Develop Bugs

Highest output car charger

Is this the highest?
http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/pmc.htm
Post links if you know of higher ones, thank you.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

There are 2.1A usb adapters, but I don't think microUSB can take advantage of it. The one you linked is a 1A, which is the same as the wall charger HTC gave with the phone. I'm currently using a 1A usb adapter in my truck.

Ok that's probably what I'm looking for then. Are there wall chargers greater than what came with the phone that I can take advantage of?

Your best bet would be to try the USB adapters made for iPads. The Apple products can utilize the 2.1A chargers with their sync cables, but I'm not sure if a microUSB cable can though. I have some 2.1A wallchargers from some of my Apple products, I'll test them later and let you know what I find out.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/...ryDetails&archetypeId=12299&accessoryId=46370

I just got an Enercell from Radio Shack with dual usbs. Max output is 2.5A divided between the two ports.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11329448
on sale now for only $14.99. Seems to be of good quality.

The Motorola rapid chargers rock.

Guys, unless you mod the usb adapter 5V spec, you aren't doing squat with a "high power" adapter. The device has an input impedence that will draw a certain amount of current at 5v., and that's it.
Standard battery: 1400 mAh
Time to charge: 4 hrs (according to manual)
That's 1400/4 = 350 mA.
Most adapters on the market spec more than that, they're usually 500 mA or above. And again, unless you boost the volts, you're not going to be able to push more than 350 mA or so.
So don't waste you're money.
On the other hand, if your going to share a car outlet with another device like mp3 or ipod, then yeah, you'll need a higher output, two port, adapter.
Edit: It just occurred to me that if you're using the phone heavily while charging, then yeah you may need more than 500 mA. My currrent widget shows the phone can draw another 250 mA or so during use. That plus the charge totals to around 600 mA. But depending upon design, the phone may not be able to pull in all 600 mA. A test with a current meter would be real interesting.

The charger shipped with the Thunderbolt is a 1 Amp charger.
If I use a 500 mA charger the Current Widget shows a +450mA charge current. However if I use the 1A charger, I get a charge current of about +850mA.
Given that the google navigation gobbles over 400mA when running, you need a car charger with greater than 500mA capacity of you want the phone to charge at the same time.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

boingboingbilly said:
The Motorola rapid chargers rock.
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Good to hear, I ordered one today for $11 on ebay. I had heard other people say they liked that one too.

Ecomaniac said:
Guys, unless you mod the usb adapter 5V spec, you aren't doing squat with a "high power" adapter. The device has an input impedence that will draw a certain amount of current at 5v., and that's it.
Standard battery: 1400 mAh
Time to charge: 4 hrs (according to manual)
That's 1400/4 = 350 mA.
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You're making the incorrect assumptions that the charging rate is constant, and charging is 100% efficient. Li-ion batteries can be charged at up to a 1C rate (i.e. 1.4A for a 1400 mA cell). Add the power drawn by the phone itself, and a 1.8 Amp charger might not be unreasonable (1.8 A is the specified limit for micro USB connectors). Whether the phone will actually do a maximum rate charge, I don't know.
This, from a TI Application Note (Google for SLAA287, board won't let me post links):
A Li-Ion battery charging process consists of three stages:
· Slow Charge: Pre-charging stage using current of 0.1C
· Fast Charge: Constant current charging stage using current of 1C
· Constant voltage charging stage
During the slow charge stage, the battery is charged with a constant low charge current of 0.1C, if the battery voltage is below 2.5V. The slow charge stage is rarely used during the charging process of a Li-Ion battery.
The fast charge (constant current) and constant voltage charging are the most important stages during a recharge process. Most Li-Ion batteries have a fully charged voltage of 4.1 or 4.2V.
The battery is first charged with a constant current of 1C until a battery voltage reaches 4.1 or 4.2V. The firmware continuously checks the charging current by sensing the voltage at the current sense resistor (Rsense) and
adjusts the duty cycle of PWM output from the MCU. The battery's voltage is checked frequently.
Whenever found the battery's voltage reaches 4.1 or 4.2V, the charger will switch to constant voltage charging mode. The battery is then charged with a constant voltage source at a fixed battery voltage of 4.1 or 4.2 V...When the charging current falls below 0.1C, the charging process must stop.
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Monoprice has Cig to USB(1A) chargers and the USB to Micro cables in multiple lengths(I ordered 6' ones) for far cheaper than you will find anywhere else

mike.s said:
You're making the incorrect assumptions that the charging rate is constant, and charging is 100% efficient. Li-ion batteries can be charged at up to a 1C rate (i.e. 1.4A for a 1400 mA cell). Add the power drawn by the phone itself, and a 1.8 Amp charger might not be unreasonable (1.8 A is the specified limit for micro USB connectors). Whether the phone will actually do a maximum rate charge, I don't know.
This, from a TI Application Note (Google for SLAA287, board won't let me post links):
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very useful, thanks!

walbuls said:
Monoprice has Cig to USB(1A) chargers and the USB to Micro cables in multiple lengths(I ordered 6' ones) for far cheaper than you will find anywhere else
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I second monoprice.

