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Working Toward a Universal Power Brick For Laptops
An anonymous reader links to PC Authority with some hopeful news about untangling a persistent annoyance for laptop users — namely, the myriad power supplies called for by laptop makers: "'On a PC, an ATX power supply for example will screw into certain mounting holes, have a maximum size and shape, and will take a standard 3-pin "kettle cord" for incoming power. If it complies with these standards, the PSU will be able to bolt into any manufacturer's ATX case.' Laptop design, on the other hand, involves cramming a PC into a tiny chassis, which usually has its own thermal design and power distribution requirements. This has led to the somewhat bizarre situation where every manufacturer has its own laptop power supply design. It now appears that some of the major players in laptops are getting together to work on a standardized laptop power supply design. Not only are big players involved, but the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has created a team to work on the power supply standard."
Its about fracking time.
Hey industry (Sony I am looking at you) repeat after me:
Open standards help EVERYBODY!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I want laptop internals to be standardized, which would help upgrades be much more bearable (and, in some cases, make them possible).
Living With a Nerd
It would be nice if they all standardized on a magsafe interface. Although I doubt it would happen, too expensive.
Regardless, this is great news. It would be very nice to have just 1 power brick for multiple devices.
At work we have a fleet of assorted laptops, and regularly have to go on a scrounge to find a power brick for someone who is visiting from another location who either left their brick at the other office/hotel/home/car and is running low on power
Or someone is issued a new laptop, and it only comes with one brick (which is semi-permanently tied to the docking station) and they need another for portable use. Why can't we use the one from their old laptop?
Even if it's the same manufacturer, the voltage or connector don't match. WTF?
If we need a second power brick, we don't reward the OEM with extra money. It's 3rd party for that (and usually cheaper too)
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Let's hope they come up with a connector that is robust yet small, tugs out under pressure, doesn't limit the minimum height of the laptop, and so on.
I doubt Apple will sign up, their connector already does all of the above. Now this Dell one here which meets none of them on the other hand is a good candidate for such a scheme.
Also - kill off the large bulky power supplies, and give us smaller, more convenient supplies. Oh, look, Apple are already doing that too.
I think the power supply on my netbook is nearly as big as the netbook itself. WHY OH WHY!!!
If every PC laptop uses the same plug, I would jump for joy. If it was an Apple style "magsafe" style connector I would get down on my knees and fellate each and every member of the standards committee. I've been griping for years now how the connector conspiracy is still going strong in the laptop space and what a pain it is to keep matching power cords to laptops.
Also, a standardized connector would let third parties come in and start making accessories and replacement bricks for a lot less than the highway robbery prices that the brand names charge.
Also, while they're at it, why not spec out a standarized battery compartment? Not everybody has to use it, but if all "regular size" laptops did, that would be a huge win. A standardized modular bay connector would be nice too. Not to mention a standardized docking adapter. It's like laptop manufacturers stopped caring about standardization after PCMCIA/PC-Card/Expresscard and have been more than willing to custom engineer everything every time. It's really annoying and the standardization efforts are long long overdue.
I read the internet for the articles.
Good luck getting Apple to play along. While I prefer their design, I doubt they'd even license out the spec to other manufacturers.
"a standard 3-pin "kettle cord" for incoming power."
Not for my Apple MacBook.
I understand the desire for a standard brick, but I do not want to give the magnetic connector on my MacBook.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Then we can just connect straight to car batteries.
Easy peasy charging in the car.
12V sealed lead acid motorcycle battery in your pocket for when the li-ion is failing after a year.
The broken-screen laptops we use as headless servers could have UPS for cheapness using old car batteries.
It would be awesome!
PleasePleasePlease!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
If you're making a standard, why not settle on a voltage level and stick with it? Adding a knob is just asking for people to set it wrong and fry their laptop. If you absolutely must have multiple voltages for some reason, then design the brick such that it automatically chooses the correct one. Plus a knob is a moving part, and will break.
I read the internet for the articles.
Those already exist, but you've completely missed the point. That's not a standard, that's one that can adjust to many standards. And if you handed one of those to someone and told them it was a standard laptop power supply that would work with any laptop, they'd probably do some pretty serious damage unless it happened to be set on the necessary settings for their current laptop.
Laptop makers have NO REASON to standardize.
The ideal consumer product is shitcanned at point of purchase by a delighted customer (toilet paper comes to mind).
Desktop PC form-factors made maintenance, part sourcing, and upgrading easy, but didn't help kill off old PCs.
