powering laptop without charger?

[Chevron]

Hi all,

So i have 2 old IBM Thinkpad's taking up space and gathering dust.
I am thinking of stripping these down to use in 2 small bar tops or one bar top and one jukebox.

I don't have any working chargers for them.
i can power them up with a universal charger off my main laptop but cant use it for th projects

As always i try to get things done as cheap as possible so buying new chargers is out of the question.

does anyone know of a away of wiring up laptops to be powered with out an actual charger ?
maybe with a transformer plug to bring voltage down from 240v to 12v/19v.

anyone done something like this before?

[MonMotha]

Depending on the era, it may refuse to work with something that doesn't ID itself as a compatible charger.  Otherwise, a "laptop charger" is really nothing more than what you describe: a 12/19V (as appropriate) power supply.  The actual battery charging is handled by the circuitry in the laptop.

An off-brand Thinkpad compatible charger shouldn't be that expensive.  I don't think you'll find a suitable generic power brick much cheaper, and a proper "charger" would be plug-and-play.  They have to put out a decent amount of power.  60W is about the minimum you'll get away with, and most will want more than that should they decide/need to charge the battery.  This is a lot more power than your typical "wall wart" puts out.

[stripe4]

An off-brand Thinkpad compatible charger shouldn't be that expensive.

It isn't. When the original charger's cable started losing contact, I bought the cheapest off-brand ThinkPad charger I could find on eBay but it lasted only a year or so. Later I popped both chargers open and the difference in components used in a genuine and an off-brand charger were staggering. Made me wonder whether the off-brand charger wasn't actually damaging the laptop.

So I would rather recommend getting a used genuine charger rather than a cheap knockoff.

[kahlid74]

My experience with this is as long as you qualify the Voltage and Amperage requirements, any charger will do pending the plug fits.  Personally I have a Dell LCD monitor (20 inch) that busted but it's charger works on every dell laptop I have ever come across (newer generation).  If you want to do it on the cheapest I would identify the V/A reqs and then ebay that looking for adapters that qualify.  Then get one on the cheap and rock on.