About chargers and cheap cables.

[MorAase]

I tried to charge my Ipad with my Iphone 4s charger. After 9 hours, the Ipad was only at 54 proc

A) is the cable itself the same ? I was using a 5 meter cable bought at ebay it costed two dollars.

B) the charger itself. On long travels, what charger can I bring along to charge both my Iphone and Ipad quickly. Is there any magical superfast chargers out there to fit my devices?

 

[Kaykaykay]

The iPhone charger delivers only half the juice of an iPad charger. On top of that, many cheap cables further slow charging.

Best bet: Use the charger that came with your iPad or buy an iPad-specific charger. I recommend the Griffin PowerBlock:

The fastest way to charge your iPad « The Griffin Technology Blog

If you bring one charger, bring the iPad one, which can charge both iPad and iPhone without problem.

 

[KevinJS]

iPhone chargers do not supply enough power to charge an iPad at the normal rate. The length of cable is not the issue. It's the box that plugs into the wall. The iPad one is bigger and supplies the correct amount of power

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

 

[KevinJS]

Btw. You can charge an iPhone with an iPad charger without doing any damage. I do it all the time.

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[Kaykaykay]

iPhone chargers do not supply enough power to charge an iPad at the normal rate. The length of cable is not the issue. It's the box that plugs into the wall. The iPad one is bigger and supplies the correct amount of power

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

It's not the length of the cable, but the quality. If you search there are complaints of cheap cords not charging properly even with the OEM wall wart.

 

[MorAase]

The problem is the distance wall outlet and my coach )

As the outlets are scarce I need longer cables than the supplied with Ipad.

At least 3 meters, or ten feet. Where do I get such a long cable in usable quality?

Btw:
The problem is a big one when I travel, usually the hotelrooms have only one free for the guests to use.

 

[Kaykaykay]

The problem is the distance wall outlet and my coach )

As the outlets are scarce I need longer cables than the supplied with Ipad.

At least 3 meters, or ten feet. Where do I get such a long cable in usable quality?

Btw:
The problem is a big one when I travel, usually the hotelrooms have only one free for the guests to use.

Use an extension cord, plug in your wall wart.

Or buy a quality cable. They can be expensive and still not work, though. I don't know if there's an easy way to figure out which will work best. I used a (long) brand name cable with my Griffin PowerBlock and the OEM wall wart, and I timed it against the Apple cord. Charging time was much slower. So I got an extension cord instead of trying to find a speedy cable.

 

[KevinJS]

I would tend to use a good quality iPad cable with a cheap extension cable, something along the lines of those used for Christmas tree lights. You should be able to find one skinny enough to coil up and stick in whatever you use to carry your iPad and accessories.

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

 

[KevinJS]

Perhaps Kay and myself should travel to different threads.

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

 

[MorAase]

Maybe OT;
The extensions cords sold in Norway will NOT fit any wall outlet in Europa. They are so clmusy and heavy, not suitable to have in your coach

The plug on the Ipad Iphone WILL indeed fit everywhere in Europa, it is a small "Eu plug"
Except UK, they have an even bigger three pole plug.

So I really need to bring along longer cables and pref fewer chargers ( for iphon, pad, gps, camera etc) when travel in Europa.


PS,
Norway is not part of EUrope, EU.

 

[Kaykaykay]

I don't know if there's a Norway Apple store online, but the U.S. one carries 10-foot charging cables, though they get mixed reviews. You might want to search and check out the options.

Also, googling for something like "10 foot ipad cable" will bring up a bunch of results, which you might care to explore. Of course, you might be able to do a more useful search in Norwegian (and maybe in metric?), so that you can more conveniently buy in Norway.

 

[Mrinfo]

I was searching for information on iPad chargers. Yes, I bought some of mine from eBay, as well as the cables. There is a mixture of good and bad info on this topic. I want to explain my findings.
1) the iPad charger and cable always works.
2) some chargers that look like the Apple charger, and even say that they are designed by Apple, are not Apple products.
3) the IPad can tell what kind of charger you have. not by how much current it puts out, but by reading something in the charger.
How do I know this?
I bought a dongle that is sold by someone on eBay. It fools the IPad into thinking it is plugged into and Apple charger. If I plug the iPad into the charger all by itself, the iPad tells me that it is not and authorized charging device.
When I insert the dongle between the charger and the iPad, the charger charges fine, with no complaints.
I have used that dongle to charge my iPad from many non-Appple chargers. Removing it, always stops the charging and complains about not being and authorized charging device.
I am now searching eBay for more of those dongles, as the knock-off chargers from eBay all cause my iPads to complain, and not charge.
Having. A charger that does not supply 10 watts, would only slow the charging cycle down. Having a charger of the wrong voltage can cause damage.