A question for the electronics geeks amongst us

[thewayne]

I got my repaired laptop back, they replaced the main board. We'll see if the hard drive is still flaky, fortunately I have a 100gig laptop HD sitting in reserve.

There's only one problem: they didn't send back the charger, and they're closed over the weekend.

Here's the issue. My wife has an old IBM Thinkpad. The power input for my laptop is rated at 16VDC at 4.5 amps. My wife's power supply delivers 16VDC at 3.4 amps. So I'm thinking that if I used my wife's power supply to charge my battery while the laptop was not running that I'd probably be OK. Since there's no fuse or circuit breaker for the power supplies, I don't think I want to risk my wife's by trying to power and charge my laptop at the same time. I haven't checked polarity yet, but I'm pretty confident that they're consistent.

Comments?

Comments

[reddragdiva]

That should be fine ... personally, I'd hit whatever computer shop you can and get a big enough spare charger for yourself. Spare chargers are always good. I have three laptop chargers in various rooms in the house so I don't have to unplug and move the charger if I want to stay in one place for a few hours.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

We have one computer store in Alamogordo, they were no help. Radio Shack has one but it's $75 and I'm experiencing extreme cash depletion at the moment. It looks like I probably ought not to use it for now.

[reddragdiva]

Hah. Bugger That. Hit eBay for a replacement, IBM or compatible is fine. You can also buy universal adapters that do 15-20V at various maximum currents and have plugs compatible with everyone.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's what I'll end up doing if they can't send it back to me. The power brick was wrapped seperately from the laptop, I watched them box it for shipping, so I know they received it.

Arg! This is going to be a major annoyance, I just know it.

[reddragdiva]

That's the other reason a spare adapter is good ;-) My wife's PowerBook adapter died on Friday afternoon, so I had to stop at the Apple Store on the way home for a replacement right away or she would grab my laptop. FIFTY FIVE GOATFELCHING QUID for the official Apple adapter! I think that's, what, seven thousand US dollars or whatever it is? Rather than a compatible replacement for twenty off eBay. Eek.

For the lower-power IBM ones (like the one you do have to hand), we bought a pile of old IBM laptops a few years ago, so spare IBM adapters are everywhere in the house now. Pity I have a Compaq, not a Thinkpad ;-)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Are goatfelching quid better than goatfelching dollars? ;-)

Meself, I'm wanting one of the new MacIntel laptops with the magneticly-coupled power adapter. Within just a few months of my wife getting her Mac laptop, she caught the power cord while walking by and bent the prong, but it's been solid thusfar. A bigger problem is the loose hinges and the semi-failure of whatever illuminates the left side of the screen.

I'll probably be stuck in Windows Land mostly forever as my main background is SQL Server and database development. I can hardly wait for the libraries that will let me run MS code directly on the OS X desktop! But at the same time I doubt I'll be able to run something like SQL Server through that.

[dreamsinvelvet.livejournal.com]

My husband is a computer guru and works on laptops everyday. He said since you are not planning on running it, but only charging it, and the volts are the same with a lower ampage, you should be alright.

Though he was a little skittish about it in any case, as he wouldn't do it personally...

Not sure if that is any help.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the problem is that even if they find it (they didn't list it on the sheet showing what they received) the earliest I could expect it back if they overnighted the thing would be Tuesday or Wednesday. I might just limp on with my old laptop.

Sucks all around. Thank your hubby for me!

[dreamsinvelvet.livejournal.com]

Anytime! :)