No, this is not another "what's a good car charger."
This is simply a warning post and I have a question about car chargers.
My warning is that the car charger that I bought, started burning after using it couple of times. Now this is the first time that it has ever happened to me. The product is this ebay link. So just putting this out there for those that will search in this forum in the future.
Now, the question is (which should go in the Q&A forum, but might as well just put it in this topic). I'm pretty sure the fault is of the car charger. So for those that know a lot about chargers and cars, do you think it was the chargers fault or the cigarette port in the car's fault for burning?
I don't have another car charger to test out and want to get your opinions before buying another car charger.
Thanks
I'd guess it is the charger. The design looks very similar to this one. From the reviews and the comments the DE design doesn't have a fuse, so if something goes wrong it will go up in flames. There was one mention of it causing sparking and car fuse blowing but that was related to the long rail touching the wrong place and causing a short.
The problem with eBay is you don't really know where that part comes from. It can be overstock of a know good charger (best case), it can be rejected 2nd quality stuff w/ or w/o reworks (can be ok, but more often not - some have reported loose solder flying around in the case) or it contains inferior parts to keep the cost or basically defraud the buyer. From my observations the 500mA chargers are a well known quantity in the market and you can get good ones easily. The 1000mA are not that frequent, but becoming more popular. I have bought 5 such chargers (3 wall, 2 car) all were sub-standard designs. Luckily I just complained to the eBay seller and the game me a full or partial refund. At <$3 a piece it's not worth it to send them back.
My preference is to find a US seller (if they have been around they screen what they sell to avoid problems) or get it from dealextreme who has user reviews and a name brand for a china seller. I'm looking to get their blackberry 2A charger and maybe a couple of 1A usb one as soon as I heard back (~1-2 weeks) from someone who has bought them.
Thanks for your input. just bought a motorola charger from amazon. Hopefully I don't experience this again.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Related
I'm currently using a regular usb cable to charge my phone directly from my car stereo while driving. The problem is that it takes close to an hour for the battery charge to increase 10% when I'm streaming pandora through bluetooth and using the phone's GPS. I'm assuming that the usb port in my stereo is only capable of putting out 500ma, if not less. Curious to see if anyone knows whether a DC to micro usb cable would give me a faster charge (1000ma). Thanks in advance.
BEst one ive ever used is the official palm one for the pre or pixi. Completely charges the evo from dead to full in about an hour while on the road on a call via bluetooth. Seriously good, verified a while ago on the precentral.net forums that its 1000 mA. They are only like 15 bucks at best buy, or maybe even less on amazon.
Go to amazon or google and search for 12V 1Amp USB charger and that should give you exactly what you need...I use a 1Amp charger for all my devices and works just fine...1 thing to note, that if you have time to use a 500ma charger, let it do it, a little bit slower charge will extend the life of the battery(not necessarily run time, but the length of time the battery will hold as good of a charge).
I use the one below. Works pretty great..5V/1A, exactly what you'd need. The thing says iPod, but it can be used for any USB charged device. An extra nice feature of this charger is that it sits nearly flush with the dash of your car
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Belkin+...hone/9235302.p?id=1218064404513&skuId=9235302
Link no longer works...see this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7089814&postcount=6
Cool, thanks for the responses guys. I ended up going with the palm pre charger from amazon, a little pricey at $20, but that's the best deal I could find for it. I'd rather pay a little more than get one that will crap out on me in a month. And it terms of a slower charge (500ma) being more beneficial for a longer battery lifespan, I'd rather dish out $10-$15 in 6 months or so for a new battery than to have to deal with this ridiculously slow charging time
Another option for 1A (1000mA)...
Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I think this may be useful to know:
Several other EVO forums ("fora?") have reported great success with this low-profile charger. I just got it off of amazon myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Micro-Auto-Charger-5VOLT/dp/B002F0200Q/ref=sr_1_1
You can also get 1-meter cables from Blackberry themselves on Amazon for $2.50 each, so if you have Amazon Prime, gets you a flexible solution for 11 bucks or so. I have ordered mine and will report back in 2 days...
