Car adapter for Dell laptop

[spleenboy]

I can't seem to find an official car power adapter for my Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop. Can anyone recommend a third-party one? The official Dell ones are quite expensive (?90+) and the third-party ones worryingly cheap, so I want to make sure it's not going to be crap.

Thanks in advance

[VR46]

why not get something like this, mine cost ?20 from Maplin last Xmas

http://specialreserve.co.uk/12V-Cigarette-Lighte_3065_r.html

[spleenboy]

Wow - that's impressive. Does it work well? I may go for this...

[VR46]

same as using plug indoors, tiny bit of noise from it's inbuilt fan, and obviously does drain from the battery if used for a long time without the car running, apart from that great, also very handy if you go camping etc.

[spleenboy]

Quality. Thanks!

[spleenboy]

Got one of these in the end:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=36316&doy=21m7

The 300w/24v version. Plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, it'll do 150w - is this safe to use with my laptop? To get the full 300w, I'll need to route it to my car battery.

I'm a complete dunce when it comes to this sort of thing, so any advice to safe me frying my laptop would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[VR46]

yep it's fine, the Dell power lead/transformer will just take the power it needs, what you've bought is same as a house plug basically.

[spleenboy]

Thanks again; was worried it would supply too much/not enough power.

[spleenboy]

Just a quickie - the inverter manual asks that I earth it by connecting either the positive or negative to a connection on it's box. I've been using it for a while without this, what's the worst that could happen?