Tips for powering an in-car mini PC for reading emails and web surfing

Is your racecar a Subaru Justy?

Thanks - I did try a laptop at Sonoma, unfortunately it didn't last. something about charging the battery didn't work well. I tried to get a usb lighter adapter that was ~70w and use that to charge the laptop via usb-c.

It seemed to indicate charge in the paddock, though once on the track somehow the charge didn't work well. My assumption was dirty dirty power.

I've heard that there were devices such as this to help regulate so I thought I'd check here to see what you experts were doing.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TX … U&th=1

If the PC can accept power via USB, I was thinking something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore- … Y&th=1

You want something that supports pass-through charging, so what it can charge itself and other devices at the same time.  Most will stop charging other devices when it starts charging itself.  There were mixed reviews on if it worked with this specific device.

Just a word of warning, even if you've never had issues, I've seen TONS of SD cards get corrupted this way. I'm jealous you've gotten this lucky.

If you've never backed that SD card up I would definitely clone it just in case.

Most UPS's and inverters are simulated square wave, most devices are fine but things such as PCs can/will overheat or fail prematurely when run off a square wave. If you are powering off AC to a power adapter (back to DC), I'm not sure if this would be an issue but almost everything runs hotter off a square wave. If I were to guess, it was probably cutting out last time because your overheating... all the extra heat generated in the cabin on the track+extended period of use = more heat. Even my GoPro has had this issue... seems fine in the paddock but will sometimes have issues on track, I've noticed it'll be hot to the touch whenever it stops working.

Last time you tried a USB adapter, I think it may just be an issue with the cigarette connection... they aren't the most reliable way to transfer sustained current in a high vibration environment. Have you tried something like this that hardwires in? https://www.amazon.com/Boostable-Charge … &psc=1

If you want to go the AC-powered route... we use this true sine wave inverter in our suburban (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q6 … &psc=1) and it works great. It looks out of stock now but they're all the same. We use it in the truck when we have a long tow (like when we towed half-way across the US for the HPR 24hr) and powered a laptop, blu ray player, and TV for entertainment on the back 3 rows and it didn't skip a beat.