Can I charge my laptop using a power bank using my laptop charger?

Question

I have a Dell XPS-1530 laptop with a 9 cell battery. It's working fine but I was just wondering whether I could use a power connector or something to plug my laptop charger's 3 pin plug into another connector and to a USB power bank connector? as Laptop power banks are very expensive and are rarely available as compared to smartphone/tablet power banks with same capacity in MilliAmpereHour. :(

Solution

Smartphone/tablet power banks are not designed to charge laptops. You need to go with a laptop power bank or an UPS.

Even if you manage to get something to connect your laptop charger's 3 pin plug into another connector which will connect it to a USB power bank connector, there is no way to deliver the power to the laptops battery using the power bank's USB port. The laptop's USB port do not delivery power to its battery, in fact quite the opposite happens. The laptop's USB ports delivers power to the devices which are connected to it to keep them functioning. The charging circuit of a laptop's battery are only connected to the charging port of a laptop.

Comments

[Ben Voigt]

mAh is not a good unit for comparison. The actual unit of capacity is mWh, which includes the effect of voltage. Laptop power banks have higher voltage output, and therefore significantly higher real capacity even though mAh are the same.

[LucKy]

well, You completely misunderstond what I am asking. I also know that a laptop's USB port doesn't have the capability to intake power. it gives out power. I am not asking to charge my laptop using USB. my 3 pin charger works fine and I am trying to find a way to use that with a USB power bank. please try reading the question again and let me know if it's not clear. I will explain it in more detail. Thanks You very much for your reply :) Really appreciate it :)

[LucKy]

ie, I am trying to find out if it's feasible to use a connector in between. as maybe their might be voltage difference or something else. I don't want to fry anything up :D

[Ayan]

So you are basically trying to connect your power bank's USB power out to your laptop's charger and then connect this setup to your laptop's charging port, right?

[LucKy]

yes. power banks's USB connects with 3 pin of the charger and then the charging pin of my charger goes into the charging port of the laptop :) do you know if it's possible? Thank You :)

[Ayan]

That is not feasible. Laptop chargers takes AC input then converts it to DC output which is feed into the laptop. The power banks do the same thing its output is DC. So the problem is the output from your power bank which is DC will be feed into the AC input of your charger. Now there are ways to convert DC to AC and vice versa but it is not so easy. You will need to match your chargers input which is 100-240V/~2.5A 50-60Hz by converting the DC output from your power bank.

[Nikita Kipriyanov]

@Ayan switching power supply could easily work from either AC or DC without problems. The first stage in there is a lowpass filter (filtering spikes), then diode bridge. You could provide diode bridge with AC or DC input of any polarity and it will output DC of fixed polarity. So I expect any ordinary laptop power supply to work from DC if that has proper voltage (which is quite wide range for a typical power supply, like 100-230V).

[Ayan]

@NikitaKipriyanov yes that is one of the main problems getting the output from a power bank which typically delivers around 5V to 100-230V level. And secondly you are right about the low pass filter and bridge rectifier concept. But there is a reason why manufactures specifically mentions AC as the input and not DC. If the chargers were capable of taking DC input, it should have been mentioned along side their AC input rating.

[Ayan]

Dell XPS-1530 charger outputs 19.5V/4.62A thats around 90W of power. While a typical power bank outputs around 5V/2A of power thats around 10W of power. So you can clearly see the difference in the amount of power from from both the sources. The AC - DC converter was actually not suggested by me. I just mentioned it as it was necessary for me to explain the OP how to connect the power bank's DC output to the AC input of the laptop's charger. Because the OP actually wants to connect the output of the power bank with the input of the laptop's charger.

[Ayan]

To verify the above mentioned power outputs, please go through these links. Power output of Dell XPS-1530 charger and a typical Power Bank.