On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 2:30 PM, Dwayne Reid wrote: > Good day to all. > > I understand that Dell has some form of communications with their > laptop AC adapters so that the laptop knows what it is dealing > with. Does anyone have any idea of how that is done? > > The reason I ask is that I want to steal some power from the same AC > adapter that runs my laptop. That is a Dell XPS M170 laptop using a > PA-13 adapter. > > I want to grab whatever voltage is coming out of that adapter and > feed it to a pair of little DC-DC buck convertors to get the supplies > I need for another project. In the old days, I'd simply grab that DC > and feed it into my cards. These will be used at the same time as > the laptop (that is: while the laptop is on and running from the AC adapter). How much current do you need? Can you just borrow some 5V from USB? -- Mark Rages, Engineer Midwest Telecine LLC markrages@midwesttelecine.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist