Charging Tablet while using USB Drive.

[chiangrai]

I have an Android tablet and an 1TB Hard Drive.

I can plug the Hard Drive into the Tablet and play movies but it uses up a lot of baattery.

I want to be able to have the Tablet charging while I'm playing the video.

 

Is there some thing I can buy to do this.

I have this

High Speed 5Gb/s 4 Ports USB 3.0 Hub on/Off Switches with AC Power Adapter Cable for PC Laptop EU

(photo below)but it doesn't work.

Am I doing something wrong or do I need something else.

 

[OneMoreFarang]

You should be able to use one power supply for your external HDD. Then that won't use the power of you tablet

And you should be able to charge your tablet at the same time - if you like.

 

One problem is that many (cheap) chargers charge a lot slower than possible. The same is true for computer USB ports.

I.e. normally you can charge a device maybe 3 times faster on an external (supplied) power adapter compared to most USB ports.

 

If you want to check the details buy one of these:

https://www.banggood.com/RIDEN-UM34UM34C-For-APP-USB-3_0-Type-C-DC-Voltmeter-Ammeter-Voltage-Current-Meter-Tester-p-1297185.html

[chiangrai]

The one that I showed above makes my Tablet run crazy until I restart it.

 

I would love to know what I could buy that would play my Hard Drive and charge my Tablet at the same time.

[maccra]

Your tablet has a micro USB 2.0 port. As far as I know (not 100%, but 99% sure), USB 2.0 specification does not support power transfer (charging) and data transfer (playing movies)  at the same time in the same direction, from an external device (power hub) to the tablet (The newer USB 3.1 type-C, port does provide this capability, so you could consider this in the future when you want to upgrade the tablet or phone). To my knowledge, there is no gadget to buy which can do what you want because your tablet has a USB 2.0 port.

 

To reduce the amount of battery being used up, the external HDD needs to have its own power supply. This could be a self-powered hub or possibly a Y-cable, but the Y-cable needs to be plugged into a power supply also (tablet USB charger port for example).

 

You have a picture of a self-powered hub and you say it runs your tablet crazy. It is difficult to know the reason. Maybe the hub is defective and you could exchange for a new one or get money back and try again. Maybe the device is just poorly programmed or configured not correctly to specifications. Maybe the cable is defective also, so you could try another cable and see if that helps.

 

Apart from that, you may need to consider just to transfer the movies from the HDD to the tablet, unplug the HDD and watch the movies from the tablet.

[chiangrai]

Yes I looked up the specs and it says -3.5MM Micro USB 2,

What a bummer.I knew nothing about Android when I bought it.

 

I am going traveling for months and the Tablet won't copy and

paste from the HDD to the internal storage.

 

I have ordered 2 cheap gadgets from lazada but they say they only work for some models

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/-i219410420-s333585994.html?urlFlag=true&mp=1

and

https://www.lazada.co.th/-i3054296-s3661994.html?urlFlag=true&mp=1

 

Thanks for your help.............