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Just got me a swanky new laptop and as I don't want to have the battery fried as soon as I step on ship I'm going to get a surge protector. Question is... which one? Found loads on amazon which rave about how this one or that one has poptected their fridge-freezer or tv, and other reviews have slated some because they only have the capacity to protect household basic equipment and not computers... so I turn to you oh technical wizards! Got any recomendations?
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Your transformer will go long before your laptop battery and I believe transformers tend to have a fairly high tolerance, I've never had any issues on ship - and I've been on some very dodgy ships with repeated black outs.Originally posted by size4riggerboots View Post
If you do get one, just make sure it activates at the same level as the transformer uses - otherwise its pretty useless
?Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn?t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.?
? Mark TwainmyBlog | @alistairuk | flickr | youtube Views and opinions expressed are those of myself and not representative of any employer or other associated party. -
Surge protectors have been outlawed on RFAs. Something to do with one starting a fire. I don't know the details though. Doesn't seem to be a problem on other ships or the ETOs would be screaming already.Comment
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I would wait untill you get your laptop and then see what kind of power it pulls etc, then I'm site you can buy one based off the info you got from your laptop
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As alaistair said, the power supplies are pretty tolerant of dirty power, youll be fine without oneFormer TH cadet with experience of cruise ships, buoy tenders, research ships and oil tankersComment
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Dirty power?"Crazy like wild wolves threatened by fire, send them all to the bottom of the sea."Comment
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Things may be different now, perhaps someone can clarify, but many years ago when generators were kicking in or out you would get spikes in the electricity at times. One RoRo ship I was on had a 450T stern ramp. To lift or lower it the ginger beers had to put all 4 generators online. When they did things always flashed or dimmed whilst they load balanced or some such similar technical terms they used to fob us bus drivers off with! Things may be much "smoother" now, but back then spikes and the odd overload trip out was not irregular.Originally posted by Ducki52 View Post
But as has been said, the electronics inside your charger are capable of dealing with a range of voltages, if you look on the label it usually says on it that it can handle between 110 and 250V, however they are not over tolerant of spikes a lot over 250V. That is why a surge protector can be a cheap way to protect equipment. I personally would rather replace a surge protected 6 gang socket than a power supply.
Ian"Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk." - Sir Francis Chichester.
"Waves are not measured in feet or inches, they are measured in increments of fear." - Buzzy Trent
"Careers at Sea" Ambassador - Experience of General Cargo, Combo ships, Tanker, Product Carrier, Gas Carrier, Ro-Ro, Reefer Container, Anchor Handlers.Comment
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putting a gen into service is a mouse click affair for most ships now, or if not certainly a management system will do it so its a nice smooth affair rahter than people doing it by hand. switch mode powersupplies also provide a good degree of protection as they dont have the issue with magnetic fields and its the rapid colapse of one of those that creates real damage as the voltage can be very large.you can take it with a pinch of salt, but i prefer it with a nip of whiskyComment
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I did think that that would be the case. Thank you for confirming it.Originally posted by ETwhat? View Post
Ian"Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk." - Sir Francis Chichester.
"Waves are not measured in feet or inches, they are measured in increments of fear." - Buzzy Trent
"Careers at Sea" Ambassador - Experience of General Cargo, Combo ships, Tanker, Product Carrier, Gas Carrier, Ro-Ro, Reefer Container, Anchor Handlers.Comment
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Modern ships are much better than they used to be, but there are still some bloody big motors with direct online starts which do cause voltage spikes, I have had a couple of laptops blow up on me, but never been convinced that this has had anything to do with ship's power supply.
I generally remove the battery when I am onboard and just run the computer on mains power, it means that if the ship does black out then the laptop will shut down unexpectedly, but this has never caused me any issues and unlike the comments above my batteries always used to die before the power supplies before I started doing this.Go out, do stuffComment
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