Develop Bugs

Automobile Quick Charging Solution

What is the best solution for quick charging the Galaxy Nexus in an automobile?

I have started to use 12-220 volt converter so I can use wall chargers.

I have bought a few of the low profile car usb chargers but they were never recognized as an AC charge. Come to find out, it was the USB cable. I bought a usb charging cable from Amazon last week and it goes in the USB charger and the phone does not think it is a USB charge. I have not timed it but it is recognized the same as the wall charger.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VYBCAY

ellisz said:
I have bought a few of the low profile car usb chargers but they were never recognized as an AC charge. Come to find out, it was the USB cable. I bought a usb charging cable from Amazon last week and it goes in the USB charger and the phone does not think it is a USB charge. I have not timed it but it is recognized the same as the wall charger.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VYBCAY
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+1 .. this solution has been working great for me, as well.

I've been getting 2.1A car chargers (look for ones for the iPad), most of the ones I had prior to this were 700mA or so and they can't keep up with my 1A phones. Be careful of dual port chargers advertising 2A, they may only be 1A each and may be "optimistic" about that rating. And don't worry about getting one rated for too much current, the Galaxy Nexus won't pull more than an amp no matter what the charger rating.

Some really good solutions here and thank you all for the help.
I'd really hate to use an inventer in my car just to maintain a clean install, so that really isnt an option for me.
Was really hoping to be able to use a off the shelf car charger with the correct pins to trick the GNexus into thinking that it was charging from a USB port, but the above solution should work well with using a socket USB charger.

I've never run into a car adapter that looks like a USB port, including the VZW charger with a spare port or the cheap 2.1A chargers I got from Amazon. My guess is that a charger not built correctly and leaving the data pins open only supports ~500mA anyway. Even if that's not the case I have a moral objection toward buying a cable to fix a design flaw in another cheap product - but that's just me

Grant H said:
Some really good solutions here and thank you all for the help.
I'd really hate to use an inventer in my car just to maintain a clean install, so that really isnt an option for me.
Was really hoping to be able to use a off the shelf car charger with the correct pins to trick the GNexus into thinking that it was charging from a USB port, but the above solution should work well with using a socket USB charger.
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I've got a charger similar to http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-Car-...ccessories&hash=item4ab18358f4#ht_1638wt_1392
All I had to do was undo the screws at the top, put a bit of solder between the middle usb pins, and my phone recognises it as a AC source rather than USB.

There has got to be a standard car charger on the market with the middle usb pins already soldiered!
I found this on Amazon which advertises itself as a rapid charging device.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S5Q9CA

Grant H said:
What is the best solution for quick charging the Galaxy Nexus in an automobile?
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Make sure the charger has the IC (rapid) chip. I use this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehicle-Adapter-micro-USB-Charger/dp/B000S5Q9CA

I've heard that Motorola one mentioned a lot as a good one.
The nice thing about having the low-profile usb plug is (a) it is low profile, (b) I can use it to charge other devices. The charge-only cable is only about $4, so I had no issues buying it to work with this to charge as an AC charge over a USB charge.

Grant H said:
There has got to be a standard car charger on the market with the middle usb pins already soldiered!
I found this on Amazon which advertises itself as a rapid charging device.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S5Q9CA
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I have this one and it charges just like it does from the home outlet and its says "AC" charging. I bought another 8 for family and friends and they all love it.

I think I've figured out the disconnect, I've run into chargers that appear as a USB host which limits the charging to 500mA on previous phones I've had.
You guys are concerned about USB vs. AC charging mode. Of the chargers I've got, this one lists as AC while the rest as USB. However, the fact that the other chargers all work just fine keeping up with GPS+streaming music indicates that the USB vs. AC really has no bearing on the charge current delivered. I'd stay away from charge-only cables just because they'll get mixed in with your standard USB cables and you'll knock yourself out wondering why they don't work. On the other hand, if you really want AC in your battery info order the one I linked.

