Do you have another iPhone 6 charger cable? There's no reason why the
charger and/or the cable should get hot with just the cable, and no
phone on that cable, plugged in. Unless it has some kind of internal short.

Heat = power = current = discharging battery.

The LEDs on the voltmeter section shouldn't draw for than a dozen or so
milliamps.

I'd check that cable, there have been plenty of reports of Apple
Lightning cables failing.

--
Jack "Rocket j Squirrel" Elliott
1984 Westfalia, auto trans,
Bend, Ore.

On 08/10/2015 05:06 AM, Jim Felder wrote:
> Well, it's intriguing to me because I know so little about it.
>
> I made two changes to my camper on the same weekend. I installed two
> (actually four, because each of the USB outlets has a 1 amp and a 2.5 amp
> socket) USB outlets, front and rear, in my vanagon. They have a pilot led
> in each, plus the rear one has a voltage indicator that has old-school LED
> numbers.
>
> I also bought a TDI jetta that weekend and quit driving the camper on a
> daily basis.
>
> I noticed that in two or three days I could not start the car and needed a
> boost. I could see by the LED meter that it was dropping. So, I added
> Harbor Freight's cheapest trickle charger (which won't charge at all, but
> it will hold a charge in place up to about 13.1 volts).
>
> After a recent overnight camping trip, I left an iPhone 6 charger cable
> plugged into the 2.5 amp socket. When I went to retrieve it I felt that USB
> end was HOT, almost too hot to touch comfortably. I removed the cable to
> see if it was the outlet or the cable, and the outlet cooled down.
>
> Is this normal? I think the 1 amp outlet is for phones, and the 2.5 amp
> outlet is for tablets and such. I have often swapped those around
> unthinkingly in the house with their respective chargers and have never
> felt a cable get that hot.
>
> I am trying to figure out what is going on here. I have no problem starting
> after using lights and sink camping, and my batter is from November 2014
> and has been taken care of, so while I can't rule out the battery it seems
> OK.
>
> I would like to know how much current one of these units draws, with the
> with out the voltage indicator. I have a spare, I would mail it to anyone
> who cares to do the test or I could be walked through it by someone who
> knows what they are doing.
>
> Jim
>