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Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation is safe.
By Ungrounded Lightning Rod, Section Homebrewed Electricity Posted on Tue Aug 15, 2006 at 02:43:24 AM MST
Dell laptop battery recall says you can safely operate laptop with battery out.

Dell is doing a recall on about a year and a half of their laptops due to battery fires.
An additional interesting item of information, to me, is their recommendation to turn off the laptop, remove the battery, plug in the charger, and then run the laptop on the charger with the battery removed.
This means that the battery is not needed as a filter for the laptop to operate safely. Running directly from an external DC supply (at least one having the characteristics of the charger) is a manufacturer-recommended safe operating mode for at least the models in question. The battery is not needed as a filter for the laptop to operate safely.
So running it directly from your house batteries (provided the voltage is right and there is a fuse or current limiter on the circuit) should also be safe.
I know that some of you have already been doing it. But now you can rest assured that, at least for the affected Dell models, the manufacturer's engineers consider it to be a safe operating mode.

Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation is safe. | 5 comments (5 topical)

Re: Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by crashk6 on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 10:17:06 PM MST

nod Yes, most all laptops will allow operation without the battery installed. The ones that don't simply refuse to boot or hang while booting. I had an old notebook computer that behaved in this ill mannered way. But most will run fine on what ever you have that mimics it's "charger"... just a switching power supply... the actual charge regulator is in the machine/battery. So no worries. Like anything observe for unusual behavior/heating when testing it out but it's usually fine in most cases.
--
crashK6

Re: Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by asheets on Tue Aug 15, 2006 at 02:38:03 PM MST

There are still some late-model HP/Compaq units around that the battery as a filter. But all the Dells I've worked with (all the way back to the XPi/90, anyway) could run without the battery with no problem.

It is always one of the 1st things I check when I purchase a laptop these days.
_____________________________

Alan Sheets

Re: Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by 12volt dan on Tue Aug 15, 2006 at 04:39:39 PM MST

I've run my old Toshiba for 3 years like this. The power supply was rated for 15volts but it works on 12 just fine :^)

When the battery voltage goes down to about 12.25 it shuts down if the hard drive kicks in so it doubles as a batt indicator.

Ok it does piss me off the odd time when it does that :^)
11 years off the grid and counting

Re: Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by redeyecow on Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 09:58:33 PM MST

We've been running this IBM ThinkPad through 2 inverters since the internal battery gave up. 12V to 110V to 15V for quite a while but a little nervous about trying it direct to a 12V bat., although it does seem reasonable. Any idea what size fuse would make it a bit safer? All this converting must be using up a fair amount of power. keith
Barn's burnt down--now--I can see the moon.
[ Parent ]

Re: Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by 12volt dan on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 04:26:54 AM MST

The power supply should say how many amps it uses right on it but ofhand I would say a 5amp fuse would be fine
11 years off the grid and counting
[ Parent ]

Dell laptop recall implies homepower operation is safe. | 5 comments (5 topical)

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