iPad Charging Problems Solved Easily with This USB - iPad Article

Help my iPad display shows: "Not Charging!" Many people are complaining about the iPad charging issue when connected to your computer's USB ports. The general complaint I am hearing is from those who have connected their new iPad to the USB port on the computer and it will not charge while they are using the device!

The documentation for the iPad clearly shows that this device will charge with any USB port on your computer, be it a MAC or a PC, no problem. However, what is not clearly stated is that not every USB port can send the required amount of power that the iPad calls for in order to properly charge your new iPad while it is turned on. You can increase the chance that your USB hub can do the job by connecting to the fastest and newest computer you have, and also by using only a powered USB Hub. The non-powered hubs cannot deliver the same output power as one that has an external power pack connected to it.

One important thing to note is that the even the older style USB ports will charge your iPad when it is in sleep mode! To understand more fully what is going on here you need to step back and get into the basic design parameters of the technology behind the USB port. The wall plug power pack that connects to the iPad's USB port can supply a full 10 watts of charging power to the iPad whether it is awake or asleep. This is four times the available power of most common standard USB ports.

The wise thing to do if you are experiencing any issues with charging your new iPad is to just use the plug in power pack that came with your iPad. I am a firm believer that if there is a specific device that the engineers sent with my device in order for me to charge it then that is exactly what I will use.

Older standard speed USB ports are fairly limited in the amount of watts they can transmit. Older USB ports and hubs can only provide around 2.5 watts maximum. And the default at each connection without software override is 0.5 watts. The newer 3.0 High speed USB ports have more than enough available Watts to do the job since they have been jacked up to provide up to 900 milliamps or about 4.5 watts. Even some of the high powered 2.0 High speed ports can do the charging because specific charging software built into your device can tell the USB hub to send more power to the device. This is limited to the maximum power amount set by USB standards.

Many people think the only USB-A connection style they have is the flat rectangular shaped socket and plug that comes on their computer but there are really a number of optional plug shapes and sizes that are currently used. It is just that the original standard for USB was that rectangular shaped socket which we are all familiar with. You can also have external USB "hubs" which can be powered by an external power pack, or internally from your PC. The Hubs with external power can deliver full power of 500 mA to each USB port they have in comparison the PC powered hub can only deliver the maximum 500 mA total power to all of the ports available combined.

There are basically six USB port styles that most of us are familiar with, USB-A which is the most common USB port in computers, then the USB-B which is the small square plug with beveled corners that you usually see on the printer side of your USB-A cable. The Mini and Micro flavors are obviously much smaller and the micro is taking over first place as the predominant style USB connection in many portable devices. The micro is thinner and smaller so it takes up less space on your device allowing for newer devices to be thinner than ever before.

The power circuit side of your USB port is designed to only allow so many milliamps output per connected device. The measurement of milliamps is convertible to watts by the simple formula of Amps x Volts = Watts. In the case of milliamps they are a factor of one thousandth an amp. So it takes 1000 milliamps to equal one amp. In our USB power devices we are talking about just tiny fractions of an amp.

The USB standard is 5 volts DC no matter which connector or version standard the port is. The increments of power that a connected device can receive from the USB port are doled out in 100 milliamp increments. These increments are known as "unit loads" So knowing that the standard voltage will be 5 volts (give or take 0.25 volts) we can safely say that each unit load is going to be 100 mA therefore each unit load will deliver 0.5 watts to your connected device.

One example of a higher powered device would be the USB Rayovac® NiCad batter charger that I use for charging my camera batteries. It uses a computer USB port to recharge two AA or AAA batteries using up to 200 milliamps drawn from the USB port. The charging rate at 200 mA and at 5 volts DC is exactly 1.0 Amp.

Another example is the charging cable that came with my Blackberry phone which knows how much power to send to the phone because the Blackberry has software that controls the amount of juice it is asking for. In my home office there are probably more than 10 different USB connected devices that I use regularly. Some examples are; Kodak Easy Share camera, DXG Video camera, Inland multi memory card reader, USB to Micro SD card reader, Multiple USB flash drives, SanDisk MP3 Player, Blackberry Curve data cable and charging stand, Konica Minolta Color Laser Printer, two HP all in one printers, and more. I tend to take the two external USB hubs which I use for granted but they are always there allowing for "instant on" expansion of any USB based devices.

There are newer standards that are being implemented for "battery charging specifications" and these will make it so that the software and hardware will be able to deliver much higher wattages than ever. Some specs are going up to 9 Watts by shorting out and disabling the communications side of the USB port allowing all of the available energy to be sent into the plugged in device.

So in summary if you have the wall plug in charger for your new iPad, then use it. If you only have your PC's USB ports to use, then make sure it is on the newest computer that you can connect to. Also look at connecting directly to the computer and do not go through a non-powered external USB hub if you can avoid it. Lastly you can use the USB ports on almost any computer to charge up your new iPad if you can just be patient and wait to recharge it while it is in sleep mode. It will work just like many of us in that by morning it will be more than ready to go again!