Insufficient Power to charge

[Guest iBrummie]

How much juice does this baby need?! I've got it on my ipad charger at work and always draining reporting 'insufficient Power to charge'. Is it just me or are there other hudl'ites with this?

[emoji19]

[Guest Mark_He]

I believe iPad chargers are a bit non-standard, so perhaps the Hudl doesn't like it. I was charging from a phone charger yesterday with no probs, but I'll see what happens if I use a crappy USB cable and plug.

[Guest iBrummie]

I'm guessing cuz my charger is at home but I'm sure the Hudl is a 2.1amp output and the iPad is 2.5amp so assumed it would supply more grunt. I also have issues in the car with a 2.1amp adapter.

 

Once home I'll do some power tests and see whats eating the battery!! At the moment I can't see anything.

[Guest thefunkygibbon]

I've got a Anker power adapter thingybob (http://www.ianker.com/product/71AN25W-W5A) which has 2.1a for its "ipad" port and 1.5a for "samsung tab" and 1a for the others.  i can only get it to charge using the 1a ports and even then it takes so long its not worth bothering with :(

very confusing.  in any of the other ports it recognises the charge but stops charging a few seconds later. 

[Guest sorc]

I'm guessing cuz my charger is at home but I'm sure the Hudl is a 2.1amp output and the iPad is 2.5amp so assumed it would supply more grunt. I also have issues in the car with a 2.1amp adapter.

 

Once home I'll do some power tests and see whats eating the battery!! At the moment I can't see anything.

 

The device won't draw more than 500mA if it doesn't know that the charger is capable of supplying it (to avoid causing damage). So the charger has to tell the device, IIRC by shorting or applying a resistance to the two data pins of the USB connector. Apple does it one way, everyone does it another way. That means that your Hudl may not be aware that the iPad charger is capable of more power so it only draws the minimum, so it charges slowly. So-called "fast charging" cables on eBay or Amazon do the shorting inside the cable.

 

It's also why some stuff like portable batteries have an "Apple" port and an "everyone else" port.

 

I think you can tell what it thinks is happening by going to the status page in settings while it is plugged in. It will either say Charging (USB) for low power or Charging (AC) for high power.

Edited October 27, 2014 by sorc

[Guest iBrummie]

Cheers sorc, was going to try connecting it straight to the 3-phase with a coat hanger but I'll hold off.

[Guest state-it]

I've had no problems so far charging from any of my 4 non-Hudl varieties of 2A+ USB socket transformers. (2x Samsung, 1 x Belkin, 1 x No-Name).

[Guest Rocket]

I've had this happen if I use a standard micro USB charging cable even with the supplied Hudl 2 charger. You need to use the charging lead supplied with the Hudl 2 or another lead that signals the higher charging outputs. Which lead were you using?

I've successfully used my Samsung phone charger to charge the device but only if I'm not using it at the time. In use with the screen on 700mA is not enough and will also produce the message you are seeing.

[Guest Mark_He]

Yeah, my ordinary phone charger works fine too. Blame Apple.

[Guest fnobgpo]

I've had this problem with the supplied charger, it has since died completly