At 02:43 PM 3/16/04, Dan DiBiase wrote:
>Sounds good to me, Tab, although can u imagine the 'change-over' required
>for all of those devices that you mentioned??
Well, are we going to continue with 1950's technology forever?
I'm sure in the meantime there'd be a healthy market in adapters.
>When we bought a portable DVD player we also bought a power unit for use
>in the car - it converts the cigarette power into house-type power. I'm
>not clear on the difference but basically you can plug into it using a
>regular three-pronged plug. So, in addition to the DVD player, I can run
>my laptop in the car if I need to. But it is kinda bulky.
I have one too... it's called a power inverter. It does two things...
first, it ramps up the voltage from 12v to 110/120v, but more importantly
it makes it AC (alternating current). Cars are DC (direct current), and
they flow in one direction only (out of one battery terminal into the
other). AC current, which is what homes use, alternates direction, as the
name implies.
AC works better over distance, and it has the added advantage that it
doesn't necessarily weld you to the battery should you touch both terminals
- you do get a shock, of course, but you can also get released.
Cars with regular 110 plugs would be nice too. But something has to
replace these silly cigarette adapters.
- Tab
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