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I have found that when charging my HTC phone (Kaiser now, used to be a Blue Angel) in my car, if I use a cigarette lighter splitter (So that I can charge another device too) that even if nothing else is plugged into the splitter, the phone will not charge properly. It seems to get enough power to maintain charge, but if I am low on batt, then charge the phone and use it for satnav while I drive, when I finish the journey, the phone has not charged.
This does not seem to be the case if I plug the phone charger directly into the cigarette lighter socket instead of via the splitter.
Knowing a little about electricity, I guess the splitter is running the sockets in parallel or something and dividing the power between the sockets?
Any ideas on what I could do? I would imagine a car battery has plenty of power, maybe it just isn't being distributed properly. I guess the splitter is possibly limited such that it can't pass too much power if only one device is connected?
All the devices I want to use can power from USB, so I am guessing that the solution is maybe a USB hub designed for car use. I have 3 items typically that I want to be able to charge, so a 4 port hub would be nice. Anyone know where to get one in the UK?
I've got the same issue with my car charger (HTC Mogul phone), although for me it doesn't matter whether I use a splitter. Where did you get your charger? Maybe it just isn't supplying enough power.
While it's true that having two devices in parallel causes half the current to flow to one and half to the other (assuming they have the same resistance), the power supplies should be more than capable of pushing enough current for each device, especially when the car is running (and you're getting your electricity off the alternator).
well I thought it could be a dodgy cable but I just got an official HTC car charger for my kaiser and am observing the same thing.
It could have been the cigarette lighter->USB converter or the retractible sync cable I used to use, I will do some more tests and see if I can work out which bit is causing the problem - it wasn't until just recently that I had an official end-to-end solution (ie one HTC car lighter to miniusb cable) so I will try connecting it up various ways, but it isn't exactly quick to test if it is good or not as you need your phone low on batt and to be driving around for an hour or two to see if it is charging properly.
Flat Batteries
Seems XDA has software to prevent charging batteries which are too flat. (Perhaps to protect internal circuitry).
I recommend this thread which has a solution:
http://www.htcwizardweb.net/node/2013#comment-3808
I made it work OK but it is a fiddly job. An external charger for these batteries would be great but I can't find one.
Good luck !
I have the same issue. The battery has refused to charge when its below 40% or so. I now carry a spare in the car, especially as I often depend on Sat nav working!
yeah I had that low batt thing happen with my BA once or twice.
Actually, now I have kept an eye on it, it doesn't seem that bad with my kaiser. I no longer use my car lighter usb adapter though - I use the HTC car charger into a 3-in-1 splitter (usb, extusb, 3.5mm audio) and from that into my Kaiser and it seems to charge the kaiser ok (albeit a little slowly) even when I have a cigarette lighter splitter also powering an RF transmitter.
So I think maybe the weak link was the car lighter to usb adapter, maybe it was outputting too little power on the USB rails.
Car Charger died
I'll jump on an old thread...
My HTC branded car charger (that I got from sending in the post card) worked fine for my Cingular 8525 until a few weeks ago. Then it got flakey and now it doesn't want to work at all.
My 8525 will still charge on my laptop connected cradle and the AC charger.
Has anyone seen any failures in these chargers?
Any recommendations on chargers that are reliable?
Dave.
I have travelled to devon on Saturday and used Google maps navigation which is simply superb as u could see the traffic jams in advance (believe me there were plenty of them) I had my phone charger charging my desire but the battery drained still any idea why surely the charger should charge it or keep the power at the same level ?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Anyone surely someone must know why the car charger hasn't enough power to charge the phone when running navigation and the normal phone functions
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I have no solution but I have the same problem. Quite frustrating.
You need a charger that outputs at least 1000mA. Most in-car chargers only output 500mA, and so the phone will discharge quicker than the charger can charge it.
Regards,
Dave
foxmeister said:
You need a charger that outputs at least 1000mA. Most in-car chargers only output 500mA, and so the phone will discharge quicker than the charger can charge it.
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
especially with some GPS apps that consume lots of juice...
Any suggestions which are the best chargers ? Does anyone know what the new HTC dock will incorporate ?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Get a cheap USB cable extender, cut it in half and short the middle 2 pins. Don't remember what colours they are. Look on Wikipedia.
I had same problem. Not anymore. Charges properly when I plug in through the custom cable.
This is a common problem.
