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iPad Charging Time (3rd Gen)

S

Starbuckpga

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 15, 2009
116
0
Afternoon folks. Quick question for the masses here. I bought my daughter a refurbished iPad 3 for Xmas. I'm noticing extremely long charging times. So my question is, what is "typical" charging time from a dead battery to full 100%?

When we opened up the box it came from the factory at 91%. So she played with it till the battery died, then did a full charge which took nearly 16 hours. I thought that was longer than normal. Over the last week or so I've been monitoring the charging times. Last night it was put on the charger at 20% and after an hour it was only charged to 23%.

I'm thinking of taking it to my local Apple store and have them check it out since it's under warranty for one year.
 
16 hours seems a long time? My ipad 1 takes much less than that from flat.

I don't personally own a iPad 3 but my 4 which has a different charger, is very quick, so is my iPhone 5.

Nothing to lose by going to your local Apple store if its close. :)
 
Oh I agree 16 hours is way too long, but just wanted to confirm here. My iPhone 5 can be nearly dead and be fully charged within two hours.

There's an Apple store about 30 mins from me. Curious if they can swap the battery in the iPad's or if they will just replace it. Looks like I'll setup a time to meet a "Geek" in the store this weekend. Lol.
 
Starbuckpga said:
Afternoon folks. Quick question for the masses here. I bought my daughter a refurbished iPad 3 for Xmas. I'm noticing extremely long charging times. So my question is, what is "typical" charging time from a dead battery to full 100%?

When we opened up the box it came from the factory at 91%. So she played with it till the battery died, then did a full charge which took nearly 16 hours. I thought that was longer than normal. Over the last week or so I've been monitoring the charging times. Last night it was put on the charger at 20% and after an hour it was only charged to 23%.

I'm thinking of taking it to my local Apple store and have them check it out since it's under warranty for one year.
Click to expand...

Are you using the charger AND cable that came with the iPad?

Clint
 
the iPad 3 does take significantly longer to charge than earlier iPads, it draws much more power and has a larger battery to keep the battery life at 10 hours.

I noticed numerous issues moving from an iPad 1. Are you charging via a USB port? a lot of computer makers use port multipliers in their pcs and laptops, sort of like an internal usb hub which means your USB port shares power with all other peripherals plugged in. They aren't always fully powered ports either. I've yet to find a DELL pc/laptop that will charge it more than 1% an hour with the screen off. However, it should charge from a 10w adapter or from any Mac released in the past few years in about 6 and a half hours. If you still have issues with those i'd take to a Genius Bar
 
I'm really not sure how long mine takes to charge, but I know it's not 16 hours. I'll run mine down to around 40-50% a day and then when I go to sleep I put it on the charger. Eight hours later when I get up, it's fully charged.

Did you check to see if the iPad came with the iPad charger and not an iPhone one? That would make a difference in charging time.
 
Thanks guys.

I'm charging directly from the wall with the cable and adapter that was included in the box. I did not compare the cables to an iPhone cable. Obviously I have the newer cable with the iPhone 5, but the wife as a 4S and will compare them tonight when I get home.

Tonight I'll run the iPad battery down till it shuts off and then plug it back in till a full charge and see how long it takes this time. If it's 16 hours or more, I'll visit the Apple store, but pretty sure this is not normal as every Apple product I've owned the battery does not take this long to charge.

----------
CNeufeld said:
My 3rd Gen iPad takes maybe 6 hours to recharge from "mostly dead". Nowhere close to 16 hours. And as far as I know, the Apple store will only give you a refurbed unit, not swapping internals like the battery. But I might be wrong.

Clint
Click to expand...

Thanks Clint. I was thinking 6-8 hours would be normal, depending on how dead the battery was when being put on charge. Since I bought a refurbished unit from the website for my daughter, I'll be happy to swap it out for another refurb unit, just as long as it works correctly.
 
I don't believe Apple will replace the battery for you, they would just give you another refurb if they concluded that yours was faulty.
 
The 3 takes a long time to charge. It just does. With that big 10" retina display, the battery is just massive and holds a lot of charge.

My iPhone5 charges in an hour. I've plugged in my almost dead iPad 3 before bed and had it not be all the way to 100% in the morning before :eek:
 
blackbear219 said:
The 3 takes a long time to charge. It just does. With that big 10" retina display, the battery is just massive and holds a lot of charge.
Click to expand...

Yes it does. About 6-7 hours from dead in my experience. 16 hours is almost 3x too long.
 
Simple physics shows that the charging time for an iPad 3's 42.5 Watt-hour battery rated at 3.78 Volts should be 5.4 hours at 100% efficiency but the included 10 Watt USB power adapter isn't 100% efficient, so it should take 6.4 hours assuming 20% efficiency loss.

Calculations:

10W USB power adapter rated 5.1V and 2.1A
iPad 3 battery = 42.5Wh rated at 3.78V
Wh = Ah * V
Ah = 42.5 / 3.78
Ah = 11.243

Since Ah is Amp-hour and we need milliAmp-hour, so Ah * 1000 gives us mAh.

mAh = 11243

h = mAh / mA (of the adapter)
h = 11243 / 2100 mA (2.1 A is 2100 mA)
h = ~5.4

You can do the same calculations to calculate how long it takes to charge your MacBook, iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc. :)
 
I thought it was written on Apple site that their refurb ones will have the glass and battery replace as new. Only used cpu and graphic chips.

I think that problem is with the charger. It probably giving out 5W just like Iphone, pls check what it said on the adaptor. Ipad 3 should take around 6-7 hours, thats why its perfect for those who charged at night. Battery life shouldn't live up to 10 hrs like Ipad 2 or 4. Dont go out to purchase the 12W until you can claim new one from apple. 12W will just help you charge faster by not so much.
 
My iPad 3 takes around 4/5 hours to fully charge, whereas my 4S takes around 2 hours, that seems fair enough to me.
However 16 hours seems far too long.
 
Maybe some battery consuming app is running?

You could also try to reset the iPad (by pressing the on/off switch and home button simultantiously until the Apple logo appears).

My iPad 3 charges in like 6-8 hours.
 
WillFisher said:
However 16 hours seems far too long.
Click to expand...

That is extremely long.

Is there anything cooling down the iPad? Frozen batteries can be sluggish. Aside from that, it seems something else is wrong with the batteries or power supply trail.
 
this is way too long, 16 hours, i appreciate SnowLeopard2008 calculations and he is right at about 80% efficiency of the charger..

PLEASE make sure you are using the 10W charger the ipad comes with, it will charge the ipad 3rd gen at about 5-6 hours from 0% to 100%.

16 hours seems about right if you use the 5W charger the iphone charger.

the 10W charger feeds the battery a current of 2 Amps where as
the 5W charger feeds the battery a current of 1 Amp.
 
I charge mine overnight every night. It charges fully in around 6 hours max from flat (although I rarely let it go flat. The battery doesn't like it if you do that too much.).
 
6-8 usually. Also helps if its plugged directly to outlet and not on extension cord. I sure buying the 12w would help your cause
 
Were you doing something on the iPad during the charge? I know if I watch a video at the same time on Netflix it hardly charges. If not, that is not a good charge time at all. Check if you have something running/downloading.
 
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