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+--- Thread: MacBook Energy economy (/thread-2420.html)
- vov - August 23, 2013
Hi Friends!
We plan very long sailing passage, when every Ah important :-)
Do You have any idea how reduce MacBook Pro power consumption?
Yes we have solar and wind charger, but it still for 24x7 it not enough.
I test - if I remove battery it's reduce power for 1A, it's good, but may be anybody has another idea?
regards, Vladimir
- Jade - August 31, 2013
I have an extra Mac PowerBook battery on board. By the early afternoon, the house batteries are usually recharged so I recharge both laptop batteries with the excess solar panel amps then. That gives me about 8 hours of unplugged runtime overnight.
I have also replaced all light bulbs with LEDs and use the masthead trilight while sailing instead of the side and stern running lights which reduces the draw significantly.
- antipole - October 4, 2013
Vov...
I upgraded from a 13" plastic MacBook to a 15" MacBook Pro with Retina display, which also has a SSD. Not cheap, I know. The overall power consumption of this new system is quite a bit less than my old MacBook.
Also, if I am feeling short on power I turn down the screen brightness. I also have a useful extension gfxCardStatus which indicates which graphics process the MacBook Pro is using. I have found some applications use the external graphics processor and quitting any such unnecessary applications switches the system back to the internal graphics processor, reducing power consumption.
regards
- vov - October 4, 2013
I have both:
MacBook Pro 13" - now without battery installed as Navigation
MacBook 15" Retina
Both with SSD, 8 and 16Gb RAM
Power consumption of first at least 30% less than other (up to 50%), but still 3-3,5A
I have installed solar panels and wind-charger - but it's not enough for all tasks on sailing boat (radio, AIS, all sensors, light and etc).
This is not a problem on coastal trip, but start be serious on long passages.