It bugged me sufficiently that I investigated it in detail.
The Desire, and presumably some (all?) other HTC phones, employ relatively complex charging circuitry.
When you plug a USB cable into the phone, the phone does at least two different checks to determine what type of power source you have just connected.
If you have plugged in a mains powered official HTC charger, which has a rated output of 1A, then the phone knows that it is safe to draw a maximum of 1A from that charger.
The phone will then draw enough current to power itself and, on top of that, charge the battery at the same time.
This current will typically be in the region of 800mA (0.8A) to 900mA (0.9A).
Under these conditions there is enough current to power all the functions of the phone, including WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS, as well as the usual GSM radio and the phone's other functions, as well as being able to charge the battery.
However, if the phone believes that it is connected to a power source with a lower rating such as a standard USB port, then it will limit the maximum current that it draws from that power source to between 400mA (0.4A) and 500mA (0.5A) as this is the maximum officially provided by a USB port.
In other words, the phone is intelligent enough not to overload a standard USB port but, when more power is available, it is able to use it.
The mechanism that HTC uses to detect a power supply capable of supplying 1A, as opposed to a USB port, is very simple indeed.
When the phone detects that an external power source has been connected, it checks to see if the two data lines of the USB connector on the bottom of the phone have been short-circuited.
If they have been short-circuited, the phone takes this to mean that a suitable power source has been connected providing a current of at least 1A.
If the data lines are not short-circuited, the phone assumes that the power is coming from a USB port or other device not capable of providing more than 500mA.
In practice, the way this has been implemented is that within the official mains powered HTC charger, the two data pins of the USB connector are shorted together.
As soon as you connect this charger to the Desire, the phone detects the short-circuit and knows that it is connected to a charger capable of supplying 1A.
This particular trick seems to be something unique to HTC rather than being a universal standard, although this is a bit of a guess on my part based on having looked at only a few other chargers.
What this means is that if you have a car charger that is rated at 1A or higher, your HTC Desire will still only draw a maximum of 500mA from this charger.
This problem is easily rectified by opening up the charger and soldering together the two centre pens of the USB connector so that the phone sees this short-circuit and realises that it can safely draw I higher current from the charger.
Unless you know what you are doing and fully understand what I have explained above, then please don't go fiddling around with your charger.
I have carried out this modification myself on a couple of non-HTC mains-powered chargers and a couple of 12V car chargers with 100% success.
I have, however, found that some 12V chargers, even though they are rated at 1A or even 1.5A do not result in the Desire drawing the expected current.
What I found was that the phone would draw only about 250mA and then, after I had shorted the data terminals within the charger, the phone would draw about 450mA but not the 850mA or so that I had expected.
I have yet to determine with certainty why this is but it appears that as the phone begins to draw current from the charger it is able to detect if there is even a relatively small dip in the voltage coming from the charger and, if so, the phone backs off on the amount of current that it draws.
I will be doing a few more tests in my electronics lab to try and get to the bottom of this and provide a more detailed analysis and, hopefully, a useful solution.
In the meantime though, I have at least solved the problem that I was having and, based on numerous forum posts, the same problem that many other people have been having with car chargers not effectively charging the Desire.
Tim
mercianary said:
Get a cheap USB cable extender, cut it in half and short the middle 2 pins. Don't remember what colours they are. Look on Wikipedia.
I had same problem. Not anymore. Charges properly when I plug in through the custom cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Snap!
I didn't see your post before making mine (above) but my experimentation agrees fully with what you've said.
You can do it the way you've described, by modifying a cable, or you can do it inside the charger itself.
Just make sure that the cable going to the phone has all four USB wires in it. Some of them only have the two power wires, so the phone will never detect the short circuited data lines.
Tim
If you do not want to open your car charger, you can always create a male to female adapter that shots D+ and D- on the female side like the one in the attached picture
Obviously, the charger needs to be able to provide the 1Amps that are needed. If not, it will at best shutdown in protection mode, at worst fry completely with a great chance of fire...
Interesting stuff...
I bought an official HTC car charger and noticed that the included usb cable, when plugged into a pc, does not allow data transfer, only charging.
Can anyone explain that ? Why would there be a difference in the wiring ?
They want you to buy an official USB cable I guess ? Considering any microusb cable works I'm surprised they bother
Maybe because they just put the two VCC and GND wires in there, thus saving on the cabling cost.
Ok how about this then......
