220 to 110 converter

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When I was a student and I used to drive around in an old clunker, I always used to carry a set of jumper leads in the car with me.

Jumper leads, in case you didn’t know, a pair of heavy duty insulated copper wires that I used to link one car’s flat battery to another vehicles good battery. The other charge from the good battery has to travel the length of wire between the two vehicles and, with any luck, they will give a boost to the flat battery to take over the engine and get the car started.

But sometimes, the booster cables would not be able to transfer enough power to the car with a flat battery. This could be because any one of the four spring battery clips was making poor contact with a battery terminal, all because the supply voltage dropped too much along the long length of jumper wire.

These days, however, you can buy a cheap jump-starter battery pack which combines a small spare battery in a convenient plastic case together with two short jumper leads and two spring terminals.

The much shorter length of cable ensures that voltage drop is minimized, and having two spring clip terminals instead of four spring clips actually halves your chances of a bad connection someplace. So these portable jump-start battery packs work better than the old jumper leads ever did. They are much more reliable.

You can buy a jump-start battery pack at any auto-supply store or in the auto-supplies section of any supermarket. These battery packs are normally supplied with a small wal-wart type power supply that can charge the battery from your household 110 (or 220) volt A/C mains supply, plus a 12 volt DC charge cable that can charge the pack off your car’s cigarette lighter socket while the engine is running.

Maybe Santa could put one in your stocking this Christmas!

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The Laptop’s LCD screen has officially filed an immediate and irrevocable resignation. Replacing it with a new LCD screen is impractical as the costs will be almost equal to buying a new computer. That’s absurd, so what will you do? Turn the laptop to a desktop by installing an external monitor! Here’s how.

Get a desktop computer monitor along with a power cord. Typically, monitors come with a complete computer set of computers so direct-to-socket monitor power cords are quite uncommon. However, you can buy such gadget at a local computer store often for less than five dollars.

This allows you to plug the monitor into a power socket just like what you would with a regular TV. Be careful about the voltage ratings though. Check if the power outlet’s voltage matches your monitor’s. In the US, the typical output voltage of power outlets is around 110-120 volts. This number matters a lot since most of Asian-made monitors work at about 220 volts.

See if you will need to use some special transformers or adapters. However, most modern monitors work at a wide range of voltages that typically cover 110 to 240 Volts. But then, be careful by exercising due diligence.

Now that you have them ready, unplug everything first. Here is a step-by-step sub-guide on what to do next:

Plug the external monitor’s power cord to a power outlet.
Plug the external monitor’s video input cord to a port at the side of the clunky laptop. The cord’s end can either be plugged to a USB port or that dime-sized, trapezoid-shaped port with lots of needles. Just chuck it into the right spot. There is virtually no risk of plugging it into the wrong socket because if it you’re doing wrong, the ends won’t fit anyway. This is the time when we all love geeks.
Turn the monitor on, and turn the PC on afterwards. Voila!

Notes:

If you really are in an emergency, you also have the option to use an old computer chassis with a power supply that has a functioning output for monitors. It doesn’t matter if that computer doesn’t work anymore as long as the monitor the power outlet for the monitor at the back of the chassis is still operational. Plug the monitor’s power cord into the back, plug the chassis power cord to a regular power outlet and then go with step B and C. Voila!