any suggestions for a ... 12V DC watt-hour meter?

[danny burstein]

I'd like to compare the power used by my laptop
via:

a: a 12v ->120VAC (cheap) inverter, and then with
a regular wallwart

b: an expensive direct DC->DC convertaplug thingee.

The meter would go inline between the cigarrete lighter
jack and the first power cord.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

I'd like to compare the power used by my laptop
via:

a: a 12v ->120VAC (cheap) inverter, and then with
a regular wallwart

b: an expensive direct DC->DC convertaplug thingee.

The meter would go inline between the cigarrete lighter
jack and the first power cord.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

You don't need to know watt-hours, or even watts, to know which is
best. All you need to know is current - use a standard ammeter.
Connect it between the cig plug and the power device.

 

[danny burstein]

At the computer's power input jack, there should be essentially no
difference in power usage. I assume what you want to know is which
route is overall more efficient, so you'd need to measure DC voltage
and current at your main battery - ahead of the DC->DC or DC->AC->DC
conversion.

eyup, that's why I mentioned the meter would be between
the cigarette power jack and the first power cord...

There are DC watt-hour meters for whole-house use, but the
load of one notebook computer will be practically unmeasurable with
those.

[ see below ]

The hard part of what you want to do is that a computer is a very
inconstant load. How much power it uses at any moment depends on what
it is doing - disk activity, screen brightness, how hard it is
"thinking", and whether it is charging its internal battery or not -
so it is almost impossible to duplicate a test with a different power
source.

I figured on doing umptity hours wth it. I know, for example,
that my Kill-a-Watt shows a daily average draw of (roughly)
ten watts for my laptop, with figures as high as 40 when
the drive is unning and the battery is charging.

If your goal is to compare power supplies, find a resistive load that
draws somewhat the same current as your computer, and use it as a
constant test load.

hmmm... so you're saying if I put a one amp load (comparable
to my averaged out laptop - see above) i'd get a usable
comparison figure? Sounds good..
..

In my experience, a DC->DC "car charger" is always more efficient than
running an inverter and a wall wart, and newer models of all of those
are better (run cooler, waste less power) than older ones. In general,
a lighter physical weight converter will run cooler and waste less
power.

The input to my laptop (well, technically the output
from the wall cord txformer yoyo) is listed as 24 V, 1.875 amps,
while the wall side claims 120 vAC, 1.3 amps. Fortunately
those aren't the steady draws...

 

[JoeSP]

I'd like to compare the power used by my laptop
via:

a: a 12v ->120VAC (cheap) inverter, and then with
a regular wallwart

b: an expensive direct DC->DC convertaplug thingee.

The meter would go inline between the cigarrete lighter
jack and the first power cord.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

I used my laptop on a fairly cheap Xantrex inverter, and there was quite a
bit of variation in load, depending what the processor was doing. When I
loaded Google Earth for example, the variable-speed cooling fan "screamed"
in response to each graphical challenge, and it was basically silent when
not much processing was going on. This is because it's speed was linked to
the load being used. It was a fairly good indicator of the variable current
draws during laptop use. When the battery was being charged, it was running
full speed all the time.

I think a fairly good inverter will be over 90% efficient at peak load, and
a cheap one might be 50% efficient or less. For your laptop, the difference
between a straight DC source and an inverter converting 12V to 115V and back
to DC again will be a considerable amount of waste heat produced at every
stage. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the power consumption is double at
best, and possibly 4-5 times higher than a direct DC hookup.

A 12V to laptop DC converter is probably your best bet for efficiency.