Laptop can run on a sealed lead acid battery
The lead acid battery has been widely applied as an inexpensive reliable high safety secondary battery for SLI (starting, lighting and ignition) and used in UPS, aircraft and boats with virtually unlimited applications also existing in non-motive situations. Have been used for over 140 year, they are reliable, mature secondary batteries, globally manufactured and therefore a widely understood technology. But will a laptop run on a sealed lead acid battery?
The answer is yes. One of my friends has a laptop running off a SLA using a car adaptor – the Asus Eee 701 can be picked up & held easily with just two fingers, but the 24kg 70Ah SLA needs two hands to pick it up. The batteries are too weight so they don’t go travelling anywhere. Fortunately, he bought that laptop just for use at home.
Without connecting to the power station, the laptop can only be used for at most 3-4 hours, general 1-2 hours. The Li-ion rechargeable battery can not last for a long time. So laptop needs a new battery. It has the trade off between carrying around a cheap but heavy sealed lead acid (SLA) battery, and buying a expensive but light Li-ion battery. My friend had conducted an experiment.
Figuring his old laptop was pretty heavy already, and having an unused SLA available, re-purposing it for his laptop wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Using a boost converter he built out of a custom dip MAX668, he is able to output the necessary 5 amps required. An MC 34161 voltage monitor chip is planned for future revisions, but he’s currently running it just fine.
The lead acid battery has longer life but much weight than rechargeable battery. So this seems not that portable, but it is a great idea which is worth to research for much better solution for its inconvenience. I wish laptops can run on a sealed lead acid battery in the future which is able to be used for longer time if there is not a direct power supply.
Source: www.leoch.com
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