I have a USB port I'm my car (to plug in music on a dongle I presume) if I use the USB lead from my charger supplied with the phone (which also works as a data cable) I get a the charging status icon on the battery bar.
So......
Is my phone charging at 1 amp on the car, and at home or am I getting 0.5 on both or something else?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
_Crusoe_ said:
Ok how about this then......
I have a USB port I'm my car (to plug in music on a dongle I presume) if I use the USB lead from my charger supplied with the phone (which also works as a data cable) I get a the charging status icon on the battery bar.
So......
Is my phone charging at 1 amp on the car, and at home or am I getting 0.5 on both or something else?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you check your battery stats by dialing *#*#4636#*#* and look at battery info, then you can see if it is charged by USB (max 500 mA) or at AC (more then 500mA)
I bought the official HTC charger, works perfectly.
thanks a lot for the explanation. I went for an uprated USB car charger but was still using normal cables to plug into it and the phone wasnt keeping up when bluetooth and GPS was on and was flat by the end of a long journey. Have tried the mod and phone is showing as plugged into AC so hopefully this is going to sort my issues.
So am I right in saying that, unless you get one which has been adapted as described above, there is no real difference between one in-car charger and another - none of them will be up to the job of keeping the phone full of jiuce whilst running GPS over a long journey.
Was thinking of shelling out for a Brodit kit, but at £50+, I'll stick with a cheap one.
Narco77 said:
Interesting stuff...
I bought an official HTC car charger and noticed that the included usb cable, when plugged into a pc, does not allow data transfer, only charging.
Can anyone explain that ? Why would there be a difference in the wiring ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got the offical charger and the usb cable is fine for data transfer.
Bingo Accent said:
So am I right in saying that, unless you get one which has been adapted as described above, there is no real difference between one in-car charger and another - none of them will be up to the job of keeping the phone full of jiuce whilst running GPS over a long journey.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really.
For the "mod" to work, your charger must be able to source at least 1000mA which most can't anyway.
So you first have to find a charger that does and then, if it's not already the case, short the D+ and D- cables together.
Note that this can be done by disassembling the charger (not being sure of being able to put it back together), by using conductive glue on the USB plug itself (a bit invasive) or by using an adapter like the one I shown in my previous message (but you need to do it yourself or have someone do it for you)
I know this is mostly common knowledge but I still see many questions regarding this come up, so instead of explaining this over and over I can now link to this and flame away.
anyway...
When you charge your phone using an original HTC wall charger you phone gets all the power it needs to run itself and charge (up to 1000ma).
When you charge from any (most) other devices (this includes car chargers,non HTC wall chargers or any USB port) your phone will draw up to 500ma (the USB standard) REGARDLESS of the devices output.
The reason why the phone only draws 500ma on USB is so it does not damage any equipment by drawing more power than it can output safely (by design anything with a USB port can safely output 500ma).
The trouble is pretty much all equipment can safely output more than the USB standard of 500ma and safely charge your phone at full speed.
The phone distinguishes between an original HTC charger and other devices by whether or not the data wires are shorted (connected to each other).
How to do the charger mod.
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for anything that may happen as a result of doing this, by following these instructions you will be pushing any device you charge your phone from beyond the USB specifications, results of this may be, but not limited to your motherboard bursting into flames, you car exploding, the inventor/s of USB knocking on your door and slapping you in the face, but most probably faster charging and not a lot else.
Get yourself a short USB extender wire, male at one end, female at the other.
Cut the wire in half.
Connect the red and black wires up as they were before (or don't cut them in step 1).
On the Female side of the wire connect the green and white wires together.
On the Male side of the wire simply leave the green and white wires connected to nothing.
Insulate the ends of all of the wires with insulating tape.
Tie a knot in the wire so if the wire is pulled the knot is pulled and not the connection you made, it doesn't look pretty but the wire will last a lifetime this way.
All done, now use this wire in between your desire and whatever you want to charge from and get a full speed charge. You will lose data connectivity when using this wire.
There are other ways of doing this, for example.
Soldering together the data pins (middle 2) on the device you wish to charge from. Don't do this on your laptop...this method is intended for car chargers, wall plugs, and external USB battery packs.
Soldering together a male and female USB port and plug directly with no wire in between, this can look really good if you know what your doing.