I tried bunch of cig to usb car charger and none matched advertised output... They all showed Charging (USB). I now use AC inverter and it charges just like a wall charger.

eccenpix said:
I tried bunch of cig to usb car charger and none matched advertised output... They all showed Charging (USB). I now use AC inverter and it charges just like a wall charger.
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I suspect you need to find one which properly follows the USB Battery Charging Specification. That link is to the most recent version, which came out on 7Dec2010 (remember Pearl Harbor!). Version 1.1 is easier - a Dedicated Charging Port is indicated by shorting together the data lines (the two middle conductors on a full sized USB connector. By doing so, it indicates the device may try to draw up to 1.8 A of current (although a dedicated charging port is allowed to limit the current to less than that, it must provide at least 1.5 A).
I bought a cheap USB hub with 5 ports, used an exacto knife to cut the traces going to the data lines (the middle two) on all the ports, and then shorted them together on each port. It's now no longer a USB hub, but a USB charger with 5 ports I can used to charge stuff (phone and Bluetooth, quite often). The AC adapter which it came with does 2 Amps. My Thunderbolt says "Charging (AC)" when plugged into it.
So, if you can open up one of your adapters, just solder a jumper between the middle two contacts (make sure they're not connected to anything else).

Just got the Rocketfish premium microUSB at Best Buy and it has a captive coiled cord and a USB port. TBolt says "AC plugged" and reads +670 mA.

Good choice on the Motorola Rapid Charge - I've burned through 3 other cheap car chargers trying to keep my phone alive while using Google Nav and this is the first one to work!

i have the rapid motorola one on amazon

lippstuh said:
i have the rapid motorola one on amazon
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+1 Works great! Battery widget usually shows about +800mA while only charging. Real close to the wall charger

[Q] Can I charge my arc with 1A?

Hi,
I've lost my charger, and I don't know if I can charge it with a charger with 5v - 1A or not, what I do know is that charging with USB is 5v - 500mA.
What's the power of the SE Arc original charger?

On the charger it says output 5V 1A
Is that what your looking for

It's Exactelly what I'm looking for thank you very much

The original SE charger for the arc is the GreenHeart charger EP800. It has got an output of 5V; 850mA.
As far as I know, there's no SE charger with an output of 1A. I've seen chargers with 500mA, 700mA and the 850mA.
My charger got fried during a power surge while holidaying in India so after asking around on the forum, I bought a Nokia AC-10N charger with an output of 5V, 1200mA. I've been using it without any problems. Pretty happy with it. Charges the phone much faster.

Thank you, that helps very much, but I heared charging the phone with higher voltage or higher Amperage can charge it faster, but it lowers the battery life on the long terme, it's appreciated to charge it with lower power in order to preserve battery life

MehdiArc said:
Thank you, that helps very much, but I heared charging the phone with higher voltage or higher Amperage can charge it faster, but it lowers the battery life on the long terme, it's appreciated to charge it with lower power in order to preserve battery life
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Totally true on all counts. You can really use ANY usb charger to charge your Arc, but the higher the mA the faster it will charge. And the higher the mA, the less overall life your battery will have. If it's normally supposed to be good for 5000 recharges, it might drop to 4000 recharges (just numbers pulled out of thin air).
The "Normal" standard for USB power is 0.5A (or 500mA). The iPad for example uses 1.0A, or twice as much as standard. Now in the iPad's case, it refuses to charge with anything less. I don't know if that's true for the Arc or not...if so, and the SE charger is rated at 850mA, then that's probably as low as you'd want to go just to be on the safe side.
Personally, I'm willing to use the iPad's charger and charge a bit faster for a bit lower useful battery lifetime. A new battery I can buy....time spent waiting for my phone to be charged I can't get back

