One common question I had when I was at Oshkosh was: "can I power the fans (in the cooling case) by plugging it in on my plane?". The short answer is "yes". The long answer is as follow:
1) The cooling case has a built-in rechargeable battery
The rechargeable battery when fully charged (which takes about 1-2 hours) can power the fans for up to 5 hours. That means we can use the cooling case without having it plugged in. So pilots can fly for 5 hours without needing to worry about their iPad overheating. Although some pilots have said it's usually their bladders that don't allow them to fly for 5 hours.
The rechargeable battery can be found between the 2 fans.
2) You should charge the cooling case when...
There are 3 LEDs at the back of the cooling case.
- The Green LED lights up when you are charging the cooling case.
- The Blue LED lights up when the fans are triggered (i.e. the temperature is over 32°C or 90°F) .
- The Red LED on the other hand, flashes when the battery life is close to 50% or lower and it will be a solid red when the battery life is close to 20% or lower.
So we should charge the cooling case when the Red LED is fully lit up (not just flashing).
3) You can still plug in the cooling case when in use
If you have a spare 5V output on your plane and you want to plug in the cooling case, you can totally do that. The cooling case will still work (i.e. the fans will come on when the temperature is over 32°C or 90°F) and it means you might never have to worry about whether there is enough power in the cooling case battery.
But if you only have one 5V output, it is still possible to charge both the iPad and the cooling case if you have a splitter cable like this one:
If you are interested in a cable like this, keep a lookout because we might stock some in our store in the near future.
Do you have any other charging or power related question? Leave a comment below or drop us a message here.