Thinkpads Forum

I've not paid attention to the iGo charger tips 'technology', but some people I work with swear by them. For cell phones and PDAs.

Is there an iGo tip that will make a, IBM T41 Power Adapter work with a T61?

Has anyone used them/it, and does it work?

XCoalMiner wrote:snip...Is there an iGo tip that will make a, IBM T41 Power Adapter work with a T61?....snip

Even if there is, the power requirements of both machines are different.

ryengineer wrote:

XCoalMiner wrote:snip...Is there an iGo tip that will make a, IBM T41 Power Adapter work with a T61?....snip

Even if there is, the power requirements of both machines are different.

Shall I take that to mean, even if one is sold, do not use it?

In searching, I saw some posts asking more or less the same question I did in the original post, but the posts are from 2006/07. And I was hoping something newer and better has come out in the interim.

The tip is not going to make T41's 72 watt (16V * 4.5A) adapter into T61's 90 watt (20V * 4.5A), you need an adapter from iGo in addition to the tip.

Tpyically an adapter is designed with enough power to simultaneously power the machine at full power, and charge the battery at full speed.

No vendor really discusses these things with the end customer, so the only to find out what will happen if you use something "different" is to try it and see what fries. (oops.)

Fires, because the 72 watt adapter MIGHT work perfectly well, assuming you were not using your computer at full power (not using the spindles, not charging a battery, not using full screen brightness, etc.). Or, the systems might be smart enough to supply full power to the computer and charge the battery at a reduced rate. Or, the power supply might overheat and blow an internal breaker (good) or fuse (worse). One assumes there IS some thermal protection in it, so it doesn't just burn out or up.

It's a bit of a shame that the major vendors don't support hobbyist/enthusiast technical questions about their equipment. That's how you breed the next generation of engineers--and clever gizmos from the community. But they're all paranoid about liability, and tight about expenses like letting engineers waste time talking on the phone.

I suppose the way to look into this would be to stick a "Kill-a-watt" or other AC wattmeter into the wall, plug the power adapter into that, and see just how much power the computer was using in what configuration. And then, if it was reliably sucking less than 70W...go ahead and find a new tip for the old adapter.

Me, I'm still trying to figure out why they use a 20V supply when the battery is only 12.x volts to start with. It would be so much simpler if a 14.4V ("engine alternator") supply could be used with laptops. I guess I'll have to take hostages to get a hard answer to something like that.<G>