Slappy_G said:
Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I think this may be useful to know:
Several other EVO forums ("fora?") have reported great success with this low-profile charger. I just got it off of amazon myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Micro-Auto-Charger-5VOLT/dp/B002F0200Q/ref=sr_1_1
You can also get 1-meter cables from Blackberry themselves on Amazon for $2.50 each, so if you have Amazon Prime, gets you a flexible solution for 11 bucks or so. I have ordered mine and will report back in 2 days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is actually the same one I linked earlier minus the iPod cable and much cheaper
EDIT: Best Buy seems to have stopped carrying this product. I updated the link in my post above to Slappy_G's post
Slappy_G said:
Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I think this may be useful to know:
Several other EVO forums ("fora?") have reported great success with this low-profile charger. I just got it off of amazon myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Micro-Auto-Charger-5VOLT/dp/B002F0200Q/ref=sr_1_1
You can also get 1-meter cables from Blackberry themselves on Amazon for $2.50 each, so if you have Amazon Prime, gets you a flexible solution for 11 bucks or so. I have ordered mine and will report back in 2 days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Been using this for months on many devices and it works great.
Slappy_G said:
Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I think this may be useful to know:
Several other EVO forums ("fora?") have reported great success with this low-profile charger. I just got it off of amazon myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Micro-Auto-Charger-5VOLT/dp/B002F0200Q/ref=sr_1_1
You can also get 1-meter cables from Blackberry themselves on Amazon for $2.50 each, so if you have Amazon Prime, gets you a flexible solution for 11 bucks or so. I have ordered mine and will report back in 2 days...
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Click to collapse
I just ordered one from Amazon.com myself... I got it for free since I had a 10 dollar gift card that I forgot I had!!! Thanks for the link.
Do they make one with 2 USB ports? One for charging the phone and another for your Bluetooth head piece.
gottria said:
Do they make one with 2 USB ports? One for charging the phone and another for your Bluetooth head piece.
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I'm not allowed to post links yet, but you can search for Scosche to find their products. They make dual port USB chargers.
Scosche makes a couple different models, one is advertised as having 2 amps over the two ports.
On a side note, I tried buying a blackberry micro usb cable off Amazon, and it starts to charge my phone for a second or two and then stops, it's very strange. I think it might work with the home charger, but I didn't check as I didn't notice till later that the charging stopped so soon.
Doing some cleanup and checking threads I promised to respond to...
The Belkin works great, and my wife has the 2-port Scosche. However, for me, NEITHER of them show "Charging(AC)" on either of our 2 Evo's. I have tried the charger in several cars, and same result. Not sure, but I'm guessing they are putting out incrementally less than 1A.
Not sure if that keeps the phone from triggering "quick charge" mode or not.
I just got 2 HTC car chargers from ebay, sent from Hong Kong. It says o/p:5.0V-2A so im not sure if I should use them.. here is what they look like.. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170511321504&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
Does anyone have a OEM car charger? I would like to know how many amps it puts out. The wall charger is 1A so will 2A kill it? I sure wouldent use it much only if needed.
I have a charger from iGo, works great and has swappable tips so you can use it with other phones or devices, think it was $15-20 with a free tip.
Slappy_G said:
Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I think this may be useful to know:
Several other EVO forums ("fora?") have reported great success with this low-profile charger. I just got it off of amazon myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Micro-Auto-Charger-5VOLT/dp/B002F0200Q/ref=sr_1_1
You can also get 1-meter cables from Blackberry themselves on Amazon for $2.50 each, so if you have Amazon Prime, gets you a flexible solution for 11 bucks or so. I have ordered mine and will report back in 2 days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can someone here confirm that this does deliver the full 1A? There is a review on Amazon from an EVO owner who says his phone sees this as USB and not AC charging.
rhconcepts said:
It says o/p:5.0V-2A so im not sure if I should use them..
