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Panel mounted USB chargers (merged)

If your plane has a 12V electrical system you could consider installing an additional 12V power plug somewhere on the panel, versus a USB plug. The 12V plug will never be obsolete. Mine is AFAIK unapproved, installed by a previous owner, but nobody except me knows it’s not OEM. This is an advantage of having an aircraft type with which nobody is familiar.

My cable from the panel mounted 12V power plug to the USB power supply Velcro’d inside the glove box is routed in an inconspicuous way – glovebox walls sometimes have small holes. The aluminum box is BTW a Faraday cage which apparently shields the RF radiated by an inexpensive USB power supply. I have no problems in that regard anyway. The cable from the power supply to my iPad mount is likewise inconspicuous: it goes from the right side of the panel to the left side by being inserted between the panel overlay and glare shield. The mount on the left is in front of an air vent, which helps cooling. Meanwhile my Stratus box is nearby the glovebox, Velcro’d on top of the glare shield directly above. Both get 2 Amps, which is enough to hold the iPad Mini at 100% charge while running Foreflight and getting its position from the Stratus box. The cables are the sturdiest I could find, aren’t in the way or obvious and 90 degree plugs are used where it makes the cable routing cleaner.

All except the 12V power plug can be removed in a minute or so when necessary and I think the total cost was under $50 including cables.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 21 Sep 13:12

Silvaire wrote:

My automotive quality USB power supply sits inside the planes metal glovebox, velcro’d in place and powered by a permanent, fused and accessible 12V accessory plug on the panel.

I’m currently using an Anker USB “cigar lighter” solution, which works great from a power perspective, but the location of the outlet is on the center console on the TB. This is ideal for a passenger charging a mobile device, but less ideal for semi-permanently mounting something on the panel. The cable has to run across either your lap or the throttle quadrant.

EHRD, Netherlands

I have an iPad Mini 5 mounted in a 3d printed tray which incorporates a two-speed fan from an old Dell server. Actually the fan has 3 speeds but I only enabled the low and mid speeds with a 3-way toggle switch (from RS). When USB charging at 2.4 A on a hot day, the fan does help the iPad to maintain full screen brightness and 100% charge.

For USB charging I disembowel one of these, solder a couple of wires on, run them to a breaker, and mount the resulting USB outlet in a variety of 3d printed housings (for instance, for a 2.5” instrument hole or a custom housing which fits inside a box which contains all the PAW gubbins:

I think I got the idea from Kitplanes or the EAA magazine. If anyone wants my STL files, or STEP or SLDPRT files so that you can re-mix your own version, just let me know by PM.

Last Edited by Jacko at 20 Sep 22:37
Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

My post was only very slightly tongue in cheek. I posted about this here and my experience is that these tablets will let you down right when you need them.

Not just Apple ones but at a given price point all tablets are almost identical internally. There is no magical solution for the electronic challenges. It is just that Apple have continued to develop faster tablets while e.g. Samsung have stopped and their tablets run much less hot as a result. I’ve decided that my Imap Mini 5 cannot be relied on for anything important, unless I mount it in a fan cooled base, which is pretty difficult to find room for in the TB20.

And the charging issue will be multiplied at higher charging currents. For example it is obvious that my S10E gets way hotter when charging from a 2A mains charger than when charging from a wireless base (the former is about 5x faster).

So installing a fast charger in the plane will only push the device closer to a shutdown.

Probably OK if you have the fan cooled base.

Regarding backwards compatibility, surely all USB devices must be compatible with the basic 500mA dumb mode (notwithstanding the fact that many draw more than that so will never be actually charging – like the Ipad Mini 5 which at 500mA does just about hold > 90% over a number of hours) and all should work from a 2A charger which is quite an old standard now (with the two “standards” for current negotiation – see previous posts on the usual implementation which I have also used in USB charger designs). If a device cannot “net charge” at 2A then it must be dissipating > 10W and that will make any tablet bloody hot.

As a guide, a piece of 3mm aluminium, 30cm x 30cm, vertically mounted in free air, has a thermal resistance to ambient of 1C/W and I’d say that is 5x to 10x better than any tablet in actual use, so taking 5x you are looking at a delta T of 50C which will prob100 shut down any tablet that is actually drawing 10W.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

An ipad shuts down pretty quickly anytime in the summer with sunshine on it when charging at 0.5A. Your chances of it running when charging at 2A plus are close to nil. The concept is intended for locating the nearest macdonalds

This must have something to do with where you place your iPad or how the canopy of the TB20 is built. I have never for several years had an overtemp condition with my iPad mini 5 (WiFi), which I keep plugged into a charger in flight.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

An ipad shuts down pretty quickly anytime in the summer with sunshine on it when charging at 0.5A. Your chances of it running when charging at 2A plus are close to nil.

Well, in a high wing plane, where the high wing gives shadow on the iPad, I recharge an iPad at 18W + running the screen at max luminance just fine.

Last Edited by lionel at 20 Sep 12:22
ELLX

My automotive quality USB power supply sits inside the planes metal glovebox, velcro’d in place and powered by a permanent, fused and accessible 12V accessory plug on the panel. Cost next to nothing, cables are mostly hidden away, works well to power my iPad Mini and Stratus 2 (ADS-B IN) full time, and it’s replaceable in a few minutes with no paperwork. I’ve been using it for several years without issue but when my portables are updated someday I can make up something new to replace everything outboard of the 12V accessory plug, similarly at next to no cost.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 20 Sep 13:52

I have the portable version, runs pilotaware (which needs a good supply for the raspberry to boot) and has been faultless over several years!

EGNS, Other

An ipad shuts down pretty quickly anytime in the summer with sunshine on it when charging at 0.5A. Your chances of it running when charging at 2A plus are close to nil. The concept is intended for locating the nearest macdonalds

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

dublinpilot wrote:

How long before you have some ports permanently installed in the aircraft that are hopelessly outdated as our devices change to some new standard (USB D Nano 4.0 with superfast xenon charging anyone)?

I fully agree, which is why I’m not going to pay crazy prices for one. At this price, and installed in an instrument hole, it’s basically disposable.

EHRD, Netherlands
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