iPad Cigarette Charger

pcorman

pcorman

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Phil Corman
If I plug my iPad cigarette charger into a 24V battery on my Mooney, is it ok with my iPad? or will I fry it
 
You can spend $18.95 plus $7.95 for shipping at Sportys or you can go to Amazon, eBay or many other places and get one for $5 . . . . most of them are 12-30v capable as well.
 
You'll also find varying qualities of cigar plugs in aircraft. Some chargers will just fall out of the ones made for actually lighting smoking materials in the pre-80s.

If you look carefully at the "power plugs" in modern cars, typically only one will actually work with a true cigar lighter and the others will block it slightly from making contact with the center pin by having a small ridge near the bottom.

This slight design change can play havok with using a car charger in an older aircraft. The vibration will have it falling out on the floor or making an intermittent connection.
 
denverpilot said:
If its not rated for 24-28VDC, yes.

They make them rated for that. Most, no.
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Phil,

Another vote for the Sporty's dual one. https://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/17215 it has two USB ports that both have enough oomph to charge the iPad, so you can plug a second iPad, iPhone, some other tablet, or whatever you want into it. I ordered two, and they've worked very well in the car and in the Mooney.

Unscientific observation: I've plugged a regular charger into a 28V outlet for a brief period, and while the battery did charge, it did NOT like that... It didn't hold a charge very well for a few charge cycles after that. It recovered, but it's certainly not something I'd do again, barring dire circumstances.

comanchepilot said:
You can spend $18.95 plus $7.95 for shipping at Sportys or you can go to Amazon, eBay or many other places and get one for $5 . . . . most of them are 12-30v capable as well.
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Interesting. When I bought 'em a couple weeks ago they were only $14.95, and I think shipping was free.

Whatever you do, make sure that the charger is capable of putting out 2.1 amps - Many/most of the USB car chargers do not, even the ones that say they're iPad-compatible. (Compatible, sure, I suppose, they just don't actually put out enough juice to charge the things... :rolleyes:) And DO NOT use one that's not specifically designed to handle a 28V system.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Whatever you do, make sure that the charger is capable of putting out 2.1 amps - Many/most of the USB car chargers do not, even the ones that say they're iPad-compatible. (Compatible, sure, I suppose, they just don't actually put out enough juice to charge the things... :rolleyes:) And DO NOT use one that's not specifically designed to handle a 28V system.
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I am skeptical that the Sporty's charger will output 2.1amps on both ports simultaneously, but it's hard to tell because Sporty's site is a bit short on the specifications for it. In any case, I doubt that the Sporty's charger provides enough extra value to justify what Sporty's is asking for it.

However, I can tell you that I have the Scosche charger mentioned earlier in this thread, which will supposedly output 2.1amps on one port, and 1.0amp on the other. It worked great for the iPad 1, but it will not charge the iPad 3 without the charger overheating and going into thermal shutdown. The Scosche also would not charge my wife's Nokia phone. Scosche did offer to replace it for me, but I would have to pay shipping, which irked me a little since I suspect the problem is in the design of the charger.

I ended up purchasing the MediaBridge charger also referenced earlier in this thread. So far, it charges the iPad 3 without an issue, and the design of its plug seems to fit and hold much better into DC power receptacles.


JKG
 
JGoodish said:
I am skeptical that the Sporty's charger will output 2.1amps on both ports simultaneously, but it's hard to tell because Sporty's site is a bit short on the specifications for it. In any case, I doubt that the Sporty's charger provides enough extra value to justify what Sporty's is asking for it.
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A device outputting 4.2A at 5VDC that is the small size of these things is going to get pretty warm.

One good transient will burn the traces right off their cheap little Chinese surface mount guts. ;)

And there's LOTS of evil transients in automotive electrical systems.
 
JGoodish said:
I am skeptical that the Sporty's charger will output 2.1amps on both ports simultaneously, but it's hard to tell because Sporty's site is a bit short on the specifications for it. In any case, I doubt that the Sporty's charger provides enough extra value to justify what Sporty's is asking for it.
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Well, I can tell you that it did in fact charge both my iPad and my Stratus while flying the Mooney. The Stratus started at about 80%, the iPad was only at 20% and change.