I keep it in my car... i think I've heard on other threads that USB charging doesn't keep up with GPS (for Directions). Any verify?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

TheKaz said:
I keep it in my car... i think I've heard on other threads that USB charging doesn't keep up with GPS (for Directions). Any verify?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
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What's much more important is the rating on the power source. The GN can pull up to 1000mA, if your charger is only rated for 800mA (like many car chargers) it doesn't matter if it's in AC mode.

jdbower said:
What's much more important is the rating on the power source. The GN can pull up to 1000mA, if your charger is only rated for 800mA (like many car chargers) it doesn't matter if it's in AC mode.
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makes sense.. the one I use has dual usb (1.0 and 2.1)

You went and gave me a project for the weekend, and once again science prevails over anecdotal evidence. I took each of my 5 chargers and hooked them up to a 12V power supply that measures current. I then recorded whether the charger reported AC or USB, for the ones with USB I modified a right-angle adapter to short out the data pins, and I measured the current. The contenders:
Verizon Wireless Dual Charger
XTG Dual Port Charger
Griffen Powerjolt Dual USB Charger
Griffen Portjolt Micro
CostMad Dual USB Charger
The VZW model was USB out the external port as I had tested before, however AC out the built-in cable which I hadn't bothered to test. It pulled 0.25A @12V via the USB port and 0.59A via the cable. Hmmm... A hole develops in my previous observation. While I had used this on a long car trip with no issues, it was via the built-in cable.
The XTG was new, I hadn't used it before as it's in the car I rarely drive. It reported USB and 0.22A. With the adapter to make it report AC it pulled 0.48A.
The pattern was set. I had expected the Griffen adapters to be built more appropriately but the dual charger reported 0.22A without the adapter and 0.42A with. I had used this without losing charge in the past so this was surprising to me, but it's possible I just wasn't drawing as much current because the screen was dimmer or something.
The compact Griffen adapter (which is great for a laptop bag, BTW) pulled 0.21A and 0.47A respectively.
The cheap CostMad adapter was the only one that performed well out of the box, both reporting AC and pulled 0.57A.
In theory, a perfect adapter should pull 0.42A. Anything more is waste, anything less means it's not keeping up. I have doubts about the Griffen 2x allowing for a full amp, but the VZW and CostMad chargers are pretty lossy. What's even worse is that I'm pretty sure the VZW charger is rated for 800mA (but I can't find an actual spec on it) which would mean that it pulled the most power for the least current. Not that this really matters unless you've got an electric car.
Sorry for misleading you earlier, I should have checked the other port of the known-good VZW charger and probably doublechecked the numbers on my other "known good" charger. Still hating cables that work for charging but not for data, I ended up modifying each of the chargers to short the middle pins (except for the VZW one). If I didn't have the soldering iron for this, I probably would have gone for some of these instead.

Grant H said:
There has got to be a standard car charger on the market with the middle usb pins already soldiered!
I found this on Amazon which advertises itself as a rapid charging device.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S5Q9CA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CyberPunk7t9 said:
Make sure the charger has the IC (rapid) chip. I use this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehicle-Adapter-micro-USB-Charger/dp/B000S5Q9CA
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I'm using the same one and it works perfect. Charges even when GPS navigation is running.
Make sure you select Amazon as the seller though. I heard there are a lot of fake ones.

Grant H said:
There has got to be a standard car charger on the market with the middle usb pins already soldiered!
I found this on Amazon which advertises itself as a rapid charging device.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S5Q9CA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to those recommending this one. I have this exact model and it does indeed charge at the "AC" rate, about twice as fast as the "USB" rate.

TheKaz said:
I keep it in my car... i think I've heard on other threads that USB charging doesn't keep up with GPS (for Directions). Any verify?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
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Click to collapse
The Motorola one will charge even when using GPS. I have a friend I bought one for that uses his GPS all day and loves the Motorola charger.

Quick and Inexpensive USB wall charger?

I just lost my USB wall charger and realized my spares don't charge as fast as my previous one...
My previous charger had my phone at +700ma while in sleep, two of my spares can do 400 and one can only do 200!
One time I used a car charger that had me at +900ma in sleep so I would like to try and find a new wall charger that can get me +900.
BTW all the chargers I have used have said they are 5v 1000ma, so clearly I can't just go by the specs they list- I need a first hand experience of a quality charger.
So I open it to the forums. Anyone here have experience of a particularly strong USB wall charger?

I got a good Motorola one on Amazon for pretty cheap and it's been going strong for a while.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

Well, you do need one that's 1000mAh.
You just need one from a reliable manufacturer that's not mis-labelled crap.
I'd just look for a quality brand. I got lucky with one for $1.50 on eBay but the seller isn't selling them any more.