Great guide! Just a quick question I have a 3rd party USB cable but an official htc wall plug. Will my desire still get 1000mA? Or will it only get 500 because of the 3rd party charger?
ste1164 said:
Great guide! Just a quick question I have a 3rd party USB cable but an official htc wall plug. Will my desire still get 1000mA? Or will it only get 500 because of the 3rd party charger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a 3rd party changer and I did this mod and it's working really great it's charging really fast
ste1164 said:
Great guide! Just a quick question I have a 3rd party USB cable but an official htc wall plug. Will my desire still get 1000mA? Or will it only get 500 because of the 3rd party charger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The original charger shorts the data pins so it doesn't matter what cable you use.
Hi,
just wanted to say thank you for the idea. For me this is really usefull in some situations at work, where I have no access to a socket, but a pc.
It charges not as fast as the AC charger, but MUCH faster, than the usual 500mah USB method.
And so does it look like:
fileden.com/files/2006/9/25/238757/charger2.jpg
fileden.com/files/2006/9/25/238757/charger1.jpg
TrTech said:
just wanted to say thank you for the idea. For me this is really usefull in some situations at work, where I have no access to a socket, but a pc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And next time, use your brain first, please.
Do you have an idea why the HTC Desire does limit the current to 500mA if it's not connected to a dedicated charger which shorts the two data pins? Ever thought about it? Ever?
Umm... yes. But please feel free to enlight me.
TrTech said:
Umm... yes. But please feel free to enlight me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
umm, and I thought the post starter already answered this question:
The reason why the phone only draws 500ma on USB is so it does not damage any equipment by drawing more power than it can output safely (by design anything with a USB port can safely output 500ma).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So in other words:
Any laptop or computer can output max. 500mA by USB specifications.
So this means:
You can have luck and your computer doesn't get damaged if more current gets requested, it just limits the current to something around 500mA.
You can have luck and your computer just shuts down the USB port and Windows reports you that a malfunction device got connected.
You can have bad luck, most often the case, especially on cheap notebooks, netbooks, computers, a fuse will prevent bigger damage and the USB port remains dead until the rest of it's computer live.
So the limit got wisely chosen. So if you want to use your USB ports in the future, too, then only use this 'trick' on wall adapters which support an output current equal or larger than 1A (1000mA), or use it only in combination with USB ports which support that high currents (most often advertised as being able to charge the Apple IPad), most often found on external USB hubs.
UpSpin said:
umm, and I thought the post starter already answered this question
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too. Its all written in the first post and I'm doing it on my own risk. Still wondering about your raging post.
I will update this, as soon as the first pc was fried.
TrTech said:
Me too. Its all written in the first post and I'm doing it on my own risk. Still wondering about your raging post.
I will update this, as soon as the first pc was fried.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was that 'unfriendly' because other people will do the same, because person xy said that it works. Then they fry their mainboard or notebook and complain.
I also don't understand why anyone risks damaging intentionally its computer or parts of it, especially if there's absolutely no need for it, e.g. just let it charge in USB mode, or take a small charger with you, or at least use two USB ports to separate the load.
But well, maybe some people don't have to take care of their computer.
This is an interesting thread. I have a Pebble charger and it literally takes four hours to charge my 1400mAh from ~0% to 100%, now my question is, will this damage my Pebble charger shorting the two wires to draw a greater current from the unit?
Overheating, melting and explosions are something I am looking to avoid.
I have yet to find a device that has been damaged doing this. I have personally tried this on a ps3, Xbox wii, 4 laptops 2 desktops, car radio,car charger and a sky+ box.
Kalavere said:
This is an interesting thread. I have a Pebble charger and it literally takes four hours to charge my 1400mAh from ~0% to 100%, now my question is, will this damage my Pebble charger shorting the two wires to draw a greater current from the unit?
Overheating, melting and explosions are something I am looking to avoid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try this? I too have a Pebble and would be interested to know if I have just 30 minutes to plug it in, can I charge quicker.
Also, did the guys PC blow up? He said he would come back!?!? Maybe it did and he's in hospital still Dangerous things USB ports...
thanks for this ! I go to try this
MM i have an interesting one (which i still dont get)
i have a pebble charger
with OEM HTC Micro USB charger cable
and Pebble charger
plug phone into OEM micro USB charger to phone (phone says Power AC) yeh thats right
OEM Micro USB to computer (chargin USB)
So far so good
Pebble charger OEM USB to phone (chargin USB)
Pebble Cable charger to phone ( Power AC)
why are the OEM and Pebble charger cables different?
