[Volt-Schwibe]

power supply

finally a question about something i sorta know.


well, first off, you will want a battery mounted somewhere in the vehicle, trunk like you said would be fine. you will want to use a 2 amp filtered charger running from the cars main electrical system and set it so it runs all the time, the idea is to never let your pc's battery drop below 60%

second, i am not sure a 300 watt inverter is going to be sufficient. most inverters are rated at their "peak" output. i dont know what type of power supply your pc has, but im hoping it is about 300 watts. and your lcd panels are going to require a tiny bit of wattage also, i dont know for sure, but id say about 15 watts. so i would say you need a 500 watt peak/ 400 watt continuous inverter at the bare minimum. try to keep it like this:

take your normal power consumption (plug the machine in to a
socket and amp test it, and then use ohms law to get wattage)
for example:
power consumption = 350 watts
add 30 %
350 + 30% = 455 watts
this means that you need a peak of AT LEAST 455 watts.

and try to buy a sorta big battery for the pc. not an rv or marine, but a large car battery. use the book, look up what a 1979 lincoln continental with power everything would use, and buy that one.
or buy a spira-cell from optima, but those are around 140 bucks and a 60 dollar battery would be fine here.

above all, try to make sure to keep the battery mostly full, and dont run an inverter that isnt strong enough.

~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

also might i suggest

you could also just use a laptop, and most of them will run off of 12v dc. then you could run an intricate mess of usb cables to all the devices you want to run, and if you integrate the pc like i think you want to do, a laptop could drive what you are wanting without much watt load. eliminating the need for an inverter, and second battery. but you would still want to use a filter. the alternator produces nasty static, and pc's are fragile little babies.

the other idea would be cheaper....


~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

well

well, if a dc power supply is what you are after....

they make power supplies for a pc that connect to a car system.

and as far as making your own, that would work fine too, but the 12v in for the pc cannot be run straight in, unless your extra battery is being charged by a special charger running at 12v. if it is being charged by the cars' normal system, then the battery will actually be running between 14.8 and 16.2 volts, so you dont want to run that power straight into your machine. filter it all... a voltage of about 12.2 would be fine...

but really, go and buy an RV computer power supply....
it will run off of 12volts, and you wont even know it...

but what about your screens?

hmm, i think they prolly make 12v screens too..

~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

pricey

here is a link that sells a dc to dc power supply for computers. but look at the prices.... OMFG

Power Supplies


wow, thats a little too much, id try a filter to the battery instead of finding an rv power supply or an inverter.

but i will say this...

you wont ever catch me running my hard disks at more than 13 volts or so. and i am not sure that the 12 volt areas on my motherboard would like it so much either...

but a 400 watt 12 to 110 inverter is only about 100 bucks...


either way...
good luck.
~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

hmm

well, i am not sure what an EL wire is, as i have said before the abbreiviatoins throw me off. but one way i know of to filter noise out of a signal wire is to either put a resistor (like something close to 47k ohms) between the two wires, sorta shorting them, but not quite....

and another way is to put a capacitor (300 uf or so) into the end of the circut, usualy facing backwards on the negative branch.

they also have some 300 wrap to 299 wrap filters that you can put inline, similar to the ones used for PC's or car stereo's. this is basically a little transformer that breaks up the harmonics from the voltage signal.

thats if its noise from your engine you heard on your system.......

otherwise, perhaps you need to check your whole length of the EL wire, maybe it needs to be a 100% sealed coaxial wire. i know with some tihngs, the wires will act as an antennae if the positive (signal) wire is not fully shielded by the negative (ground) wire. if this is the case, then you will maybe need to get different wire and connections.

but i would think you are talking about hearing the ignition hum in the system when you plug in this EL wire. and not about signals from the atmosphere saturating your wire...

~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

check this out

i dont claim this is your answer, but it is a good idea of what your going to go through.....



http://www.acs.comcen.com.au/atxps.html

~BoB~