At current prices, I might have decided to buy only one. At the price I paid, I just grabbed two, probably because I'm sick of all the other car chargers that struggle just to hold a charge on the iPad.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Well, I can tell you that it did in fact charge both my iPad and my Stratus while flying the Mooney. The Stratus started at about 80%, the iPad was only at 20% and change.

At current prices, I might have decided to buy only one. At the price I paid, I just grabbed two, probably because I'm sick of all the other car chargers that struggle just to hold a charge on the iPad.
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Both the iPad and Stratus will still charge at less than 2.1amps, they just won't charge as quickly.

I suspect that the iPad 3 really sucks down the juice, though, because even Apple's wall charger (identical among iPad models) gets quite a bit warm when charging it.


JKG
 
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JGoodish said:
Both the iPad and Stratus will still charge at less than 2.1amps, they just won't charge as quickly.

I suspect that the iPad 3 really sucks down the juice, though, because even Apple's wall charger (identical among iPad models) gets quite a bit warm when charging it.
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Yep. In practice, anything less than a 2.1A charger is a "battery holding" device for mine, if the display is on. It won't discharge but if there's a charge rate, it's measured in 1% per hour or so.

Display off, it'll charge so slowly you'll go from nearly empty to 50% while you sleep. It won't make a full charge unless you start fuller and sleep in. ;)

The battery truly is massive considering the size of the device, though. I departed KAPA around 8AM and flew for 5 hours plus time on the ground at each stop to check weather and file, and never charged last weekend. Brightness was set about 50% up the slider.

It went dead an hour after I landed that evening. Never turned Cell off, WiFi off or anything. It was in full-tilt-boogie non-power-saving mode all day.

(I had my airplane 2.1A charger with me and a fully charged iPhone as backup. I wanted to see how it did in a full day's flying.)
 
This reminds me of a time, in the not so distant past, that my charger broke and I was too poor to purchase a charger for my Motorola cell phone. The battery went dead on me and there was a phone call I really wanted to make later that night.

So I quickly read up on the theory of charging a lithium ion battery and drove to work where there was a pretty decent variable voltage power supply. I then very carefully charged the battery manually using that power supply while closely monitoring the voltage and temperature of the battery through various means. With quite a bit of patience I was able to nearly full charge the battery and it worked great. I charged it every few days via that method until my next paycheck then bought a charger.

Oh the money I would have if I were as frugal now as I was then.
 
That's the charger I use...

http://www.pilotshop.com/lonestar-usb-power-convertor-plug-amps-p-11372.html

11-10454.jpg


I think it's FAA approved and comes with a pretty good surge / over-charge protection system...

You can download the technical brochure here:

http://www.lonestaraviation.com/Power-Adapter-USB-Socket.html

:)
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
$49.95?!? Yeow! And people were calling the Sporty's dual-port one ($18.95) expensive! :yikes:
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Yeah, I agree...pretty expensive.

But if your cheapo charger fries your fancy $800 Ipad, you'll regret not buying a decent charger with good over charging / surge protection... :D
 
Armageddon Aviator said:
Yeah, I agree...pretty expensive.

But if your cheapo charger fries your fancy $800 Ipad, you'll regret not buying a decent charger with good over charging / surge protection... :D
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So you've studied the internal circuitry and know the more expensive model has better design?

I seriously doubt it. Most of these things use identical charging chipsets for LiOn batteries. The liability risk is too high to design your own at $20 price points.

Bet you open it up and open Kent's up, they're identical.
 
denverpilot said:
So you've studied the internal circuitry and know the more expensive model has better design?

I seriously doubt it. Most of these things use identical charging chipsets for LiOn batteries. The liability risk is too high to design your own at $20 price points.

Bet you open it up and open Kent's up, they're identical.
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You might be right on this....:dunno:

I was able to download and study the circuitry diagram for the Lone Star charger - couldn't get that data for the other models I found...
 
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