its actually Dennis asking.. posting on Lisa's account.
Dennis, the absolute best way to use your computer in power critical situations (As in.. you may run out!) is to charge the battery with the computer off, and run the comp off the internal battery only. Thats what your comp battery was designed to do, and charging it while there is no other draw on it is relatively benign to your trailer battery. You are trickle charging that way, not powering it.
As a matter of fact, I don't even USE my trailer to charge mine. I actually have a 100w inverter that I use in my car, not my trailer. I run the battery down to nothing in the comp, and plug it into the car (Off.. car and comp, of course) give it an hour or so and I am back up and running again. I also don't have the slightest concern about my car battery that way. Every time I start my car, whatever minute amount used is recharge in short order.. with the trailer, I can only charge during the daylight.
For travel, I use an Acer netbook that can run for 8+ hours on a charge, but I use a full sized laptop the same way.
I use the car because its neater than having the power supply and inverter lying around in a small space.
Solar can be VERY cost effective once you get past the initial investment. And it need not be expensive (Relatively) to make that investment. The price keeps coming down as the technology and manufacturing methods improve. My 115 watts + all the stuff that goes with it to run it properly was under 500 US. If I had gone with mono crystalline panels, it would have been much higher.. but consider that application... we are not trying to feed back power to the grid, we are powering travel trailers. The 120 watt panel you are looking at cost even less than my 2 50 watt ones, and they are the same type of panels.
With solar, in the long term, once you are done.. you are done. No gas, no maintenance, no repairs. Thus, no additional costs.
the GDec
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