more on purpose. As you can see the module have two very bright leds and one of them is green, but that won't be a problem when I put back the cover I made with red acrlylic.
And here how it looks with the cover on while operating.
After soldering the plugs on both ends of the wires, this is the final product, which came out very compact and nice looking.
All of the parts used cost me just a fraction of what would cost a good 12v car charger for the Laptop and besides, it was fun to make it.
