Useful Idea for Champs?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by KosmicKhaos

Andymark has a similar product that is much cheaper ($33.00). It is a 12V DC to 120V AC Battery Power Inverter that uses robot bateries.

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0626.htm

This or a similar auto "cigarette lighter port" inverter is plenty adequate to charge a laptop, and can run off of robot batteries that are no longer quite good enough for competition.

If you want to spend a bunch of money on a battery charger, go for a solar charging system. We bought some solar panels, a big deep cycle battery, and a charger/inverter for our trailer for about $1k. If I recall the prices correcly, for significantly less than $500, you can get a 'briefcase size" setup that will charge a laptop and a robot battery at the same time whenever the sun shines. Not so good for competition, but still generally a good idea; we usually set this up for all of our outdoor demo events as a nice conversation and recruiting (students, mentors, and sponsors) piece.