Sorry if i am posting in the wrong area but the topics seem pretty similar to me =P
to put my 2pence in, i've just done this but slightly different than the OP method..
i bought the belkin car charger, gives 1amp, but is detected as 'USB', not 'AC' charging mode, so my phone only charges upto 500ma which isnt enough (in reality it doesnt charge when i have GPS & max screen brightness).
instead of modding a USB cable (unable to use for data) or buying extra kit (money/ordering/going out) i pulled a strand of wire from a spare mains cable i had, threaded it through the 2 center pins on the belkin charger and then twisted the wire together.
USB cable is slightly tighter in the socket now, but still removable and keeps everything nice and tidy.... and more to the point; cheap!
poor shown from belkin; 'USB charger' mode in a car! like it would ever have data connection to the 12v socket.
hope that helps someone!
USB cable to quick-charge an HTC smartphone
Check http://winhlp.com/node/855 for some more details and photos of a USB cable modification.
Does this mod change the detection of car mode
Hi,
I have just started flashing a couple of roms and noticed that when using my desire with my car charger (1amp rated) it does not charge when doing navigation. looking on battery widget I get a max 289mw on car charge and it is showing as a USB charge. Flashed back to stock and now the car charger shows up as ac connected rather than USB. This does solve the discharging on navigation issue but I would like to run Gingerbread.
my question is...
Will this mod stop the Desire detecting and automatically entering car mode when it is plugged in? Anyone done it to their car charger?
Ta
Yes
The cable modification (shorting the data lines 2 and 3, instructions at http://winhlp.com/node/855 ) will switch any HTC smartphone into AC charging mode.
But I am totally stumped as to why you can achieve AC charging mode without this mod. I know of no other way the HTC phone could detect a car USB charger. I'm tempted to ask you to repeat the test.
If anybody here has any idea, please respond. To the best of my knowledge no USB device is allowed to pull more than 0.5 A from USB power, lest the power source switch off according to the USB specification. The only exception is that the device gets positive information that it is connected to a charger that can deliver a higher current, and for HTC devices that is signalled by a shortcut between the two data lines.
Thank you. I would rather not check again I did look for a while. Reverted back to stock for now.
It is a Huawei curly lead car charger with a 1a rating. The strangest thing is that with my stock Vodafone rom it detects as AC power on battery widget but on both leedroid and RCMix it shows up as a USB charge and I get the power issue. On all three roms it detects car mode correctly (Which is good!).
I was just wondering if the mod would also break the car mode detection?
I can't find anything on how car mode is detected!
I'm trying to figure out what the best way to implement a hardwired charger.. more specifically in terms of getting the most mA as I can. What I understand is that when the data pins on a USB charger are floating, the phone requests only for 500mA. When the data pins are shorted, the phone requests for 1A (or 1000mA). On any decent 5v ciglighter /wall outlet phone charger, I understand that the charger shorts these data pins, allowing for that full 1A charging capacity.
I plan to use one of these ebay 12v to 5v converters:
http://tinyurl.com/oogbhyn
..and splice a standard micro-usb connector to the 5v output, also connecting both data wires together.
If I understand this correctly, would this provide 1A to the phone? Does anyone see any implications?
Thanks!
Smiert said:
I'm trying to figure out what the best way to implement a hardwired charger.. more specifically in terms of getting the most mA as I can. What I understand is that when the data pins on a USB charger are floating, the phone requests only for 500mA. When the data pins are shorted, the phone requests for 1A (or 1000mA). On any decent 5v ciglighter /wall outlet phone charger, I understand that the charger shorts these data pins, allowing for that full 1A charging capacity.
I plan to use one of these ebay 12v to 5v converters:
http://tinyurl.com/oogbhyn
..and splice a standard micro-usb connector to the 5v output, also connecting both data wires together.
If I understand this correctly, would this provide 1A to the phone? Does anyone see any implications?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory it should work OK.