The amperage rating on a charger defines the maximum current the charger is capable of supplying. A 1A charger doesnt force 1A down the throat of whatever's connected to it, if you connect something can only manage to pull a maximum of 500mA then it will only get 500mA.
Consumer power supplies are generally constant voltage. E.g. a 5V charger will supply 5V to anything connected to it. The amount of current that the device will draw at 5V is the amount it was designed to draw, up to the limit that the charger can supply. If the charger cant supply enough, generally you just get slower charging (though some poorly designed devices will just refuse to charge at all). What *will* tend to destroy your device quickly is a voltage mismatch, e.g. connecting a 5V phone to a 12V charger.
You can get constant current power supplies. These ramp up the voltage in order to force the required current out regardless of what's attached to it (even if that's a human being). They are scary.

daveybaby said:
The amperage rating on a charger defines the maximum current the charger is capable of supplying. A 1A charger doesnt force 1A down the throat of whatever's connected to it, if you connect something can only manage to pull a maximum of 500mA then it will only get 500mA.
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Exactelly what I was thinking, thanks.
Now I think I can charge my Arc with 1A without any problem, since it's gonna take only 850 mA from it

1A or 2.1 A?

So, I have powerbank and I have 2 ways of charging: 1A and 2.1A. which one to use when charging my note 2?
Handwritten from my Note 2

Depends on the cable you'd use. Samsung cable will go near 2amp, generic ones do about 1 amp

kebabs said:
Depends on the cable you'd use. Samsung cable will go near 2amp, generic ones do about 1 amp
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I have samsung cable.. So is it smart to charge via 2.1 A ? Can it do some damage on the phone ?

I have a Momax external battery and have charged the phone with the 2.1A port. It didn't heat up, it didn't have any problems. I was planning on measuring the exact amperage that comes out of the samsung charger and the momax battery (iPower Pro), but I didn't get around to it, because I suspect the difference is actually smaller. There are many people who used more powerful chargers to charge their phones faster, and the only thing that degraded was the battery lifespan, but the difference in those cases was upwards of 0.5A between the original and the new charger. I find the 0.1A to be a small difference and I have no problem using the 2.1A port on the iPower.
So to answer your question, no, it won't damage your phone. Theoretically it damages your phone's battery, but it degrades anyway due to charging cycles, so you won't notice any damage caused by the extra 0.1A unless you plan on still using the note 2 10 years from now.

sandulea said:
I have a Momax external battery and have charged the phone with the 2.1A port. It didn't heat up, it didn't have any problems. I was planning on measuring the exact amperage that comes out of the samsung charger and the momax battery (iPower Pro), but I didn't get around to it, because I suspect the difference is actually smaller. There are many people who used more powerful chargers to charge their phones faster, and the only thing that degraded was the battery lifespan, but the difference in those cases was upwards of 0.5A between the original and the new charger. I find the 0.1A to be a small difference and I have no problem using the 2.1A port on the iPower.
So to answer your question, no, it won't damage your phone. Theoretically it damages your phone's battery, but it degrades anyway due to charging cycles, so you won't notice any damage caused by the extra 0.1A unless you plan on still using the note 2 10 years from now.
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Thanks for reply mate ! I was thinking the same, but i needed some sort of confirmation tho

Use the 2.1A one.
The phone should only draw 2A from it anyway, that just means the port is capable of supplying 2.1A.
Using the 1A port will just charge your phone slowly, the 2.1A port should charge it as quick as the official charger, depending on which cable you use.

It is a matter of supply and demand. All USB devices can safely be plugged into any USB charger. Given an unlimited amount of current available from the charger, each device will still only draw only as much current as it is designed to draw. If the charger is rated 2.1 Amps or 5 Amps or 10 Amps, a 1.5 Amp device will still only draw 1.5 Amps. The charge rate will be at maximum Think of it like your house wiring. The circuit may have a 20 Amp circuit breaker in the basement but we plug in 40 Watt bulbs and 100 Watt bulbs and TVs and electric shavers that all draw different amounts of current. The 100 Watt bulb uses less than an amp but is unharmed being plugged into a 20 Amp receptacle (charger). Now we come to the flip side. If the charger Is rated lower than the device it just charges slower than it would if the charger could supply at least as much as the device uses. To go back to our example, the 1.5 Amp device plugged into a 1 Amp charger will take longer to charge that it would with a charger rated 1.5 Amps or higher. My analogy has one hole. If the stuff plugged into the house receptacles exceeds 20 Amps the circuit breaker pops. This will not happen with USB chargers as they limit the current and will not try to supply more than they are rated for. Stick to chargers rated as high as the one that came with your device or higher and you will be fine

[Q] Will using a different cable to charge damage my battery?

