6 V

[ken taplin]

I recently read someones account of a trip and they mentioned carrying a 12V battery pack to charge their laptop and iphone. I don't have a laptop or iphone but I have dicovered that my cell phone and GPS are quite happy being charged at 6V.

[Doc]

That's good information to know.

[dpledger]

Newer cell phones operate at 5.7 volts; some older ones are at 3.7 Consequently 6V is very suitable for charging them, actually  more so than 12. Chargers for a particular phone will output an appropriate voltage, and the input is less significant. As long as the input voltage is higher than the intended output, it will generally work.

[Barnum]

this works with a positive ground system ?

[dpledger]

Interesting point about positive ground-suppose that would depend on how the charger is set up. I was thinking of adapting the plug to reverse the polarity so it would be the expected for the charger. Might not be necessary for some more sophisticated ones, but wouldn't hurt.

[ken taplin]

If you get a power point from a marine supply store they have two wires (case not grounded) so it's a simple matter to wire it what ever polarity you want. Also that makes a handy place to plug in a maintainence charger if you have one that plugs into a power point.