Stuck in the car for 5+ hours, I started to count the car chargers required to keep our technology fully juiced when we are on the road. The final tally was seven chargers - 2 phones, 1 Nintendo DS, 1 Nintendo DSi, 2 DVD players, and 1 laptop.
They make for a jumble of cables that would give Unclutter Erin Doland hives.
Looking through the chargers, I realized we could reduce the number slightly by using the Griffin USB car adapter I bought for my iPhone and the USB cables that came with our other devices.
Consolidating is good, but what I'd really like to do is use the power cords the devices came with and get rid of the extra chargers altogether.
In my parents' car, there is actually an AC outlet (like the wall outlets in our home) built into the backseat, which my mom uses to keep her laptop charged while working on her latest photo album during long trips. (For those concerned about distracted driving, I should clarify that dad is behind the wheel).
For those of us without an AC outlet in our car, there are gadgets like the DieHard 140 watt power inverter ($25-30) which, when plugged into a power outlet, converts DC power from my car into AC power for my gadgets. I can then use either the AC outlet, or in the case of my phone, the powered USB jack.
My husband worries that some devices may not charge properly through the inverter because of the DC to AC to DC conversion. It took him about three tries, but he finally got me to understand that, in the case of technology like our portable DVD players, the units actually use DC power - AC power from our house is converted to DC power through the wall charger. So, if we use the inverter it would convert the DC to AC, then the wall charger would convert it back to DC.
Confused? Me too. Here's a quick explanation on the difference between AC & DC.
In our limited experiments we haven't had any difficulty charging through the inverter, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I will be able reduce the number of chargers I need to keep track of.
How many chargers are cluttering up your car?
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They make for a jumble of cables that would give Unclutter Erin Doland hives.
Looking through the chargers, I realized we could reduce the number slightly by using the Griffin USB car adapter I bought for my iPhone and the USB cables that came with our other devices.
Consolidating is good, but what I'd really like to do is use the power cords the devices came with and get rid of the extra chargers altogether.
In my parents' car, there is actually an AC outlet (like the wall outlets in our home) built into the backseat, which my mom uses to keep her laptop charged while working on her latest photo album during long trips. (For those concerned about distracted driving, I should clarify that dad is behind the wheel).
For those of us without an AC outlet in our car, there are gadgets like the DieHard 140 watt power inverter ($25-30) which, when plugged into a power outlet, converts DC power from my car into AC power for my gadgets. I can then use either the AC outlet, or in the case of my phone, the powered USB jack.
My husband worries that some devices may not charge properly through the inverter because of the DC to AC to DC conversion. It took him about three tries, but he finally got me to understand that, in the case of technology like our portable DVD players, the units actually use DC power - AC power from our house is converted to DC power through the wall charger. So, if we use the inverter it would convert the DC to AC, then the wall charger would convert it back to DC.
Confused? Me too. Here's a quick explanation on the difference between AC & DC.
In our limited experiments we haven't had any difficulty charging through the inverter, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I will be able reduce the number of chargers I need to keep track of.
How many chargers are cluttering up your car?