Hi,
I'm new to the forum and not too knowledgeable about electronics (hence the question) so I'll be as detailed as I can, but bear with me....
I have an electric cooler box which is powered from the cars 12volt DC power supply. The thing is I want to be able to just plug it in to a normal mains outlet as I work away a lot during the year with a group of people and we like to have cold beers waiting for us back at the the crappy hotels we stay in.
Anyway, I also have an old laptop power supply with the connector at the end snapped off so I thought this would be ideal to use. The problem is it only goes as low as 15volts DC.
I thought of just buying a DC transformer that you can buy from anywhere for a a couple of pounds but they only provide 500mA or 1000mA of current. The electric cooler box is rated at 60watts (and if my maths are correct that means it requires something like 5 to 6 amps???) so that wasn't feasible.
The laptop power supply has a peak output of 77 watts so should be able to cope with the cooler box.
My question is what can I solder in between the socket for the cooler to plug into and the laptop power supply. I thought of just looking up a resistor(s) to knock it down from 15 to 12 volts but a friend suggested that because of the high current they'd probably burn out very quickly.
As I said, I'm not very knowledgeable about electronics so would appreciate the help. I'm just hoping to nip into Maplins, get the part(s) I need, come home and solder them together.
Thanks in advance.