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If you were trying to draw three amps from a 2-amp capacity charger, you could damage the charger. However, a device that draws 1 amp from a 2-amp charger will draw one amp. Chargers don't push more amperage than is demanded: it's up to what the charging device is drawing. You and your device will be fine in having "too much" charger.
Thanks so much for the info. So this charger should work great then when I start using the sprint nav or google maps.
URABUS0924 said:
Can someone here confirm that this does deliver the full 1A? There is a review on Amazon from an EVO owner who says his phone sees this as USB and not AC charging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just received two in the mail.
FAIL
Recognized as USB charging in my car.
plus 1 for resurrecting a dead thread
I bought an off brand one (looks about identical) in a respectable local supermarket. It claimed 1.5A.. so overspecced (and no there's nothing wrong with overspeccing, devices won't draw more power than they can handle so long as the input voltage is correct).
Like the previous poster's belkin experience, my korean SGS (shw-m110s) saw it as a usb, not ac. I took it apart and shorted the data pins together, took about 5 minutes). Then it recognized as AC and charged a little faster I think, but still at empty (the fastest time to charge normally) it charges about 1% (1.5 mAh) in 2 minutes(.033 hours).. which is just under 500mA charge rate (450 but well within the measurement error and 10% loss seems quite reasonable anyway). Anyway, sure as heck isn't able to draw 1A off of it. The wall charger which is supposedly only 700 mA charges several times faster actually! (which is probably quite safe at low charge levels, but sure seems like alot more than 700mA too me, but I didn't measure it as well).
I suspect this gizmo was never actually meant to output 1.5A (as it's not configured as a quick charger) or if it does, it only does it with large losses, and an internal voltage drop that's too excessive for the SGS to still be capable of actually pulling that much current.
Wish I knew what to buy.
I Have been using the official palm charger since June. I picked it up at sprint corporate store or radio shack. It is rated for 1 amp and come with a nice short micro usb.
If I were buying today I would go with one of the Platinum branded items Best Buys sells. I saw them for the first time last night so they must be new. So far I have purchased the Pt branded case for EVO and 2 different mounting kits. All of their stuff seems top quality. The have a 2 amp single usb and a 3 amp dual usb model that I saw.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
I searched the forum but couldnt find any information on my particular question.
Is it OK to use a standard car charger and not worry about destroying my phone? I found one on ebay and think it might be a great deal if I dont have to worry about ruining my battery or phone.
It's not letting me post links so heres the item number. 120825299751
Thanks for your input.
Dream: buy best name brand. Reality: using dealextreme or ebay items. I personally have had no issues with ebay chargers. Just get one with at LEAST 1-2 Amp output.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
I think one has to be careful about the type of chargers you buy, car or home. I have a G1 and long time ago, when I bought a car charger, I noticed that the phone was running EXTREMELY hot after charging. Even though it was at 100%, the phone was still running very hot while in sleep mode. I was told that there are some chargers that do not have a special "chip or diode" that lets it communicate with the battery/kernel, telling the phone to stop charging.
I'm not sure if that's all true or not but I never took the chance with chargers that I couldn't find reviews on. It's not necessary to buy and EXPENSIVE charger, but more so, buy one that you can find reviews on. Although, reputable and expensive often go hand in hand.
On the OTHER hand, I bought a tmobile car charger at the about this time last year. It was not cheap and it worked very well. Pushed good amperage while charging and had an additional USB slot for more charging. The problem though is that the plug itself is a bit screwy. Only charges in certain positions, and I take care of my stuff so it's a bit of a bummer. So even the expensive, well backed chargers can just randomly fail.
from personal experience the cheap accessories from Deal Extreme are very reliable, still using them after 3+ years
Failing isnt the problem. Its when they burn out your phone with it in a double suicide. Oh make sure they have an internal fuse that will protect your phone against power surges from your car
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
Thanks guys. The said charger thats on ebay Im looking at is supposedly an OEM sprint charger for the Samsung Epic, so I'm hoping its good quality. I'm just super scared of burning up a battery or ruining my phone. I have had car chargers in the past that did make my phone extremely hot too... so I dont want this to happen again.
oh, the OEM chargers are not very powerful
don't expect it to charge your phone while using the GPS and other stuff
Hi guys!
