Blue Sea Systems 1016 Dual USB Charger Socket, 12/24v 2.1a, Black

A few years ago I ordered a Blue Sea Systems Panel SCK USB & Volt (D) panel and unit performed as advertised. In particular, the 1016 Dual USB Charger Socket which was part of the panel is especially nice USB socket. I hooked a 1016 up to an external battery and now have a continuous USB charging voltage for my USB gismos. Most USB battery backup banks apparently stop supplying the required USB voltage to charge your USB gismso, so if you have a remote application, as soon as the USB item requiring to be charged is fully charged, the battery bank shuts down to conserve its charging status. With a combination of the Blue Systems 1016 Dual USB Charger Socket and a small external AGM battery, I get days of continuous USB power in very remote locations. Ended up using the 1016 Dual USB Charger Socket to continuolsly power up a very remote wifi hotspot to serve as a hotspot for solar wifi webcams. This allows for continuous remote monitoring of nature related observations. :-) Very happy with the Blue System 1016 Dual USB Charger Socket and can recommend it as a dependable USB charging outlet

The Blue Sea USB outlet is easy to install, durable, and corrosion resistant. It is meant to be installed on a belowdecks panel, not on a a console exposed to weather. The rubber flap closes things up and protects it from spray, but I wouldn't trust it in very wet conditions, and if it is not closed properly, any amount of sea water ingress will destroy it. Fast charging is automatically engaged for those devices configured to trigger it; it charges my iPhone from dead to 100% in just over an hour, and my iPad in about 2 hours. Other devices that don't trigger fast charging mode are much slower; I have a bluetooth speaker that takes 4 or 5 hours to charge, for example. Its size is perfectly suited for installation into the hole of a standard AC wall socket, or the hole for a cigarette lighter style socket, or you can use the included bezel to install it on a panel. Everywhere I need USB charging, I only use the Blue Sea outlet; so far I have 4 of them on my 2 boats, and I intend to install more.

I purchased this unit for our family boat. Like many typical families everyone has a smart phone, but only my phone gets plugged into the stereo and is charging while we're boating. Often times kids and friends ask me to disconnect my phone, but then I loose the use of my navigation app and it's a pain having people reach over me while I'm operating the boat so they can see their notifications. To solve this problem I started looking for a USB charger on Amazon and found this device. Installation location was the key to making this thing valuable. I didn't want another place for people to try and charge their phones where it was in the way, and I didn't want them out in the open hopefully encouraging them to enjoy the boat versus blue facing. I installed the device in the glove box area on the port side of the boat. When someone wants to use the charger they can put their phone in the glove box, and then close it to keep it safe and dry while it charges. Installation was pretty easy, drill a big hole and wire it up to 12V. I'm just hoping it works correctly and doesn't short out. Taking a long trip with the boat so I'll report if it works anything less than perfect.

Great addition to any boat!

First, the unit I received appears to be exactly as listed. It is not a 12V power jack with a USB power adapter stuck in it. The USB ports and power converter itself is a black conformal coated module within the cylinder you see and mount. For marine environment use this coating is important as there is no other good way to moisture proof electronic circuits short of hermetically sealing them and using water proof input and output connectors. So except for the exposed connector contacts on the unit, salt air should not have much negative effect on long term reliability. I bought this to power the Bluetooth to RS232 adapter on my race car's Megasquirt ECU and the Nexus10 tablet that I use for the instrument cluster on the same car. The Nexus would not charge at above 500ma with this power port until I shorted the data pins together on one of the USB jacks as described by Mr Borosky. I have had to do this on a number of USB power ports to get more than 500ma. There is a recent USB charge port power spec that calls for devices connected to the charge port to simply increase current draw until the USB voltage drops under 5V in order to find and use the most amperage such a charge port can supply, but I dont own any that do this yet, but I have a couple Android devices that detect the shorted data pins. I power this USB power port (and thus the Nexus and Bluetooth adapter) separately from the ignition ON switch in the race car to reduce the time needed to have fully functional instruments upon engine startup. Because starter current demand during engine cranking will drop available battery voltage, and I use the smallest (and lightest) battery I can afford that will start the car, I wanted to know how well this power port would ride thru voltage sags during this time. I found the port will remain fully functional at input voltages down to 6V and the USB port outputs remain a steady 5V until the input voltage drops to close to 5V. Based on observing regulator switching noise on the power input, it appears the port drops out of switched regulation and into what must be linear regulation below about 7.5V because the switching noise on the input power wire completely disappears (and the green LED goes off, but the regulated 5V output continues unaffected until the input drops below 6V. This performance is more than adequate as my system voltage on the car does not drop below 9V during cranking if my battery has a decent charge. It also appears pretty robust in my view since some similar I have seen shut down at 9V and the outputs drop to zero volts. Because I have a number of unshielded analog sensor signals connected to the ECU and am using Bluetooth to connect the ECU with the Nexus/instrument cluster I was concerned about generated electrical noise from the unit, either radiated from the unit into the air or from the 5V outputs or 12V input. I found no discernable noise on the 5V outputs as seen on a 350MHz o'scope or radiated into air based on a handheld 140M-900MHz amateur radio transceiver set to scan that range (actually multiple bands in that range with some frequencies that are not tuneable). The 12V power input exhibits a 300KHz triangle wave with some 1MHz short duration ringing syncronized to the triangle peaks. The 300KHz triangle wave is under .2V p-p and the 1MHz ringing is under .4V p-p. Under some combinations of input voltage (7.5-15V) and load (0 to 1A tested) the ringing and triangle wave decreases or disappear entirely. At least one reviewer wrote that his sample was producing enough noise on the 5V outputs that the radiated noise interfered with reception on his marine radio. Based on how mine behaves, I would have to guess his was defective or a different product than the one I have. I found that a medium sized clip-on ferrite with the power wire passing thru and a 6800uf 25V electrolytic between the power port input terminals eradicated this from the 12V wire back to the power switch.

Waterproof cap makes it worthwhile on boat

Worked really well on my motorcycle camper. Installation was very easy, just put some type of sealant around it to curb water intrusion.

I purchased one of these to go on a portable power box that I use for camping, The box is a 50cal ammo can with a couple of small 12V batteries in the bottom and power connectors in the lid. I saw this and thought this would be a better idea than the standard 12V connector and a USB adapter that I usually use for charging small electronics. It requires a 1.25" hole to mount and does not come with screws or bolts for the bezel. I've been using M4 Allen Key bolts as they are available in black and look sharp. A couple of words of caution: I'm not convinced that the cap is watertight. For me, this has not been much of an issue, but it might be if you are exposing this to the elements (Boat or bike for instance) Also, there is a small green LED that is lit when the system is powered, so if you wire this into an auxiliary circuit, and (as in my case) you have just a small battery, you may want to make sure that the socket is on a switched circuit to prevent battery discharge over time. As far as the performance i concerned, it has happily charged a variety of phones and other small electronics as well as run some USB LED lights. All in all an excellent and well made product.