MacBook Pro power on airlines

On Aug 25, 2008, at 3:24 AM, Ben Rubinstein wrote:

> I used to have a little EmPower adapter for my old PowerBook, and
> thought it
> pretty fantastic. Now I have an MBP, and Continental fly tiny
> little planes
> across the Atlantic; but they do at least have regular (US) 110v
> power sockets
> under the seats (up to row 16 in economy).
>
> The problem is, I haven't been able to make them work - on three
> attempts so
> far. On yesterday's flight the light over the socket was green; I
> plugged in
> and got a light on the magsafe plug; the power item on the menubar
> cycled a
> bit but settled down back on battery, the light on the magsafe plug
> went out,
> and system profiler reported that the MBP was not plugged in on
> external
> power. When I went to unplug the power adapter, I noted that the
> light over
> the power socket was now red.
>
> So what's up? Is it that these sockets can't handle the 85W MBP
> adapter?
> Would I have done better with a 65W MacBook adapter (which I often
> use at home
> and does my MBP just fine). Or is it just the usual roulette wheel
> of how
> often kit on aircrafts work?
>
> TIA for any insight,

On at least two American Airlines flights, one trans-Atlantic from LHR
to California last October, my Apple airline connector worked just
fine and I used the MBP nearly 8 hours without difficulty. I believe
it is not a 110v but something else. The MacBookPro Intel stayed
charged to a point, but did not "charge-up" or stay at 100% as I would
expect from a regular house-current 110v AC outlet.

On a later domestic flight, I noticed that the online seat selection
chart for that flight showed where such plugs were in coach and was
able to select a seat accordingly.

Dave

Like most things in life you get what you pay for.  I find lots of those plugs are out of date for the new computer adapters voltage wise.  But first class, or business class they work.  I use to fly coach overseas but now pay the extra for business class if I am on the computer.  You also might do what I did too...extra batteries charged up and even got a battery charger for my Mac Powerbook from small dog. Dr. Donald Bryant

Hi Ben,

I suspect you will find that you need to have the MacBook Pro on and running when you connect to the Power Outlet as the current drawn when you plug in the adapter without the MBP running seems to be enough to trip the circuit breakers. At least that is what happened to me the last time I tried (on a 747 in business) with the MBP turned off.

I have also seen notices which indicate that the power outlets will not provide enough juice to charge your laptop battery -- just enough to keep the charge at whatever amount you have when you plug in.

I have not fully tested this myself so I'm making some assumptions here . . .

John Wolff

Hamilton, NZ

On 26/8/08 23:48, John_Wolff wrote:
> I suspect you will find that you need to have the MacBook Pro on and running when you connect to the Power Outlet as the current drawn when you plug in the adapter without the MBP running seems to be enough to trip the circuit breakers. At least that is what happened to me the last time I tried (on a 747 in business) with the MBP turned off.
>
> I have also seen notices which indicate that the power outlets will not provide enough juice to charge your laptop battery -- just enough to keep the charge at whatever amount you have when you plug in.
>
> I have not fully tested this myself so I'm making some assumptions here . . .


Ah, that's a good tip! And the red light under the seat sounds like a tripped
circuit breaker. And it would correspond with the experience of the MBP
briefly claiming power before cycling back to battery (though that may have
been because I had it plugged in in the lounge, asleep, before I boarded).
Unfortunately I'm reading this having just made the return trip, so I'll have
to wait to test the suggestion.

Certainly Continental have always (including when they were on EmPower) said
that they didn't recharge the batteries, so I wasn't expecting that.

Thanks for your help,

- Ben