Thanks to all for the replies
A 4 kw battery is going to cost you about £3000; a
900W generator will cost you £150.
OK, it looks like a battery is well out of my budget then. As for a generator, that's a great idea, thanks. Though I hate the idea of making any kind of noise (I like peace and quiet plus I do music) - and running a long cable isn't practical. Also not keen on the idea of having to buy fuel, or moving parts. But this is an idea I'll keep at the back of my mind, thanks!
Could be possible with an array of 12V deep cycle leisure batteries. They come in a variety of capacities, but the 100aH ish ones are not too expensive, which in theory would provide up to 1.2kWh, but I think realistically you'd be looking at a bit less than that. 5-6 of those + a 500-600W inverter may work. Not very practical, definitely not portable, and you still need a reasonable charging solution.
OK, I would be hopeless building anything myself, so it would more or less have to be a ready-made product - which probably means it's not going to happen.
Yeah, I had originally thought about using a laptop with my keyboard and mouse plugged into it. But then I started to anticipate problems…
1. First, I wouldn't want to use any screen other than my monitor, which doesn't have thunderbolt, so that would mean getting some kind of adapter.
2. And then most laptop batteries wouldn't power my monitor for very long.
3. I also have several hard drives to house somewhere, so that's further complication.
4. Plus, I'd ideally love to connect my amp/speakers too.
5. I do a lot of GPU-intensive work and heard that a lot of laptop users are using external GPUs now because they don't naturally fit inside laptops.
So overall I figured the simplest and neatest solution was just to power my PC with a big battery… I guess not now though! Maybe I'll have to revert to the laptop idea.
Is there a particular reason you need to do this? Seems a very weird requirement if you ask me.
OK I guess I'd better explain, in case anyone is interested (this may be boring)! There are three reasons actually:
1. One reason is that I spend a lot of my time working at home, but my flat is really horrible and dark, so I'd love to have days out, drive somewhere nice and do my work somewhere beautiful. That's surely not so weird is it?
2. This one's more of a fantasy, but I've always dreamt of living somewhere remote, far away from other people, surrounded by nature, like in a caravan. I could manage to cook without AC power, but the main problem would be how to run my PC.
3. Finally (and this is actually my main reason): whether or not anyone believes me, I have always been highly sensitive to electrical fields. For instance, I have never been able to use telephones because I get a terrible headache within minutes of putting a phone near my head. I've been this way since I was a small boy and it was years later that I tried to work out what was causing my pain and eventually hypothesised that it could be EMFs. I bought an EMF meter and immediately saw a direct correlation between the pain I had been experiencing and the field strength where it reaches my body, so for me EMFs seem like the most logical explanation.
It's not just telephones, almost all electrical devices have this effect on me, depending on proximity. Generally, holding anything electrical in my hands will give me some degree of discomfort. Mobiles and laptops are really bad and I can't touch them. I've always been fine using a normal PC, keyboard and mouse, presumably as the fields are very low.
Anyway, I recently moved into a flat, and it must have really bad wiring because it has the biggest magnetic fields I've ever seen, in every room. (Moving out as soon as I can.) I noticed that every time I use my computer here I get horrible pain in my hands (have it right now) so I tested my keyboard and mouse and the fields are higher than 4 MG / 0.4 µT, which exceeds the government safety recommendations in several countries.
So I figured that if I can run my PC on some kind of battery, there's no connection with the circuitry in the house and no high EMFs, and no hand pain!
I was hesitant to disclose my sensitivity because admitting to having disability/pain all my life when using electrical devices usually causes people to ridicule and hate me. Sadly, I am used to the abuse now.