I noticed that when I charge my Note 8.0 with the USB wall adapter that comes with it, charging only takes about 2-3 hours but when I use the power cable of my Samsung Galaxy S Advance, charging can take up to 4-6 hours.
Assuming that I don't mind the longer waiting time, will using the latter power cable to charge my device shorten its battery lifespan or damage it in anyway? Thanks!
Addtional details:
I'm guessing that the difference in charging time is due to the difference in current. High current contributes to greater heating, which damages the battery but I'm wondering if higher temperature over a shorter duration or lower temperature over a longer duration is more damanging. Is the difference even significant?
I've read this link How USB charging works, or how to avoid blowing up your smartphone from "is it safe to use any usb cable to charge s3?" and got the idea that my device isn't going to blow up or anything like that. I just want to know if it damages the device because I've spent a good fortune on it and I want it to last for as long as possible (hopefully a minimum of 5 years). Yes, any other advice on how to prolong device lifespan is also welcome. Thanks a lot guys!

The reason its taking longer is its not providing the same amt of juice the note charger is. I looked at the output of the samsung note 8 charger and its 2amps. Looking at an oem charger for your phone its 1000mah which is 1amp so half the charging amt thus the longer charging time. Now you need to take a look at the charger and read the output amperage on it and if its less then 2 amps you are fine. If its over 2 amps then I would discontinue using it as it could cause harm.
As long as the amperage of the other charger is less then the samsung note 8 charger you won't have any issues other then longer charging time. Once you go above the 2amp rating I would be concerned as you are putting more amps into the battery then what it could be rated for in the charging cycle.

sparker366 said:
The reason its taking longer is its not providing the same amt of juice the note charger is. I looked at the output of the samsung note 8 charger and its 2amps. Looking at an oem charger for your phone its 1000mah which is 1amp so half the charging amt thus the longer charging time. Now you need to take a look at the charger and read the output amperage on it and if its less then 2 amps you are fine. If its over 2 amps then I would discontinue using it as it could cause harm.
As long as the amperage of the other charger is less then the samsung note 8 charger you won't have any issues other then longer charging time. Once you go above the 2amp rating I would be concerned as you are putting more amps into the battery then what it could be rated for in the charging cycle.
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Actually, the amps used to charge with is up to the device not the charger. If your device comes with a charger that has an output rating of [email protected] and you plug it into a charger rated at [email protected] it won't necessarily charge it any faster unless the device pulls more than it should. Just means the charger has a higher output rating and can handle more power hungry devices. It should not hurt the device. However, if you up the voltage than there will be problems so you need to make sure the charger does not exceed the voltage. Plugging the device into a charger with lower ratings will of course charge slower because the device cannot draw as much.

sparker366 said:
The reason its taking longer is its not providing the same amt of juice the note charger is. I looked at the output of the samsung note 8 charger and its 2amps. Looking at an oem charger for your phone its 1000mah which is 1amp so half the charging amt thus the longer charging time. Now you need to take a look at the charger and read the output amperage on it and if its less then 2 amps you are fine. If its over 2 amps then I would discontinue using it as it could cause harm.
As long as the amperage of the other charger is less then the samsung note 8 charger you won't have any issues other then longer charging time. Once you go above the 2amp rating I would be concerned as you are putting more amps into the battery then what it could be rated for in the charging cycle.
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Thanks I checked the charger and it says 0.7amps.

Any reason we can't use a generic or old charger ?

I have a couple of generic chargers I've been using with my note 2 for a couple of years. I realize these will charge slower than the samsung fast charge charger but is there any reason we can't use them or will they impact battery life (I would think they would increase battery life); i supect the answer is that they are fine but maybe battery technology has changed and there is some 'smarts' between charger and battery that would be damaged by these ?

No issue using your old charger except as you mentioned it won't be fast charging. I do not believe that the fast charging will hurt the battery. The fast charge only works for the first portion of the charge then the rate of charge slows to a trickle charge.

U can use any charger but i recommend to use any charger with 2amp output as it charges quick 40% in 30 mins insteas of 50%in 30 mins with original.
Original charger has two modes 9v and 5v it charges with 9v untill 50% and switches to 5v after that.

I think the unit i use is a sanyo 800ma 5 volt. I don't mind the slwo charge as long as it can't harm the battery. This is only used during travel and office; @ home I use the charger that came with the device.

You can definitely use another charger. Like said before it wont charge as fast. The adapter that comes with the phone will charge your phone at 9v instead of the normal 5v. If you use a different usb cable with the charger it will still charge at 9v. If you change the adapter, it will charge at the normal 5v whether you use the another usb cable or the one that came with the phone. The usb cable is just wires. The wall adapter is what determines how fast it will charge...