AC Adapter and extreme temperatures

I recently bought a Kensington AC Adaptor for my laptop, which I keep in the trunk of my car at all times. On the product warning page it says “avoid exposing the Adapter to extreme temperatures.” When summer arrives I’m worried that my trunk’s temperature might be considered “extreme”, though I’m not sure. Has anyone left their AC Adaptor in the trunk when the temperature was above 90F outside? Did anything happen to it and is this something that I should be concerned about?
Thanks.

 

Good question:

There must be plenty of notebooks which have been left in a trunk during a hot day and have survived. It's probably less hot than being left inside the car and directly cooked by the sun.

I think the key point is to allow the equipment to adjust to room temperature before you use it. Some manufacturers include temperature data in their specs. An example (for Fujitsu S6510, which I have to hand):

Note that the non-operating temperature has a bigger range (and that spec above would implicitly include the computer's PSU).

John

 

Aslong as it is not operating while on the lappy. The AC adapter itself already gets hot enough, add summer heat and you get explosions. Check the spec sheet for its operating temps but i dont recommend using it while its in the trunk

I left a can of deodorant in my car before on a summer day. I came back with a cracked windscreen and white powdery crap all over my seats. So yeah it gets quite hot.

 

Great! I'm not using the adaptor in my car and I don't think it will ever get above 140F in my trunk. I just keep this extra adapter in my trunk so that I don't have to keep carrying it to the car evertime I want to go a coffee shop or other WiFi places.

Thanks for the advise guys.

 

The trunk isn't as extreme as like the dashboard, but I suggest you keep the adapter in a cooler, which will help to mediate the temperature.

 

I've exposed two Dell XPS notebook power supplies to temperatures as low as -40 to as high as around 120 F (98 Fahrenheit day with it on front seat of my car in the sun). Never had a problem with them. Being in the trunk would definitely help on hot days. The notebook is a bit more sensitive, and I'd try to avoid those kind of temperatures if possible. The one time I left my notebook on the front seat in the summer it gave me a temperature error and shut down. Once it cooled down, I was able to use it with no problem.

 

The battery might degrade when exposed to high temperatures. I heard of batteries exploding due to heat but i am not sure if that applies to notebook batteries.

 

You'll see it in the news every once in a bit, Stefan - plenty of notebook batteries explode when exposed to their own heat <_< >_>

I'd get a cooler and leave the laptop in that, like the earlier poster suggested.

 

Thats why i use my laptop without Battery ...Battery adds to the heat


and yes Cooler is a must have these days...i am buying one next week.. gosh. Zalman Cooler is damn expensive in Singapore

 

"Plenty" may be an exaggeration, but these events do happen. However, the biggest risk seems to be when they are charging.

My notebook's battery says

John