I would recommend a few things. Make sure that dc-dc converter is easily accessible if you need to check it or smell a smoke in the car. Don't bury it too deeply where you will have to take too many things apart to get to it. I made plenty of mistakes in the past where years later wire cracks or connector is not making a good contact and I have to take the whole damn thing apart to get to it Also, I would STRONGLY recommend to add in-line blade fuse, like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Waterproof-..._Video_Fuses_Fuse_Holders&hash=item3f2dc85fa3
The last thing you want is to damage your phone if you get some in-rush spike. DC-DC converter looks ok, but you never know what could go wrong if it overheats and something shorts out. At least you will have a fuse to protect your 5V power supply line going to the phone. And since blade fuses are replaceable, you just pop in 1.5A or 2A, obviously don't use 10A that comes with it.
Once you done, comeback and post some DIY pics!!!
I was planning to use these add-a-fuse circuit extensions. I'll be sure to pick up some 2A fuses (supposedly the smallest fuse for mini-fuses)!
I want to actually hardwire chargers for two things into my car; my phone, to the left of the steering wheel dash, and a recently acquired dashcam right next to the rearview mirror. I drive a little Mazda so space isn't plentiful. The fusebox is to the left of the driver's left foot, so I planned to wire two add-a-fuse circuits; bring one up 2~ feet before the windshield pillar (phone), and the other along the pillar, over the headliner, where it would go to the 5v converter, and then bring the mini-usb cable where the headliner and windshield connect. There really isn't much I can work with..
Do you think that sun damage would damage the exposed cable? Perhaps it would be better to have an exposed female-usb outlet "installed" and use adapters to charge the electronics?
Smiert said:
I was planning to use these add-a-fuse circuit extensions. I'll be sure to pick up some 2A fuses (supposedly the smallest fuse for mini-fuses)!
I want to actually hardwire chargers for two things into my car; my phone, to the left of the steering wheel dash, and a recently acquired dashcam right next to the rearview mirror. I drive a little Mazda so space isn't plentiful. The fusebox is to the left of the driver's left foot, so I planned to wire two add-a-fuse circuits; bring one up 2~ feet before the windshield pillar (phone), and the other along the pillar, over the headliner, where it would go to the 5v converter, and then bring the mini-usb cable where the headliner and windshield connect. There really isn't much I can work with..
Do you think that sun damage would damage the exposed cable? Perhaps it would be better to have an exposed female-usb outlet "installed" and use adapters to charge the electronics?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have my Passport X50 wired through a-pillar. It's not usb, but 12V tapped off cigarette lighter internal wires so I can use another usb converter plugged into a cigarette lighter.. l was able to run the wire under upholstery of my GS350, but it was kind of tricky. I actually used credit card to push it in along the edge. Otherwise it would not look clean, and will be exposed to a sun - in my opinion sun damage is a problem. Perhaps get one of those cigarette lighter to AC adapters and use something like that 40W 5-port Anker wall charger I just reviewed?
I want to do the same, but for a dashcam.
Can I tap in to the power line that goes to the auto dimming rear view mirror and connect something like this to it?
Does the converter comes with a fuse or do I need to add an additional fuse?
Thanks in advance
Short version: what is the best way to charge a newer device from a USB port that only outputs 0.5a?
Long version:
Been out today in my new car and tried charging my phone from the built in usb... didn't do anything. Makes the charging noise on the phone but no charge.
Obviously I'm guessing it must be only outputting at 0.5a which is very low for today's devices... what can I do? Is there any way to bump up a 0.5a to higher easily (appreciate this might vary by a billion factors, but guess the USB is coming off the car's 12v rails somewhere along the line...)
Another thought that came to me was putting a battery pack that charges slower in the middle, but i don't know if this will work given that i'll probably be drawing more than i'll be getting in to it... and can they even charge as they are outputting?
Any thoughts welcome!!
Cheers
Xperia Z5
Silly question, but have you considered buying a separate phone charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter?
If your device supports Qualcomm QC 1/2/3 there are car chargers that support that protocol. If your device only supports 5V charging, there are chargers that put out up to 2.4 Amps.
I'd recommend purchasing one from a well know brand like Anker (I've only ever purchased 1 charger, it seems to work fine and it was this brand) or several phone manufacturers and cell providers sell their own.
If you absolutely MUST be plugged in over USB (for multimedia?) I don't think there really is a good/safe way to "boost" the output of the port in your car. They provide the USB port so that they can check the box on the features list for "Yes we have a USB port". They're doing this at as low of a cost as possible with little regard for how well it works or if it will charge your device well.
That's what I've ended up going for. It's not ideal as the USB is in the way of the gearstick a bit, but it's all I have. If I come up with a better way then I'll let you know!!