iPad battery depleting even when hooked up?

CC268

CC268

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CC268
So I can't seem to figure out why my iPad mini 4 battery is draining even when hooked up to the plane via USB charger. Even if I have the iPad in airplane mode it still drains.

Here is the charger I have:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01A4ZGLZ8/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And I have a Apple certified lightning cable...

Maybe I just need to get an external battery and keep it on the side pouch and use that to charge instead?
 
Same thing here running Foreflight. I expect it has something to do with the maximum rated output of the 5 volt USB outlet. Mine drains very slowly so not an issue even on a long XC as long as I start with the battery well charged.
 
Try the combo (pad/charger/cable) in your car, and see if it charges. If so, it's definitely an amperage problem or connection issue.
I've used a battery about the size of a Snickers bar, the Anker Astro. It has about the same capacity as the iPad mini, so it should about double your time.
We had this discussion on our CT forum:
http://ctflier.com/index.php?/topic/1658-why-wont-my-ipad-charge/#comment-13347
 
With Foreflight active, my iPad Mini 4 drains -- slowly -- while connected to the charging cable plugged into my C-172's cigarette lighter (28V). The drain is slow enough that starting with a full charge would last a whole day of flying. The iPhone 6, on the other hand, will charge up to 100% and stay there.

That's another reason I use the iPhone on the yokemount for basic magenta-line-following, and just open up the iPad when needed for additional information, while the iPhone is still doing its thing.
 
I bought a better belkin mixit cable and a scosche dual 2.4 USB and it keeps sustains my ipad4 equally charged as long as brightness is around 85-90%. Any more and it slowly discharges. None of the apple cords could keep up. I'll typically dim it to 50% or so during times I don't need to rely on it 100%.

Oh and that is with wifi on and data enabled if I forget to turn it off. Airplane mode drops consumption quite a bit though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
One thing to note is that the maximum charge rate is governed by the temperature of the battery. With the screen on, the heat from that limits the rate of charge of the battery. Add something that consumes much processor, like ForeFlight, and you will have a battery that discharges even when hooked to good power.
 
Sounds stupid but next time you have this problem unplug your lightning cable, flip it over and reinsert it the other way. They're supposed to work either direction but I've had this problem and this has fixed it before.
 
Thanks for the various feedback guys
 
Full brightness, heavy CPU load, etc... for hours... yep, seen it.

Make sure you're using a quality USB cigar charger (like an Anker PowerDrive 2 or similar) that can supply 2.4 amps.

Or, alternatively a "smart" lithium battery pack that will do the same. (Watch on those, too. Many only have one high current USB port, and the rest are standard current. Depends on what you buy. I have one that has a 2.1A port, some midrange rate, and a third standard rate. They're labeled.)

Standard USB charge rate is 0.5A... and amazingly there's still junk out there that provides only the original base amperage rating. Don't bother even buying those nowadays. The good quality higher amperage devices are down around $10.
 
Do you periodically close all of your open apps? My wife was complaining about her battery and when I asked her this question, she said "how do you do that" (ie, no, she never closed apps). I have a Soduku game that if I leave it open will consume power and slow down the ithing.

Do you have a battery monitor that tells you which app is consuming the most power? I got rid of an app that used the gps to track all of my steps. It was neat to look at the path I had taken throughout the day. It looked like one of those old Family Circus cartoons that showed the kids on their way home from school. But it was a power hog.

Or your battery could be dying. That happened to me too. Replacing the battery fixed it that time.
 
Also - don't use offbrand cables with an iPad. Many of them will only charge at iPhone currents, and will not meet iPad requirements.
 
Mine always drains slowly too. After a whole day of flying cross country and running Foreflight, it gets down to 60%. A few time where I'm flying/camping and have no access to 110v, I'll close down foreflight and just follow a heading on the dg for awhile...that will charge it back up some.
I've tried actual apple chords and chargers, etc, but it still drains.
 