Hm so I guess OEM or genuine name brands should reliably be up to their specs, then? Well, I guess I'm going to shop around for one that maybe says 1500ma or more because I believe my phone can take more than a 1A charger can give it, and it probably won't disappoint

Samsung note II have a battery of 3,100mAh, the charger is 2000mA(2A). but my i can use the same charger for my S2. so i guess that the amphere doesn't really matter. just that the higher the amphere of the charger, the faster it charge. But you sure need a higher amphere charger for bigger battery. Hope this help.

seacreature said:
Samsung note II have a battery of 3,100mAh, the charger is 2000mA(2A). but my i can use the same charger for my S2. so i guess that the amphere doesn't really matter. just that the higher the amphere of the charger, the faster it charge. But you sure need a higher amphere charger for bigger battery. Hope this help.
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I've read that smartphones (at least android phones) have controlled charging circuits that will only allow for as much amperage as they are set to allow. So if you connect a 2000mA charger to the phone but it's limited to 1000mA then it will only draw 1000mA. However as I have noticed just because a charger says it can output 1000mA doesn't mean that it can. I have tried 4 different 1000mA chargers each with pretty different outputs- and if they don't output as much as your phone will take it WILL charge slower. The point of this thread was to gather information on which chargers are reliably fast and ideally economical ones (there's enough OEM chargers I can find for 10x the price of off-brand ones that would hopefully do the job right).

Best/most reliable wall charger?

Every charger I use, breaks when I'm using my phone and charging.
So, is there any chargers that you guys recommend?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I personally use a 4 port Antec charger. Works quite well for charging everything I have.

i like the Antec too.

Because the Samsung wall Charger is broken I buyed a new one from Blackberry: http://www.amazon.de/BlackBerry-Pla...94529&sr=8-1&keywords=blackberry+ladegerät+2A
And now I'm verry happy with this one! I use it for all mobile phones with micro USB which we have @home

Ive been using all the micro usb chargers ive had since the days of my palm pixi, and all phone in between. Never have had any bad luck with any of them.

parth212 said:
Ive been using all the micro usb chargers ive had since the days of my palm pixi, and all phone in between. Never have had any bad luck with any of them.
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+1
I've never had a wall charger break on me. I use older Samsung, LG and Blackberry micro-usb wall chargers without any issues. I actually only use the stock charger that came with the S3 as the micro-usb cable for my pc since I heard it's best to use the stock cable whenever you use Odin and I figure I may as well use it for phone to pc data transfers as well..

Did you guys ever tryed wireless charging?
Is this as good as a wall charger?

Well I did not even pick out wall charger from the box.
I have docking station near computer + audio docking station in bedroom and my phone is always charged when I need it.
---------- Post added at 11:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:50 AM ----------
compro01 said:
I personally use a 4 port Antec charger. Works quite well for charging everything I have.
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Is this charger able to charge tablets. As far as I know, some tablets needs 12V output to be charged. For example Asus Transformer prime.

I got this one some time ago for my car. It's a kit with a wall and a car charger with 2 usb outlets from energizer. It does say it's for samsungs but this has charged just about anything (iphones, ipads, other phones, etc) that also had broken chargers, has never let me down for a few years now.
Both output 5V on 1A.
Haven't found a pic from the wall one, only the car charger.
Pic1 Pic2

MiBan82 said:
Is this charger able to charge tablets. As far as I know, some tablets needs 12V output to be charged. For example Asus Transformer prime.
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This charger is strictly 5V. But it does have 2A outputs for more normal tablets.
brohead said:
Did you guys ever tryed wireless charging?
Is this as good as a wall charger?
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I personally find wireless is slightly slower than wired, but it lets me keep my lifeproof case all sealed up all the time rather than wearing tjr seal, so it's perfectly worth the extra waiting.
Sent from my Galaxy S3 i747m

I just bought a 10ft cable of ebay for like 2 bucks let's see how long it holds up haha
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

Can we use a wall charger with output more than 1A like one of those sony i have with o/p 1.5A ?

deepanshuchg said:
Can we use a wall charger with output more than 1A like one of those sony i have with o/p 1.5A ?
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using chargers with a higher amperage may not necessarily affect the battery immensely
however negative effects may be noticed over longer periods of time (battery swelling, accelerated loss of charge)

brohead said:
Did you guys ever tryed wireless charging?
Is this as good as a wall charger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would love to consider wireless charging but I'm still searching on what options are available. For now I switch between my original samsung charger and the Blackberry one. I hate the Samsung one because it slips out at any slight movement.

Old RAZR car charger work with N5?

