Customer Reviews

Black & Decker CPI100B 100 Watt Power To Go Cordless AC/USB Power Supply

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Hi, I was considering buying this product, but I estimated how much the battery would last first. Here is a method to avoid you a headache.

First check the power consumed by your laptop AC adapter or any device.You can get an aproximate value by multiplying the output voltage ny the output amperage.

For example a typical value would de around 90 W for a regular laptop, 40 W for a netbook and 5 W for a cell phone charger.

The battery on this device is 4 Ah (means Amperes per hour), I guess that this is a 12 V battery. This means that this device gives 4 x 12 = 48 Watts-h (Watts per hour). The inverter is not 100% efficient, lets say its 90% efficient. Therefore after the inverter at 115 Volts we would have approximately 48 * 0.9 = 43 Watts-h. This is the real capacity of the device.

Therefore, for a laptop (a) or netbook (b) or cell phone charger (c):
a) 90 Watts adapter you will get approximately 43 Watts-h / 90 W = 0.47 hour = 20 min.

b) 40 Watts adapter you will get approximately 43 Watts-h / 40 W = 1.08 hour = 64 min.

c) 5 Watts cell phone charger = 43 Watts-h / 5 = 8.5 hours (as advertised)

Use this to calculate your own device
c) X Watts device you will get 43 Watts-h / X W = Y hour = Y*60 min

Hope this helps, please note that this is my OPTIMISTIC estimation of the time it will run a laptop

I thought this power supply did better than I expected. Running a Dell D610 under normal use, I got about 50 minutes with. Given that it has 4Mah of storage, that is better than I could have hoped for. I would caution anyone that thinks they should get 9 hours of computer battery life to read the specs and understand what the power requirements of a computer are. There isn't an easily portable product on the market that can do that. A gas generator would but they don't allow those on airplane for some reason??? All kidding aside, one issue that anyone using this with a laptop should realize is that it won't automatically kick the computer into an energy saving mode like it does when you switch to your internal battery so the power draw will be higher and the battery won't last as long even though it is rated pretty close to the same capacity as a normal laptop battery. Anyway, it does well charging my gadgets which is the real reason I bought it anyway. It is worth spending the extra money on this instead of the smaller one because it will give a full charge to the palm, camera battery and the cell phone at the same time.

Looking that the three versions of this 10W, 20W, 100W, I found the technical details on the B+D site helpful:

The 10W has a 700mAh battery, the 20W has a 2Ah battery, and this Model # CPI100B the 100W a 4Ah battery. It looks like they are progressively heavier, but I can't find accurate figures on weight or dimensions.

Note that the tech specs imply that the 100W model has two USB ports as compared to the single USB port in the lower models.

Input - 9.6 VDC, 15A
Output - 115V AC 60Hz-100W for 5 minutes, 80W continuous
Battery - 4Ah, NiMH
USB - 5V DC (350 mA) each x 2
- *Approximate talk time based on average results using commonly used cell phones. Results may vary depending on features/cell phone used

Length:: 2:20 Mins

Although the packaging states "powers and re-charges" and shows a picture of a laptop along phones, ipods, and clearly states "Laptops and more" on front of package, this device will not power laptops.

Use this device to charge your iPod, Zune, portable DVD player, boombox, whatever you need. It's only 100 Watts, so be cautious trying to power up a laptop - I wouldn't recommend it. Living in the Midwest, this thing comes in very handy during power outages!
For small personal electronics, this thing is great. I work construction, and my Zune won't last all day. I dont always have access to electricity, so this portable charger is a godsend. (At just 100 watts, it obviously will not operate my 6 amp circular saw!) Unlike many other inverters, this charges from regular household power, not your car. You can charge your device from this inverter via either a three prong household type plug in or a USB port. It's light enough to take on a plane (be prepared to explain to the TSA bozo what it is).
Its lightweight for current technology, and will undoubtedly will get smaller and more powerful over time. Really a cool thing!

I used this product to power four strings of 60 LED Christmas lights on my tandem bike for two hours between recharging. The power supply is a perfect combination of rechargeable batteries and an inverter to provide regular A/C current. All in a neat little package. Also provides DC current via USB outlets.

I've uploaded two photos of the bike here.

I am a professional wedding DJ, and I purchased this product in order to power my wireless speakers and mixer for outdoor weddings. When it arrived at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, I immediately plugged it in, as the instructions advised that the item would require a long charge period.

The next day, at around 10 a.m., I unplugged the unit and tried it out on my transmitter. The power supply blinked on for a half a second, then went out. Thinking that it perhaps needed a little more time on the charger, I plugged it back in, whereupon it started over from an empty charge.

I called B&D and spoke with Duane in their customer service department, who advised me that they had discontinued this product some time ago due to similar problems. If you get one of these faulty units, there is no customer support available from the manufacturer. I'm currently awaiting a refund through Amazon for this and another faulty product.

I think folks who are giving it a bad rating need to read the specs on this device or call Black & Decker BEFORE buying. This device is NOT meant to run a laptop on. At all. This device will power or charge small devices like an iPod, Cell phone, etc. You can recharge digital camera batteries with it using their charger, etc. That's it. One of the photos shows it with an iBook, but when I called Black & Decker they said that really this device is not meant to run laptops - but it will recharge a laptop battery if you have an external charger or if the laptop is small and the volt requirements allow you to recharge it directly.

It's good for that purpose. If the power goes out, you can still recharge your cell phone, iPod, camera or whatever in that category. The power storage in it is not rated to run laptops, and it doesn't hold enough power to do it. Likewise, it might actually damage a laptop if you try to use it for that purpose. So I give it a good rating if you use it for what it was made for. Please read the specs before trying to use it for something it's not designed to do.

This product has been discontinued by Black and Decker for years and the items Amazon is offering do not work. The batteries are too old and will not hold a charge. Mine was DOA and returned but still no refund.

This charger advertises laptop charging capability, but it added less than half an hour to my laptop's battery life. I'm sure the 9 hour claim is more applicable to cell phones and small gadgets. This product was easy to use and carry (dense but not heavy).