I used to have this problem with my iPad 2 and an off-brand cable. Turned out the cheap cable was breaking at the business end, and would frequently lose electrical contact from routine putting the iPad aside and picking it up again. I eventually got rid of it and use an Apple cable now, that so far appears intact. Even on long XC trips the iPad stays at or very close to 100%.

Sounds like the iPad Mini's charging system is a little different though, so YMMV.
 
Another possibility is a failing cable. I have had cables with a short that will charge some of the time but not all of the time.

Oops, looks like Azure and I were thinking alike at the same time...
 
With a good cable and 2 amp plug/charger the iPad mini should retain a net positive charge running pretty much any app. Bright screen and lots of processing and it will be a trickle but you should still see a net "climb" in battery %.
 
denverpilot said:
Full brightness, heavy CPU load, etc... for hours... yep, seen it.

Make sure you're using a quality USB cigar charger (like an Anker PowerDrive 2 or similar) that can supply 2.4 amps.

Or, alternatively a "smart" lithium battery pack that will do the same. (Watch on those, too. Many only have one high current USB port, and the rest are standard current. Depends on what you buy. I have one that has a 2.1A port, some midrange rate, and a third standard rate. They're labeled.)

Standard USB charge rate is 0.5A... and amazingly there's still junk out there that provides only the original base amperage rating. Don't bother even buying those nowadays. The good quality higher amperage devices are down around $10.
Click to expand...

I linked the charger I have in the OP...shouldn't that be enough?
 
JOhnH said:
Do you periodically close all of your open apps? My wife was complaining about her battery and when I asked her this question, she said "how do you do that" (ie, no, she never closed apps). I have a Soduku game that if I leave it open will consume power and slow down the ithing.

Do you have a battery monitor that tells you which app is consuming the most power? I got rid of an app that used the gps to track all of my steps. It was neat to look at the path I had taken throughout the day. It looked like one of those old Family Circus cartoons that showed the kids on their way home from school. But it was a power hog.

Or your battery could be dying. That happened to me too. Replacing the battery fixed it that time.
Click to expand...

Yes all the apps are closed, but maybe I ought to try out a battery monitor. I have very few apps on my iPad. It is a newish iPad so it shouldn't be the battery.
 
Definitely not the cable as it is the nicest cable Anker sells and is Apple certified or whatever..
 
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arkvet said:
With a good cable and 2 amp plug/charger the iPad mini should retain a net positive charge running pretty much any app. Bright screen and lots of processing and it will be a trickle but you should still see a net "climb" in battery %.
Click to expand...

Idk...maybe the ouput for the port in my plane just doesn't put out enough juice? I was at 30% battery after a 3 hour flight, even hooked up to the plane. That doesn't seem right. I do leave cellular on at first to open my flight plan through Foreflight but then go over to airplane mode after
 
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CC268 said:
Definitely not the cable as it is the nicest cable Anker sells and is Apple certified or whatever..
Click to expand...

As long as it it "certified" for the higher iPad wattage and not just for the iPhone

Off brand cables and chargers...even "certified" ones have alway been my weak link when it comes to charging issues.
 
Shawn said:
As long as it it "certified" for the higher iPad wattage and not just for the iPhone

Off brand cables and chargers...even "certified" ones have alway been my weak link when it comes to charging issues.
Click to expand...

I will try my Apple cable that came with the iPad and see if that solves the issue
 
Obviously your plane is not airworthy since it can't even power the MISSION CRITICAL iJunk.
 
Pilawt said:
With Foreflight active, my iPad Mini 4 drains -- slowly -- while connected to the charging cable plugged into my C-172's cigarette lighter (28V). The drain is slow enough that starting with a full charge would last a whole day of flying. The iPhone 6, on the other hand, will charge up to 100% and stay there.

That's another reason I use the iPhone on the yokemount for basic magenta-line-following, and just open up the iPad when needed for additional information, while the iPhone is still doing its thing.
Click to expand...

