USB Chargers

[tonttu]

Word of a warning... Navigator tablets and phones use quite a lot of power. And there is lot of cheap 12V -> USB 5v adapters out there. USB standard was 1.0A and now 2.1 to 3.0 amperes. Some tablets draws even more power and they have own power supply's to use, but usb cable is same for all of those. So I really recommend you find good quality usb adapters with high amperage for boat use.

Last summer we were cruising at new water with paper map at the nav table. Under our map was usb charger that provided power for navionics / iPad 2.
I started to smell electrical fire and ordered crew to check batteries and fuseboxes etc. It was quite a suprise when paper map started to blacken and it was a matter of seconds that we had a fire aboard. So lucky that we under way and not sleeping!

Now I have bunch of good quality 3.0A 12V->5V adapters for our and quest use.

[ScubaPete]

I will second the warning on USB chargers/adapters that slip into a 12V cigarette lighter type plug. I bought several and during a car trip, burned up two of them..... they were double outlets rated for 2.1 and 1 amp and seemed to be good quality, but really can not tell from the looks. Luckily they were right in front of us and we could smell the electrical burn immediately. I was fooled at the beginning, because I had tried them all out the night before our trip and they all worked fine...... but my iPad and iPhone were almost fully charged when I did the test. After they had discharged quite a bit, they drew too much power and the USB adapter could not handle it.

I do have one that looks identical to the picture posted by Seasalt earlier (the one with the green on the label) and it handles dual charging just fine.