Meritline 120W Power Inverter

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I've never tried to hide my hatred for meritline, but this post is mainly a response to ben saying "Use it to power your laptop power adapter . while on the road."

I would caution anyone on powering a laptop w/ a power inverter. I have a more expensive inverter and have damaged two separate laptops using it. Both got to the point where plugging them in would no longer power the laptops up. I cannot prove that the damage stemmed from use of my inverter, but I believe that it did. The first time, I caused damage without an inline, surge suppressor for my computer. The second time, I did use a surge suppressor but eventually ran into the same problem.

Bottom line, be careful running your laptop with an inverter, especially a cheap one. If you are going to run a computer with an inverter, be sure to use a surge suppressor to try to protect your equipment.

I've never tried to hide my hatred for meritline, but this post is mainly a response to ben saying "Use it to power your laptop power adapter . while on the road."

I would caution anyone on powering a laptop w/ a power inverter. I have a more expensive inverter and have damaged two separate laptops using it. Both got to the point where plugging them in would no longer power the laptops up. I cannot prove that the damage stemmed from use of my inverter, but I believe that it did. The first time, I caused damage without an inline, surge suppressor for my computer. The second time, I did use a surge suppressor but eventually ran into the same problem.

Bottom line, be careful running your laptop with an inverter, especially a cheap one. If you are going to run a computer with an inverter, be sure to use a surge suppressor to try to protect your equipment.

I use a power inverter that looks exactly like this (different color) for charging cameras, cell phones, laptops all the time.

I regularly use it for running my laptop on long trips -- never had a problem other than it gets a bit warm.

My orders with Meritline have been OK. I have never had to call their customer service.

As for car power inverters this 120 watt seems rather weak. I would only use it for charging a phone, PDA, iPod, or other small accessory. I had a Toshiba laptop whose AC adapter was 140 watt, so this inverter would not have powered it. I bought a Coleman inverter that was rated 400w peak, 200w for continuous output. It was on sale at Big Lots and it worked OK.

I have used a similar model several times without any damage, just be sure that your laptop's power draw is not too high for this model. $15 is a solid price, most places seem to sell these things for around $30 or more.

Also, be careful about leaving this in your cigarette lighter when the car is off, some models will drain your battery even if you don't have anything plugged in!

A laptop power supply that allows itself to be damaged by an inverter isn't a good power supply.

Surge suppressors are mostly cash flow devices for the seller. Any half decent power supply will already have surge protection on its inputs. And will have filtering for EMI if for no other reason than to keep its noise inside and away from other devices.

Unlike Slick-50 and Splitfire spark plugs, there is good science behind surge suppressors. Its just that you should already have that protection without an external device, and what external devices are around do not have a means of self test to indicate the device has not been blown. A surge suppressor is like a fuse. Too much of a load and it is destroyed. Will absorb and recover from smaller loads.

A good question here is whether this device is UL, ETL or CE certified? UL and ETL require independent certification while CE is a lesser tier because the manufacturer can self-certify.

My Toshiba R600 is a high performance ultraportable. The original Toshiba power supply is the size of two thumbs, and the markings indicate that it dissipates 45W peak.

It works perfectly with the twin to this unit (same electronics, different label).

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