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Panel mounted USB chargers (merged)

Slight update after reading my post on this subject before, running SD on the iPad 2 with that external battery, the power was draining about 1% every 40 minutes, and although that isn't quite "sustaining" it, its pretty good :-)

http://www.euroga.org/forums/maintenance-avionics/787-ipad-charging

PiperArcher wrote:

I have one of these, and it works a treat - certainly enough to support many hours of flight time with an iPad running. And much cheaper too.

Just ordered one!

YPJT, United Arab Emirates

PiperArcher

Thanks for your advice on those batteries.

I looked at the one that you have. According to Amazon it would only charge my iPad 3 to 80%. It's a 12000mah battery

I looked around a bit more on Amazon and came across similar Anker batteries. They seem to have very good and active customer service (from the review on Amazon) but again were only promising 80% batter charge to my iPad 3.

I then found that Anker also had a 15000mah battery. It was £8 more expensive, but promised a full charge for my iPad 3. Their customer service rep on Amazon was offering a full refund or replacement to anyone who wasn't happy with anything that they bought from them, so I decided to give it a try.

With the battery fully charged, it charged my iPad 3 from 1% to 100%! Result! I'm delighted with that.

The iPad 3 on full brightness will still drain power while charging from the battery, but it's slowed enough not to be an issue. And any break between flights, I can fully recharge my iPad 3.

So while I didn't end up getting the one you pointed me towards, you did point me in the right direction. So thanks again for that!

This is the one that I got.

Colm

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Your welcome, and I am glad you found one that is good enough to sustain the battery long enough for flight. I have an iPad 2, so I dont think I had the 80% issue, though it's curious (to a complete electrophobe like me), why that is.

This follows from a discussion here on USB charging of tablets which need 2A.

I would be careful with the cheap car-type chargers.

They are likely to generate a lot of interference, because to drop down from 12-28V to 5V, at 2A, a switch-mode regulator is an absolute must, and one built into such a small space is not going to have much (or any) filtering.

You could find some VHF frequencies unusable….

When I get around to doing this, I will use a decent quality DC-DC converter, adjustable so it can be set to 5.3V, and put some big filtering components before and after it. For a 28V aircraft, the TRACO TEN 20-4811WIR is one example

They do these in 9-36V and 18-75V models which would be suitable for a 12V or a 24V aircraft, respectively. These are 20W so you get nearly 4A, so you can have two genuine 2A outputs.

I cannot see how this popular product can have adequate filtering – the TSO approval notwithstanding

This is a better one (not dirt cheap at $700)

but I don’t know if it can be set to the 5.3V required for an increasing number of USB-charged devices.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

You could find some VHF frequencies unusable….

I never had any VHF interference problem with cheap car style plugs.

LSZK, Switzerland

I heard of two instances of interference. One on this forum, and another one from a French FB “friend” who experienced total loss of VHF comms due to a car-type charger.

Last Edited by Aviathor at 11 Mar 17:31
LFPT, LFPN

I never had any VHF interference problem with cheap car style plugs.

Me neither, I use an in-line cigar lighter powered by the accessory plug on the panel, with a car type 5V USB power plug installed in that, powering a long cable. It works fine, must be my quality Narco radios

My friend in his homebuild found, that IPad charger when charging the almoust full loaded I pad opened the squelsh of VFR MGM radio. So he could not transmit but receive yes.

Matti
EFHV

I had a cheap adapter break and cause a short in the aircraft system. This is why I can clearly understand that someone doesn’t want those things in their electrical system, especially when flying IFR. But I think before investing some hundred euros just for a panel mount USB socket, I’d build a nice battery pack that fires the devices for a couple of hours. LiFePo4 have nice capacities for the weight and can be charged fast if necessary. Plus, they can be used in more than one aircraft – which is kinda difficult with panel mount devices.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany
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