Battery

Rugged laptop’s are designed to be used in mobile environments, power is a very important consideration when choosing your rugged laptop, below are listed some components to keep in mind:

AC Adapter
Rugged laptop, rugged tablet, rugged UMPC and rugged PDA’s come standard with an AC adapter for plugging into a wall socket. Tough Corp recommend considering buying an additional AC adapter in order to have one at work and one at home. Desktop docks for your rugged computer often do not come with an AC adapter as the rugged laptop manufacturer assumes you will use the ac adapter that came with your rugged computer.

Vehicle Power Adapter
Rugged laptop can operate from the power provided by a vehicle's battery. Usually a 12V DC vehicle power adapter, also known as a cigarette lighter adapter is used so you can charge the battery of your rugged laptop. The rugged laptop can also be connected directly to the vehicle's battery via the ignition circuit. It is highly recommended that a power protection device is used in between the rugged laptop and vehicle battery to avoid hard-shut downs and other issues. Larger trucks, forklifts, boats and other vehicles can have wider range DC  voltage such as 24V, 30V, 36V or some other voltage battery which would impact the version of vehicle adapter or DC charger to be ordered. Tough Corp now provide a wide range 12-23VDC charger standard to cover a wider range of vehicle that can be utilised to recharge your rugged laptops battery.

Batteries
Rugged laptops come with a battery. The battery is normally a Lithium-Ion type and can be recharged 200+ times before it can no longer hold a charge. Batteries need to be replaced every 1-3 years, depending on usage. The length of time that a charge will last varies greatly. The range is 2 hours to 10 hours depending on the battery, the rugged laptop and the usage.

Many users will purchase an additional battery with their Rugged Laptop. In many cases, an external battery charger is available to keep the additional battery charged up. Some of the ruggedized computers provided by Tough Corp offer an upgrade to a higher-capacity battery which will increase the operation time of your rugged laptop. Finally, some of our rugged laptops offer a media bay battery to allow the user to have two connected batteries at one time.

One other battery consideration for your rugged UMPC is whether a hot or warm swappable battery is required. This feature allows the user to swap batteries without powering off the rugged laptop and closing the application. This is normally accomplished by the computer having a small watch battery which will keep the rugged laptop running for a few minutes while the main battery is being replaced.

Tough Corp offer several battery support programs to enable organisations to fix their operational and total cost of ownership over a period of up to 5 years.  The Battery replacement program insures your fleet of rugged laptops has the power to complete your business objective.