Notebook makers OTOH can count on the failure of key components such as batteries to render their products "beyond economical repair". Combine that with low prices and crap build quality, and you have the recipe for repeat sales. (Good to foster performance upgrades, not so good for economy and ease of maintenance.)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If every PC laptop uses the same plug, I would jump for joy. If it was an Apple style "magsafe" style connector I would get down on my knees and fellate each and every member of the standards committee. I've been griping for years now how the connector conspiracy is still going strong in the laptop space and what a pain it is to keep matching power cords to laptops.
Ok, no on the blowjob thing; you don't know where those committee members have been.
The "magsafe" connector is better than anyone who hasn't used it realizes. Not only does it "break away" nicely and easily, but it also means you don't have to use any effort to plug the thing in. I just get the connector within an inch or so and the magnet pulls it into place. I've just dangled the cord near my MacBook Pro and it will snap into place by itself.
The strain relief on the Apple connectors sucks - it's basically nonexistent, so they can fail there, but if they fixed that (pretty easy) then it would be perfect.
Also, while they're at it, why not spec out a standarized battery compartment?
Because it's a silly idea. Even cars don't have standardized batteries. Ok, they do, but there are something like 20-30 different standardized car battery types.
Putting moderation advice in your
Here's a huge grain of salt:
Basically it's just four Taiwanese OEM manufacturers (Yes ASUS is just as much an OEM as a brand name) trying to lessen the cost of manufacture by making the laptop power supply a commodity item. While this would be a good thing for all involved, I wouldn't start rejoicing until Foxconn expresses an interest and of course Dell, Apple, Lenovo, etc.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You know.. Cell phone manufacturers were in the exact same camp. Until China decided no Cell phone could be sold in China without a Mini or Micro USB power adapter. Suddenly, darn near every cell phone now has one..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Yes because they tout, i.e. flaunt, the tickets.
Tout: advertize in strongly positive terms; "This product was touted as a revolutionary invention"
Tote: Lug: carry with difficulty; "You'll have to lug this suitcase"
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Micro-USB is not just about size, it's actually the official replacement for mini-USB. micro-USB is designed to handle more disconnect/reconnect cycles than mini-USB, so it's better even if your devices are large enough to not need micro-USB. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Mini_and_Micro
I also grumbled about replacing my mini-USB chargers, but at least it's standard-for-standard. I now have two connectors to deal with (some devices still on mini-USB, some devices on micro-USB) as opposed to a mess of proprietary connectors.
Twice now I've had IBM/Lenovo laptops that use the same connectors as their predecessors, yet have increased wattage requirements that make the old supplies risky to use. I remember when our office transitioned from 600's to T20's. So many people were re-using the plug-and-voltage-compatible supplies and burning out the power regulators on the system board that IT started putting bright green stickers on every machine warning you that you should only use the higher-power supplies.
Again, from T60 -> W500's... increased wattage requirements, same voltage and connector. While this one isn't burning out laptops, the older bricks run HOT.
SirWired
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There was an episode of the Simpsons called "Itchy and Scratchy Land", and from that episode, there was a map with an attraction named "Unnecessary Surgery Land".
Hence I coined the phrase UWS or "Unnecessary Work Syndrome" for things exactly like this, where every manufacturer spends thousands or even millions of dollars to come up with their own special version of say... the power brick.
I'm not sure if open source is appropriate all the time, but open standards are such a no-brainer, it hurts.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
That article says nothing about standardization. It indicates the power supplies have to meet certain efficiency standards. That's all.
The kettle leads are also rated to work at higher temperatures, which is one of the reasons you can got from kettle to pc, but not from pc to kettle.
Also, do you guys in the US have kettles? I'm sure I've read many times that your electricity is too weak to power a kettle , here in the UK we can get 3KW kettles which will boil a couple of litres of water in a minute or so.
I can't seem to find the "+1 Yiddish" mod. I guess that'll be added to the 3.0 discussion system.
I'm sure there's some technical reason that laptop makers keep increasing the voltages they use rather than increasing the available current at the old voltage - my current Dell wants 19. 5v, and my previous IBM wanted 20. But it really would be nice to have 12 volts again, so I could power the laptop from my car, or my portable car jump-starter battery, or from those 12-volt solar panels, as opposed to my current combination of 12Vdc-to-120Vac inverter and laptop power cord. You might want a surge protector in line, to avoid problems when you're starting you car, but you shouldn't need more than that.
Anybody know if we can get back to 12 volts?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks