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How do you charge your wall tablet?

Robert Sexton 5 years ago in Browsers Tablets Phones • updated by Kevin1 5 years ago • 1

Hey all, I'm looking for insight on how to charge my tablet (Fire HD 10) that I have mounted on my wall. It is mounted on the wall next to my Ecobee3 thermostat on the second floor of my house. Currently, I have a 10' USB extension cable running up inside the wall powered by a 18W usb charger. The USB extension hooks up to the micro USB cable that comes through the wall and plugs into the tablet. Unfortunately, this is not enough power to keep the tablet charged while running Fully Kiosk with a Dakboard screensaver. Brightness is set at ~20%. Is this just an issue with the tablet not being able to charge as fast as it uses power, or am I not delivering enough power? Is it a distance or cable issue? Should I get a 10ft 3.1 micro USB cable and see if that would deliver enough power? 10ft would be enough to reach the tablet

To expand further, should I look at replacing the USB cable with something else? The thermostat has 24VAC, but I would rather not mess with that wiring. Additionally, I'm not sure running a loose 120V cable in the wall would be good either. Would there be other low voltage options? TIA!

Fire
+1
Kevin1 5 years ago

Interesting... my Fire 8 had been running fine for about a year but in the past month or so the battery has been draining.  Unfortunately I used an old charger with cable attached.  I've been meaning to replace that cable with a regular USB so I can switch to a more powerful (probably?) wall charger.

For your questions... DC voltage (USB) is more susceptible to loss across length of wire, and cheap cables with really thin conductors would add to that, as will poor connections between each cable.  With the distances you mention, I don't know that this would be a factor or not.  Sorry :(  If you can, minimize the length and connections: replace the USB extension with an AC extension cord to get charger closer to the tablet, then a good USB charging cable through the wall into tablet.  You can get a USB meter for around $10 to help investigate voltage loss and power usage too... https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Multimeter-Multifunctional-Electrical-Capacity/dp/B00J3JSEG6

[edit] found this, your 10' extension could be culprit if it has thin wires....

https://goughlui.com/2014/10/01/usb-cable-resistance-why-your-phonetablet-might-be-charging-slow/

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