Active Cooling for iPad

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RussellJ

Pre-Flight
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Dec 16, 2017
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64
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South Carolina
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RussellJ
My iPad overheated one day. Never a good thing when relying on it for charts and whatnot. So I started looking for a mount that had a fan too keep it cool. Whew! Those things are expensive. I hate losing foreflight but I also hate paying too much for something.

Time to make some adjustments to my RAM mount.

I grabbed my Dremel tool and hollowed out the unused ball mounting pad on the back of the unit, added a $6 fan from Amazon and... no more overheating issues!20200817_100533.jpg 20200817_100517.jpg
 
Love these types of solutions. I have glare and heat issues here in south Florida. I think this will be a nice little project next time I have some down time. Did the fan already come with the USB-A connection for power?
 
farangutan said:
Love these types of solutions. I have glare and heat issues here in south Florida. I think this will be a nice little project next time I have some down time. Did the fan already come with the USB-A connection for power?
Click to expand...
Nope. I scavenged the plug and cord from an old phone charger.
 
My quick-and-dirty solution, which isn't nearly as elegant or functional as Russell's, is to stick a couple of pencils behind my iPad when it's mounted to my kneeboard, allowing for a tiny bit of passive air circulation, then when overheating seems imminent anyway, I fold a paper towel to be slightly smaller than the screen, dampen it with water, and place it directly on the screen. Sure, it obscures the screen while it acts as a wonderful heat sink, but you can be pretty certain the iPad will still be on each time you take the paper towel off. I'm careful to keep the paper towel damp, not wet, so I don't have to worry about water getting into the bezel.
 
The primary cause of your cooling issue was the decision to put the IPad in a yoke mount.
 
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My IPad overheats occasionally but it is not really a big deal for me. I have two IPads and use the second is a backup. If it overheats, I swap IPads and put the hot one in front of my floor vent of my Warrior. It takes about two minutes to cool it down for another restart. Foreflight allows you to have app on two IPads and an IPhone under one subscription.
 
If your iPad keeps overheating, I suggest looking out the window instead of in your lap more. :skeptical:
 
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