This post isn’t exactly fishing related, but I am toying with the idea of moving my fishing journals and notes over to a digital format and this tablet would work.
I needed a Windows tablet for my Amateur Radio hobby and also because I was looking for something portable for field use. Possibly to do blog posts or edit photos as well. Unfortunately, so many SDR (software defined radio) apps are Windows based and several of my Amateur Radio programs are Windows only. I’m not a programmer so I have to play the game.
This little tablet is surprisingly well built with an aluminum shell and it came with a nice keyboard and stylus. The specs weren’t too bad either…6GB of RAM and a 128GB eMMC drive. Not a Ferarri…but a family sedan has its uses too.
I have a laptop that I use a lot but it is large and also a power hog and I was hoping for something more efficient. Tablets are always a compromise solution since the processors aren’t that great. And true to form, this Chinese tablet threw me a curveball with the included power cable. It’s an AC wall wart that terminates in a USB-C cable outputting 12VDC @ 2Amps. I had never seen a USB-C pushing 12 volts.
So after doing some research I found a thread where people were experimenting with various componentry to get it to charge from a battery pack. They recommended the Baseus 65W 30,000mAH battery and a Voltage Trigger assembly of some sort. It seemed simple enough so I searched on Amazon and ordered one as it was relatively cheap and I can always use another battery pack.
Next up was locating a Voltage Trigger that tells the battery pack to go from the standard 5 volts to whatever voltage is selected via the push button on the board…in my case 12 volts. I always head over to eBay for stuff like this and for good reason. There is an abundance of choices.
And as they say…”the proof is in the pudding”
A note of caution here! The Voltage Trigger has multiple voltage outputs so you need to select the appropriate one for your device. Otherwise BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN. The LED is right next to the push button switch and is color coded to correspond with the voltage settings. In my case: Green = 12VDC. And voila! The tablet started to charge.
The best feature of the Baseus battery pack is that the display will show ouputs of 5 volts, 9 volts, 12 volts, 15 volts or 20 volts when you push the button. I cycled through the Voltage Trigger settings (LED colors) BEFORE connecting to my tablet just to make sure I had the correct voltage output.
It works! A bit convoluted but it’s functional. A protective housing for the Voltage Trigger would have been nice and I will probably try to sort that out. But now I am not tethered to the grid and can take it with me everywhere.
Project complete! A relatively cheap and cost-effective way to lighten my load and still have some functionality. It works and does what I needed it to do.
Velox Seeker 