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I invested in an Asus laptop for downloading and as a source for my music - From USB to spidif to DAC to amp.It sounds much better using battery power then the power supply.I would like more battery life-so was thinking of investing in a couple of craftmans 19.2V lithium batteries and charger and going that direction.Any opinions,information orideas would be appriciated.

Journeyman Geek
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Bob
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    It may be worth evaluating what part of your setup yields the "It sounds much better" aspect of operation. Any part of the system that is purely digital should not really be contributing to the "sounds better part". I bring this up because it may be possible to focus your battery usage on those portions of the system that fall in the analogue domain where it is more likely that battery operation offers the "improvement" that you have noted. This may turnout to be a better usage of the battery if it has to power a smaller portion of the system. – Michael Karas Oct 07 '12 at 07:42
  • See related: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/34745/choosing-power-supply-how-to-get-the-voltage-and-current-ratings – embedded.kyle Oct 08 '12 at 17:56

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The use of the power tool battery to run the laptop is certainly a feasible idea. You will have to look at the range of input voltage that is acceptable for the Asus laptop to operate correctly and then determine if the discharge voltage curve of the battery will stay within that usable range. It is also necessary to determine if the battery has the power delivery capacity to supply the current needed to operate the computer. You could use the rating of the Asus supplied AC changing adapter as a guide to what capacity of battery may be suitable.

The above discussion assumes that you are aiming to take the straightforward approach to power the laptop through its AC adapter charging port. Do note that this approach may not offer the highest efficiency of battery energy usage as there could be a double conversion going on inside the laptop power supply (i.e. from DC In to Internal Battery voltage and thence to the various computer DC voltages). It does require looking at the Asus laptop power supply schematic and architecture to see if this is the case or not.

Using an approach to substitute the power tool battery in place of the laptop's built-in battery is a much more complex task because you have to deal with the intricacy of how the cell stack is configured for load versus in the charging mode. Personally I would steer away from this approach due to the extra complexity even if it could lead to increased efficiency of energy usage.

Michael Karas
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