Everyone,
This might be a dumb question to some, but I'm a bit paranoid about harming my shiny new N5!
I have an "old" car charger from my Droid RAZR, and I was curious if would harm my new N5 to use it. I occasionally take long-ish trips to visit in laws and stuff, and on Sprint's network especially, roaming can suck up battery like nobody's business.
The car charger I have is rated at 5.1v and 850mA, but I noticed that the N5s wall charger is rated at 5V and 1200mA. Will this damage my N5 or battery life over the long term or anything like that?
I can't post links yet, but the Amazon product code is B005LFXBLE, if anyone is curious about which item I own.
Thanks in advance, experts!
-vf3fan

It will work fine. Just charge a lot slower than it would in the wall.

vf3fan said:
Everyone,
This might be a dumb question to some, but I'm a bit paranoid about harming my shiny new N5!
I have an "old" car charger from my Droid RAZR, and I was curious if would harm my new N5 to use it. I occasionally take long-ish trips to visit in laws and stuff, and on Sprint's network especially, roaming can suck up battery like nobody's business.
The car charger I have is rated at 5.1v and 850mA, but I noticed that the N5s wall charger is rated at 5V and 1200mA. Will this damage my N5 or battery life over the long term or anything like that?
I can't post links yet, but the Amazon product code is B005LFXBLE, if anyone is curious about which item I own.
Thanks in advance, experts!
-vf3fan
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Click to collapse
A Normal USB Plugged into the computer is 500mA that is little more than USB power it should be slow but not as slow as USB the best charger to use is the one provided by LG and Google

markdapimp said:
A Normal USB Plugged into the computer is 500mA that is little more than USB power it should be slow but not as slow as USB the best charger to use is the one provided by LG and Google
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Yeah, I just can't seem to locate an "official" car charger anywhere.

i have one of these and the output is 2.1 amps per plug. add a good quality cable and your set.

vf3fan said:
Yeah, I just can't seem to locate an "official" car charger anywhere.
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-LG-Orig...l_Phone_PDA_Chargers&var=&hash=item5afa73a0e1

ATT car charger works great and charges fast.
Sent from the jaws of my Hammerhead!

Any micro USB charger will work fine and won't harm your N5, some will charge faster than others
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

markdapimp said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-LG-Orig...l_Phone_PDA_Chargers&var=&hash=item5afa73a0e1
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Thanks for the link but I'm sure they said Official "CAR" Charger.
The OG RAZR Charger will work fine but like others said any 1A+ 5V car charger will work fine just be careful of quality some cheap ones will cause issues.
There are some car chargers endorsed by others listed in this forum. (I use a $10 2 port charger by Onn I picked up from Wal-Mart that works fine)
The last "Official" LG car charger that LG made/makes (that I could find) is the CLA-305.
http://www.amazon.com/LG-CLA-305-Or...qid=1392826735&sr=1-2&keywords=LG+Car+Charger

[Q] in car charger

Has anyone found an incar charger that actually works? I have used the official lg cable with a cigarette lighter adapter and it simply says its slow charging with a usb charger. was using the satnav and it just constantly lost power instead of charging
cheers

I'm using this. You might need to condition your phone for it though so it can charge as quick as the stock LG wall charger.

labpedro said:
Has anyone found an incar charger that actually works? I have used the official lg cable with a cigarette lighter adapter and it simply says its slow charging with a usb charger. was using the satnav and it just constantly lost power instead of charging
cheers
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I find the problem usually to be more about the cable then the charger. Most car chargers claim to be 2.1a these days, but often the cable just can't keep up. The one I ordered is no longer in stock, but it's similar to this one:
ok, the system won't let me post links.. search amazon for 20awg usb charge cable

Cheers guys, I'll take a look

I use the iOttie Easy Flex wireless charging car mount. Best $40 ever spent on a car charger

I use Anker IQ 2 port 24W car charger. Main problem with charging LG G3 is usually bad cable quality. Use good cable and you'll always charge successfully.
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app

Even if I've used my original g3 cable with an in car adapter it didn't charge. Anyway, I got one off eBay whilst waiting for options above and so far it's working great.

Most in-car chargers are delivering 1A output, LG wall charger for G3 is 5V 1.8A. I use an in-car charger with both 1A and 2A outputs (twin), the latter, 2A connection, does its job well (which actually is for charging tablets like iPad in car). Shortly, if you want to get an effect like in LG wall-charger case you should care on the output current of charger.