Hey #electronics folks - I've been vaguely curious about something for many years.
Why are so many laptop power supplies 19 volts? What's so special about 19 when everything around a PC is generally 12 or 5? Something to do with battery charge rates, or something else?
@mike
5 x 3.7 = 18.5?
Common voltage regulators used to max volt in the 20-30 volt range so it could be related to parts ratings.
Some countries legislate that the maximum voltage allowed where a consumer might contact it is somewhere around 30Volts. I could be to duck under some regulatory requirement for some major market.
@daniel @Steveg58 @mike I'm not really sure it has much to do with batteries, looking at https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Power_Connector#barrel_connector.2C_slim (and around) and correlating it with https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Batteries#Nicd I see many NiCd/NiMh models with 19/20 V adapters.