Last week I was shopping around at a local electronics retailer when I noticed a car charger made by TomTom for a decent price (I paid ~18 Euros).
It has two USB ports, one of whom is rated at 2.1A and the other at 1A. It also has a 12V car pass-through jack, so you can plug in another 12V device.
I saw it available at Amazon.de and .co.uk:
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/TomTom-Univ...tphones/dp/tech-data/B004SH3ERC/ref=de_a_smtd
£10.89
DE: http://www.amazon.de/TomTom-High-Sp...3ERC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1327522692&sr=8-4
€18.35
I thought, you might be interested
Being a frugal shopper I've tried to scrimp on car chargers and leads and adapters for my ZTE Blade and more recently my Note and I've also spent time and effort ripping them apart to solder pins to try to encourage fast charging of my Note. While they can all charge a sleeping phone perfectly well, not one combination of bits and pieces has succeeded in keeping my Note charged while using CoPilot sat nav.
So finally I bit the bullet and bought the proper Samsung 1 Amp charger from Amazon. It was £10 with free delivery and has proved an instant hit, successfully topping up the charge in the phone while running the sat nav app. Why oh why did I not buy it sooner. It would have saved money and grief.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005ZHD6E0/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details
(It's now even cheaper than when I bought it, costing just £9.80 today.)
p.s. the supplied coiled lead is quite short when tightly coiled, which can be a good thing if it doesn't need to go far, but if you have a long distance to cover it might be a problem. I haven't tried stretching it to see how far it might go as I'm happy with it as is and don't want it to go all loose and floppy.
Here is a great two output usb car charger, one of which supports high output current.. less that $10
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00470C35E/ref=oh_o03_s00_i00_details
Read the third review of that charger, by K Crawford. You may wish to reconsider.
As I stated in my previous post I have bought a couple of different "high current" car chargers and neither one will charge the Note quickly enough to maintain or increase charge while running satnav. It's all to do with the black arts involved in triggering the phone to draw the current that is potentially available. I've tried tweaking the chargers themselves (shorting the two centre pins) and also tried using the Note's supplied USB lead with them, but to no avail. A high current charger is no use if the phone refuses to draw current above the "safe" 500mA USB standard. That's the problem with many of these third party chargers, be they mains or car. I've spent more money in total on "cheap" solutions than it would have cost to buy the original item in the first place.
This looks like one of them - http://www.dealextreme.com/p/car-cigarette-powered-dual-usb-adapter-charger-for-ipod-dc-12-24v-48029
And this looks similar to the other - http://www.dealextreme.com/p/designer-s-car-cigarette-powered-dual-usb-adapter-charger-72932
Maybe they were both simply too cheap, but whatever the reason they did not meet the needs. This is why I finally caved and bought the real deal, by Samsung, and now my car charging woes are over.
tdodd said:
Being a frugal shopper I've tried to scrimp on car chargers and leads and adapters for my ZTE Blade and more recently my Note and I've also spent time and effort ripping them apart to solder pins to try to encourage fast charging of my Note. While they can all charge a sleeping phone perfectly well, not one combination of bits and pieces has succeeded in keeping my Note charged while using CoPilot sat nav.