Hmm interesting...I could use my iPhone on a yoke mount and I have an iPad kneeboard (that I have never used) I could use. Not sure I would like this though when I start flying IFR and want the approach plates right in front of me
 
KyleT said:
I bought a better belkin mixit cable and a scosche dual 2.4 USB and it keeps sustains my ipad4 equally charged as long as brightness is around 85-90%. Any more and it slowly discharges. None of the apple cords could keep up. I'll typically dim it to 50% or so during times I don't need to rely on it 100%.

Oh and that is with wifi on and data enabled if I forget to turn it off. Airplane mode drops consumption quite a bit though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I could dry dropping the brightness down a bit as well...
 
CC268 said:
I linked the charger I have in the OP...shouldn't that be enough?
Click to expand...

Yeah. It should.

CC268 said:
Idk...maybe the ouput for the port in my plane just doesn't put out enough juice? I was at 30% battery after a 3 hour flight, even hooked up to the plane. That doesn't seem right. I do leave cellular on at first to open my flight plan through Foreflight but then go over to airplane mode after
Click to expand...

I was going to ask if you turn cellular off. That'll suck down power like there's no tomorrow.

It's interesting. I have not seen mine depleting as rapidly as yours, but with ForeFlight doing its thing and Bluetooth to the lightspeed Zulu 2 for the audio alerts, even plugged into a known good high speed (2.1A) charging source and cable, as well as wifi to the stratux, it'll go down like 10% an hour on my iPad mini 3. Full brightness also. Change any of that or turn off some stuff and it'll hold its own but usually not go up.

When I started out with a low battery I can cheat of course... plan the flight with VOR (or whatever is in the panel) nav, and after departing busy airspace with the toys on, I just kill the iPad and fly the panel and turn it back on somewhere near the destination. It is never primary for nav anyway... so I don't treat it as such.

Oh... here's one I ran into a while back. The charging USB cigar lighter thing was slightly loose in the cigar plug in the airplane. It was actually turning on and off with flight vibration fairly rapidly.... but that showed up as the charge indicator and the ding going off fairly regularly once. In fact, we've found that the car chargers don't seat well in the airplane socket, but a little dual plug extender cable does. So we plug the charger into that and that thing never moves. It just fits the cigar plug better.

Of course there are folks making USB ports that you can remove the cigar plug altogether now, and the screw pattern for the mounts fits the cigar plug screws on a Cessna perfectly... so maybe one of these days we'll just have our mechanic sign off on swapping one of those in. Cigar plugs weren't designed to do what we all do with them nowadays, anyway.
 
In my experience an iPad using internal GPS will deplete the battery when a low power USB is used, but not when the correct USB output is used.
 
Last edited:
Stewartb said:
In my experience an iPad using internal GPS will deplete the battery when a low power USB is used, but not when the correct USB output is used.
Click to expand...

Definitely. It's the fact that he has a decent charger and the right cable and he should be charging at the high rate, and he's still seeing drop offs of tens of percent, that's problematic for him right now, I think.

I can get a mini 3 to stay steady or drop very slowly using high rate charge and leaving everything going full tilt boogie, but not lose tens of percent in a short-ish flight like he's seeing.

I have one of those little inline combo voltmeters and ammeters for USB for troubleshooting this sort of silliness with laptops and what not... after numerous people couldn't figure out which ports on their work laptops were the high current ones, or had bad cables, or whatever.

Those are handy. Only about $10 on Amazon, too.

Helped me find a cable that claimed to be Apple MFI compliant that wasn't, also. And a couple of cables that had gone intermittent.

I have one cable here that I like a lot just looking at the style and construction. Has the nylon armored cable, and metal ends, and looks for all the world to be a quality cable. If you use it with an iPad charger known to do 2.1A, the silly metal connectors actually get warm. The manufacturer cheaped out on the wire gauge inside the cable and it makes a nice resistor.

Some cables just suck. Even when they look good. I test any new ones now with the ammeter. (Could also just measure their resistance, but the little inline gadget is a lot more convenient.)
 
Well I will keep after it and troubleshooting and see how it is on my next flights. Thanks for all the tips, suggestions, etc.
 
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