USING SOLAR CHARGER TO CHARGE A LAPTOP? ???

[harryengland]

today i just brought a solar charger witch has a plug to fit my laptop, i plug it in and the computer doesn't say its charging and doesent charge, the solar charger charges other things but not my laptop.

i know the solar charger doesent put out enough power to fully charge the laptop (only 2.2w) and a laptop needs around 13w, but why cant it slowly put a small amount of power in to keep add some extra life to the battery when away form any mains power?


(is this a question about solar chargers or computers? i decided to do it here)

 
any help would be great

harry...

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Not an expert here but, if the laptop needs 13w and the charger is only giving 2w, it's not going to charge the laptop. It might make it last longer though.

Then again, I'm not sure.

[harryengland]

Not an expert here but, if the laptop needs 13w and the charger is only giving 2w, it's not going to charge the laptop. It might make it last longer though.

Then again, I'm not sure.

thats what i want to do just make it last longer but i need to get it to do that

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Again, I'm not really sure here but I think it is too small for the computer to recognize.

Don't worry, someone will be along shortly.
In the mean time, try timing it like leave the computer idle and time it how long the battery charge goes down 5% with and without the charger plugged in.
That may prove useful.

[ChrisXPPro]

Taking a typical lap batt as 14.8 @ 4000mA ..... the main thing with charging, as with any battery, is that the input (charging) voltage needs to be greater than the battery base voltage.

Example - a 12V car battery will often receive a charging voltage of something approaching 14v and finish up fully charged at someting close to 13v.

The wattage rating of your solar deal is academic - what matters is that it has enough output voltage to ''push'' current in for charge.  The lower wattage only means that the current output is on low side - meaning that if the voltage was enough, the charge rate would be a slow ''trickle''.

My question for now is - what is the output voltage of this charger - check with a meter.  If designed for this purpose then I'd hope it has enough panels within itself to achieve a high enough voltage - and then act as a trickle charger . It'd take a large panel set indeed (series/parallel config) to power a laptop on its own so we are looking for a degree of ''top-up'' - the battery buffering the charge and hopefully slowing its discharge rate when laptop in use.

[harryengland]

according to the box it came in and a switch on the solar charger it can output 6v - 12v or 7.v, so i need a voltage the same or higher than the battery's voltage to push the current through? the wattage is low (2.2w) but I'm not too bothered as long it at least slowly trickle charges.  i think the battery can charge on 12v as my in car laptop charger is 12v and it charges.

[ChrisXPPro]

Check the label on your laptop batt' ........ useful to know that.  Charging from a car batt' can work I have heard but wonder what a unit actually delivers ..... often a charger will quote an output voltage under load - whereas with no load it will often be higher - thus giving the ''push'' to enable a charge.  I haven't explored the charger units that run off a car's 12v system.

Think of the water analogy - treating a head of water as voltage (pressure) - the trend is for higher pressure to go toward lower, and to get volume flow (amps) the gradient needs to be in favor of the supply (charger volts) exceeding the recipient (battery) volts.  Hope that makes some sense!

[CBMatt]

Just so you know, UBB code doesn't work in titles.  I edited it to make it a bit easier to read.