So finally I bit the bullet and bought the proper Samsung 1 Amp charger from Amazon. It was £10 with free delivery and has proved an instant hit, successfully topping up the charge in the phone while running the sat nav app. Why oh why did I not buy it sooner. It would have saved money and grief.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005ZHD6E0/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details
(It's now even cheaper than when I bought it, costing just £9.80 today.)
p.s. the supplied coiled lead is quite short when tightly coiled, which can be a good thing if it doesn't need to go far, but if you have a long distance to cover it might be a problem. I haven't tried stretching it to see how far it might go as I'm happy with it as is and don't want it to go all loose and floppy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will get you the same item in the USA.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005ZHD6E0/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details
kraz
I recently bought one of these chargers on ebay from tuttoit (12V 1.5A 18W AC HOME Charger Adapter for MOTOROLA XOOM 4G LTE 3G Wi-Fi - can't post link due to xda restrictions). The charger works OK (charges quite quickly in fact) but I've found my xoom cannot be used while this charger is plugged in! The screen become unusable and therefore I have to wait until I have finished charging before I can use my xoom again. I think it may be to do with the charger not earthing properly.
Also the black box on the charger gets very hot.
Just posting this info to help anyone thinking of buying this charger.
Further to my previous post: DO NOT BUY A CHARGER FROM TUTTOIT ON EBAY.
Mine died after a few weeks of use. They are cheap rubbish.
(That'll teach me to buy cheap off eBay )
This stinks that you experienced this...but for the most part...its pretty common these days.
I try to use OEM products whenever possible and pay a little extra. I had a bad experience with a non OEM laptop charger years ago...and it friend my motherboard and power supply unit on my Thinkpad - thankfully I was able to find a used MoBo and install myself for 35 bucks.
tincbtrar said:
I try to use OEM products whenever possible and pay a little extra.
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Good advice.
I took the broken one apart and the circuit board inside had been fried.
Yesterday I looked for a Motorola charger and couldn't find one, even on the Motorola website!
Ended up buying another one from Hong Kong but I think the quality is a bit better (fingers crossed).
What about Amazon?
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Trav...8&qid=1344675498&sr=8-1&keywords=xoom+charger
Didn't think of Amazon and the price is about what I paid on eBay! D'oh.
Might buy one of theirs as well.
Thanx.
DO NOT BUY A CHEAP CHARGER FROM xiaoqinzhang2009 ON EBAY! Seller now known as micro-estore.
I did it again!
This second charger does the same as the first; you can't use the touchscreen while it is charging and it gets very hot.
I doubt these are made to Australian manufacturing standards.
I'm following tincbtrar's advice and going OEM from now on.
I'm looking for a car charger. I remember reading that some are more powerful than others. Any recommendations or will the Verizon charger do the job?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Since we don't know exactly what Verizon charger you speak of, you should test it yourself...
Play a video or do some other power-sucking activity on your phone while it's plugged in. If the power level goes up, you're probably good with your existing charger. If it goes down, your device is using more power than it's receiving and you might want to buy a new one that supplies more juice.
I used an OEM Motorola charger with my old smartphone, but haven't really tested it yet on my new S3. I suspect it'll be fine. It's supposed to deliver a full 1A of power, unlike a lot of others that make a similar claim. I can't post links yet, but if you look on Amazon, search for "Motorola micro-USB car charger". It usually runs between $5-7. If you do decide to go with the Motorola, buy it directly from Amazon (not a third party seller and not "fulfilled by Amazon").
Good luck!
hi , i wonder if youc an check here : http://dx.com/s/car+charger+Galaxy .
I bought this one 2 month ago http://dx.com/p/car-charger-for-samsung-i9100-galaxy-s2-dc12-24v-65167 , this product is very cheap and works lovely.Does the job. Reasonable cord length. Very useful as GPS and BT drains out the cell phone battery. Very good value for the price .
I use one of the griffen power bolt car adaptors. They are sooooo sleek. I modified it like how the pictures on amazon shows for 1amp charging. Only like $13 at walmart
At present, chargers are generally chargers. Just look at the output. If it's 5V, 1A, you're good.
There's no point in going any higher than that, as the battery won't sink that much current. 2A chargers are only useful for tablets.