AC Adapters, Volts, Watts and Amps

I have a laptop that uses a 16V 40W AC adapter.
Would a 16V 60W AC adapter also be OK?

 

Yup.... no problem...

 

Thanks, Toughbook.

 

Will an adapter with more watts charge a low battery faster ?

 

Amperage has to do with charging times, not wattage.

The more amps, the faster the battery will charge.

Charging a battery slower is better for the battery. Charging a battery faster is convienant and less of a pain in the butt. You have to find a happy median.

Case in point: They sell car and marine battery chargers. Most have 2 settings: a 2 amp "trickle" charge and a 10, 15 or even 20 amp "rapid" charge. "trickle" charging is better, but when you're in a pickle and need to get a battery up faster then you use a "rapid" charge.

Take that into perspecitive and then figure you're using 50 - 100 amps to "jump start" a car... Goes to show how fast you can put enough "juice" into a battery to get it going...

Thanks

P.S.: .1 (Yes, POINT 1) amp is enough to KILL a human being if it's through your heart

~Rob - juiced up!~

 

Volts times amps equals watts so actually more watts at the same voltage will charge faster.
Wattage is the combined measurement of volts and amps.

16 volts at 2.5 amps equals 40 watts----Will charge
16 volts at 3.75 amps equals 60 watts----Will charge faster
19 volts at 2 amps equals 38 watts----Will make the magic smoke come out

 

Good info! Wow. I forgot about that...

~Rob - if you don't use it, you loose it~

 

Good to know! Thanks.

 

Here ya go,,, from an old electrician.


Bob

 

Oooo, ahhhh, I've gotta find a store that sells magic smoke.

 

The hard part is getting it in the part that lost it in the first place

 

California is the place you oughta be.
Oh wrong kind of magic smoke.

 

California sucks man... Sorry...

ALMOST as bad as the putrid state of Illinois!

 

not to nit-pick but it really only takes ~.065 Amps (65 mA) to stop your heart.

But that requires a perfect storm scenario where it actually travels through your heart, that amperage in one finger and out another on the same hand won't kill you.

 

I stand corrected!!!

 

I've been lit up more than a few times; Tim Taylor just gets all the smoke. :wink:

I've had 60KV from projection TV Flyback to 120KV from MSD racing ignition; both of which knocked me on my butt. I've been knocked OUT as a young buck by taking a bet that I didn't dare pee on an electric fence; little did I know but it was one of the new "Weed-Wacker" models that will actually jump a 3/4" gap, but when I woke up there was $10 stuffed in the back pocket of my coveralls. Fortunately for my pride and my modesty, I wound up face down.

But the worst I've ever gotten zapped was when troubleshooting a big microwave oven; I absent-mindedly put my HV probe with the ground on the wrong side of the magnetron and took the full brunt of 3,500 volts from one wrist to the other. How many amps was that? DamifIno, but it's enough to cook a turkey!

I could feel the path it took; it made every muscle squeeze up as tight as it could and I got lucky in that it made me jerk the probe so it broke the connection. My forearms and pectoral muscles ached for a week after it happened; I swear I could taste the color blue.

The moral of this story? ALWAYS be a one-handed electrician. That kind may look awkward, but he lives to be a crusty old tinkerer.


mnem
"Whatever you do, don't touch the third rail. It's 600V."
"They say it's not the volts that kills you, it's the amperage. How many amps is that?"
"Enough to push a gawdd@mn train."

 

Last major hit I took was when I plugged a 2.5A Toughbook AC adapter into the wall. It EXPLOADED! E-X-E-P-L-O-D-E-D! I've never seen a bigger flash other than a transformer on the line outside blowing up.

the 110V side of the adapter (7A cord) was either manufactured wrong or screwed up somehow, because as soon as I plugged it in it blew up on the end closest to the adapter (which I was holding in my other hand). It arched out and hit my wrist. It was VERY bad, knocked me over. Everyone at Proton jumped and came running after seeing the big orange flash which lit up the already lit up tech room brighter than the sun!

~Rob - Toughbooks will be the death of me~

 

Now, now Rob. You know you shouldn't weld on your ToughBooks; they're made of Magnesium. :wink:

mnem
*While I was trimming out the tube finals on my old Yaesu*
"So... what's this do..."
"Don't touch tha..." *ZZZZORCH!*
"YELP!!! Aaaaa! AAAAAA! YEEEOWCH! It hurts even more afterwards!"
*Facepalm, then look up with a smile*
"Yeah, Brian. That's the plate voltage of the output tubes; 615V at ohhh... 35 Megahertz, give or take."
"It megahurts, allright!"
*Nods knowingly* "Wait a week. It'll STILL hurt like a summitch."

RF burns are the worst. :yes:

 

An electrician I knew took 16KV from hand and out through elbow on same side whilst perched in a tree. I have seen him lick his finger and "test " to see if 110V was "hot". Drove a Datsun P.U. with every wire end he ever cut off in the bed. What a trip. Brakes? what's brakes..One gear ...must have been second.....screaming engine....stop sign what's that? just turn the corner, same rpm and crank it around. He was 80 something and working every day last time I saw him.

Jeff...real characters up here in the north country.
p.s. Rob....you didn't see California....you saw Disneyland.

 

After growing up around my dad, who started his career as a lineman with Western Electric, I will never operate on a circuit without one of my hands behind my back. No if, no an, no how. Not happening.

 

+1 You could drop 90% of all Americans in 90% of California and they'd never guess where they were. I used to be like that. "Snow, it snows in California?"
CAP

 

Well; most of the putrid smell in Illinois comes from Chicago; the name of which came from the Indian name for the area; `Shikako': which means "skunk place."

Just a little bit of trivia few people know.

"Vote early -- and often."
--Richard J. Daley, Chicago Mayor (1955 to 1976)

 

Similar story:

MANY decades ago <>, I was an auto mechanic at a Gibson's Store. One of the other mechanics there had survived getting tied up with 880V in his past.

He loved to unscrew the bulb out of the 110V "trouble light," turn it on, stick his finger in the socket, then "zap" us with the finger on the opposite hand.

Zap! OUCH!!!