Does anyone have anything they personally use already to achieve this? I take road trips often and was looking for something before my Air arrives. I check the forums and google but just found out the airport charger(?) doesn't charge it and a bunch of links to no reviews or 1 review items on amazon that look outdated. This is the new 13" Air by the way.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Car Charging a 2011 13" Air?
- Thread starter MBAddict
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I personally use a power inverter.
I got mine at Walmart for $40 and it supplies more than 200w, which is more than I'd ever need. Considering the MacBook Air uses 45w, you could definitely find one with that much power for less.
It's great because I can use it to charge anything, including my iPhone via USB.
![Modified-Sine-Wave-75W.jpg]()
I got mine at Walmart for $40 and it supplies more than 200w, which is more than I'd ever need. Considering the MacBook Air uses 45w, you could definitely find one with that much power for less.
It's great because I can use it to charge anything, including my iPhone via USB.
I agree the power inverter is the best option because it is more versatile. Just make sure you turn off the power inverter BEFORE turning off your car. A few years back I forgot to do that and my car battery was dead when I tried to turn it on a few hours later. Although nowadays most newer cars probably have systems that do not let you use the lighter ports unless the car is on.
Power converters are very inefficient. Certainly the cheap ones. The need to go from 14v dc to 110/220v ac and then it needs to get back to the 18v dc.
The hypermac car charger I have just ups the voltage from 14v to 18v.
I have no idea how well available they are, but it's pretty good in use and economical (less fuell Consumption, less heath being produced) its just not as versatile as a 220 converter.
The hypermac car charger I have just ups the voltage from 14v to 18v.
I have no idea how well available they are, but it's pretty good in use and economical (less fuell Consumption, less heath being produced) its just not as versatile as a 220 converter.
45W is actually the output power of the MBA charger. You need to have enough power for the input power the charger requires. The specs are 100-240V 1A. That is higher than 45W... but still within the wattage spec of your 200W inverter.
The picture in your post shows a 75W inverter. That would not necessarily be enough to power the MBA charger.. It's been a while since I studied power... but assuming your inverter produces a sine wave, then RMS power would be 120*1/sqrt(2). However, if it is a triangular wave, then I think the RMS factor would be sort(3)... and if it was a square wave... then it would be Root (1)... or 120 watts. It's been 30 years for me... so I might be rusty.
/Jim
Last edited:
Has anyone got any experience of DC chargers, like this one:
http://tinyurl.com/3dqv8qw
I can't quite see the sense of converting to 240W AC and back again??
http://tinyurl.com/3dqv8qw
I can't quite see the sense of converting to 240W AC and back again??