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Gregintosh

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 29, 2008
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Chicago
I heard the 29w charger helps charge the 12.9 inch pro faster. I was wondering if it does the same for the 9.7 inch pro. Does anyone have experience with this?
 
Yeah a toasted battery. Coming from the world of hobby RC cars charging rates of Lithium batteries are very particular too fast too high of a current and you can swell the soft gel pack.
 
If I recall correctly the Apple ports on all their devices limit the current to the battery. I always plug my lightning to USB cable into an Anker 29W charger. I've never had any issues or noticed any battery heating. Heck. I charge my pencil with the same 29W adapter.
 
The 9.7 inch IPP only supports USB 2. The rapid charge feature requires USB 3, meaning it's only available on the 12.9 inch IPP.
 
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Yeah a toasted battery. Coming from the world of hobby RC cars charging rates of Lithium batteries are very particular too fast too high of a current and you can swell the soft gel pack.
Smart phones are a little more sophisticated. They're designed to only take in the highest wattage they can safely handle. Only problem with using the 29w brick with the 10" Pro is you're spending 75 usd on something that charges as well as the brick in the box.
 
My friend bought one of these today for his 12.9" iPP. It was awesome! REALLY fast charge... similar to an iPhone. I'll be picking one up this weekend for my 12.9".

If it doesn't work with the 9.7 that's a pretty huge bummer!
 
My friend bought one of these today for his 12.9" iPP. It was awesome! REALLY fast charge... similar to an iPhone. I'll be picking one up this weekend for my 12.9".

If it doesn't work with the 9.7 that's a pretty huge bummer!

it doesn't work with the 9.7! Sorry!
 
Well that's too bad. :-( I guess ill be saving some money on not getting the charger or cable then.
 
The 9.7 inch IPP only supports USB 2. The rapid charge feature requires USB 3, meaning it's only available on the 12.9 inch IPP.

I am curious as to the reasons for this.
Can you tell me where did you get this information from?
 
The 29W charger does work with the 9.7" Pro, but it won't use all of the available power. The charging circuit in the iPad will draw the maximum wattage it can handle, which I *think* is 12W (2.4A @ 5V).


Spot on. If you use all Apple original cables and chargers, regardless of what combination you use the device will draw its maximum power and charge as fast as it can safely.

The same is not necessarily true when using cheap unbranded cables/chargers. Caution is key with those as many don't include any of the filtering and overcharging protection that the Apple products (and good quality third party products) include.

The possibility of destroying your device with cheap charging equipment is a real one. As a rule of thumb for eBay and such. If it looks too good to be true, it is.
 
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As mentioned before, most devices only draw what they need. If you hook a 29w charger to ANY iPad or iPhone, the device will only draw what it was designed to draw. Nothing more. The batteries won't swell and explode just because a charger's output current is high. Voltage is the only concern.
 
Yeah a toasted battery. Coming from the world of hobby RC cars charging rates of Lithium batteries are very particular too fast too high of a current and you can swell the soft gel pack.
What were you charging at? 8C? Even at 29 watts, the ipad 9.7 pro's battery would be only charged around 1C. I've yet to kill any RC battery packs at 1C charging rate. I've charged them plenty of times safely at 4C without nary a hitch with a quality balancing charger like my Revolectrix... Swelling packs are usually from poor quality cells, leaving them 100% charged for days at high temps, charging while hot, or using a cheap charger. Apple uses high quality lithium cells...
 
The 29W charger does work with the 9.7" Pro, but it won't use all of the available power. The charging circuit in the iPad will draw the maximum wattage it can handle, which I *think* is 12W (2.4A @ 5V).

Correct.

And since the charger supplied with the 9.7 is 10W, using the 29W charger will likely provide some benefit as it will support 20% increase in wattage during charging.
 
Spot on. If you use all Apple original cables and chargers, regardless of what combination you use the device will draw its maximum power and charge as fast as it can safely.

The same is not necessarily true when using cheap unbranded cables/chargers. Caution is key with those as many don't include any of the filtering and overcharging protection that the Apple products (and good quality third party products) include.

The possibility of destroying your device with cheap charging equipment is a real one. As a rule of thumb for eBay and such. If it looks too good to be true, it is.

Personally I only buy official chargers and cables. If I was to buy third party ones for my iOS devices then they would have to be MFI certified. I wouldn't risk using anything that wasn't.
 
Personally I only buy official chargers and cables. If I was to buy third party ones for my iOS devices then they would have to be MFI certified. I wouldn't risk using anything that wasn't.

I'm much the same. The only thing I use to charge that's not an Apple device is an Anker 60W desktop multi port charger.

But even then, before I used it with my iOS devices I tested it with my USB power meters to make sure it delivered a properly regulated supply. (Yes I'm ridiculously over the top at times :D)
 
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I am curious as to the reasons for this.
Can you tell me where did you get this information from?

(Sorry to bump an old thread) Actually USB 2 and USB 3 have to do with data transfer, NOT charging speed. Anker sells USB C to USB C cables with the USB 2.0 spec, and they also clearly state that it supports PD (Power Delivery - Same thing Apple uses for fast charging). I know this because I purchased a USB 2.0 cable from anker and although it charges my Nintendo switch at full speed with anker’s 30W USB C charger, it will not transfer video files to my SSD very quickly even though both my HP Spectre and my Sandisk support USB 3

Many people get this confused as even some companies market USB type C as being the same as USB 3.1, but potential to be USB 3.1 doesn’t make it the same thing
 
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