Droid Chargers

[19thumper76]

the micro usb standard is for the plug not the mah output of the charger, the different chargers have a different rating for a reason, the size of the battery, if u have a battery with a 400 mah rating and u charge it with a 1.5 rated charger u are forcing 3x the current into the batt and while it may not seam to be damaging the batt it is shorting the life of the batt and worse case can cause it to rupture or catch fire. the normal charge rate for a lipo batt is .5 to .75 of the mah rating. they can be "fast charged" every now and then at 1 to 1.25 of that rating without much of a negative affect but doing it constantly will damage the cells.

 

[cuskit]

the micro usb standard is for the plug not the mah output of the charger, the different chargers have a different rating for a reason, the size of the battery, if u have a battery with a 400 mah rating and u charge it with a 1.5 rated charger u are forcing 3x the current into the batt and while it may not seam to be damaging the batt it is shorting the life of the batt and worse case can cause it to rupture or catch fire. the normal charge rate for a lipo batt is .5 to .75 of the mah rating. they can be "fast charged" every now and then at 1 to 1.25 of that rating without much of a negative affect but doing it constantly will damage the cells.

Based on that info, am I damaging my bluetooth mouthpiece using my Droid car charger? The VZW store salesman told me there "should" be no problems as they recommend this all the time. I was skeptical assuming the mouthpiece probably required much less charging rate than the phone. I've been charging it for about six months with no issues to date - but it has been in the back of my mind. Don't want to start a fire in my F150! mike

 

[19thumper76]

Based on that info, am I damaging my bluetooth mouthpiece using my Droid car charger? The VZW store salesman told me there "should" be no problems as they recommend this all the time. I was skeptical assuming the mouthpiece probably required much less charging rate than the phone. I've been charging it for about six months with no issues to date - but it has been in the back of my mind. Don't want to start a fire in my F150! mike[/QUOTE]

fire is a worse case scenario most of the time there has to be physical damage to the cell. if u have the original charger use it to charge it from completely dead and before its fully charged fill the batt to see how warm its gotten then repeat with the droid charger to see if it gets any warmer. most likely u are just shortening the life of the batt look at the oe charger for the mouthpiece if the mah rating is fairly close i wouldn't worry about it

 

[coldflash32]

ok, so this is my first post here on droidforums... I just got my moto droid the other days when i started getting annoyed with the lack of coverage I had while traveling with my HTC Hero over the weekend... but thats besides the point

I work for Sprint Nextel (and yes I'm well aware that I use a verizon phone as my personal line, lol)... But We sell two different types of car chargers for our phones, one standard micro-USB that is used with all samsung, sanyo, LG, RIM... phones in our corporate stores... the other is the OEM micro-USB car charger from motorola that we are required to sell with all Moto products, for example if you walk in with a Motorola Qc you would be walking out with a OEM charger instead of the universal one... I'm not a EE and neither are our technicians that we have at a retail level but we do have reports of battery swelling from some of the Motorola iDen phones, the V9m, Q9c, and the V950 that used the original universal micro-USB charger as opposed to the OEM charger...

If it helps here is a link to a amazon page that has the OEM charger for 7.58 after shipping...

http: // Amazon.com: OEM Rapid Car Charger with IC Chip (SPN5400) for Verizon Motorola Droid A855 Cell Phone: Cell Phones & Service

 

[Sprank1]

I was always under the impression that the milliamp rating on a charger indicates the highest it could supply. But, that it will only supply what the device calls for.

As long as the voltage is correct and steady, a higher milliamp rating should not be a problem.

Just my two cents...

 

[19thumper76]

I was always under the impression that the milliamp rating on a charger indicates the highest it could supply. But, that it will only supply what the device calls for.

As long as the voltage is correct and steady, a higher milliamp rating should not be a problem.

Just my two cents...

If the charger list a range of milliamps then yes it will, but if it only has 1 rating than that's what it puts out. Variable rate chargers are normally expensive

 

[joemcp]

I've gotten 2 cables and and an auto adapter from monoprice with no problems. I have only used the USB cables with AC adapters that came w/ the phone and the doc tho....

 

[mikes]

If the charger list a range of milliamps then yes it will, but if it only has 1 rating than that's what it puts out. Variable rate chargers are normally expensive

Uh, that would be very interesting electronically. No, they don't work that way.

An ordinary charger (such as the standard one supplied with the Droid), has a voltage regulated output. It will put out a fixed voltage, across a wide range of current (up to it's max rating). How much current is drawn is a function of the Droid. The actual charge controller (which decides how much current/voltage to put into the battery, based on the battery's current state of charge) is in the Droid, not the charger. Having the intelligence in the Droid makes sense, since it allows the Droid to charge from a wide range of voltage sources, including USB.

If one were to have a "fixed milliamps" charger, then the voltage would have to vary enormously, depending on the sink impedance. When disconnected the charger would end up putting out thousands of volts, to create an arc (spark) to push the current through. Fixed current sources are available, but uncommon for consumer electronics.

 

[therock]

I was going to buy the Verizon car charger for $30, but thought I'd share what I found to save someone else a few bucks.

Instead I got a Nokia car charger, a Blackberry wall charger, and a Blackberry USB cable for the same price... a much better deal and they all work fine being micro USB, plus they actually are Nokia and Blackberry brands, not no names.

Bumble Bee Electronics - Electronic Supplies, Accessories was the site I used. Took about 4 days to my door.

Blackberry® Usb Datasync & Charging Cable With Micro Usb, 1 M
Blackberry® Folding Blade Charger With Micro Usb
Micro Usb Rapid Car Charger

I wish they had the docks, but at least I have all the chargers I need now at a decent price.

I'm sure glad you didn't provide direct links to the parts. That would have been too kind.

 

[kaboyd]

my experience with monoprice.com's wall chargers is not very good. I ordered two AC chargers and two usb cords, one six foot, one ten foot. The cables seem to work just fine if I'm using them with the OEM charger that came with my phone, or if I use them with my computer. The problem is when I use the monoprice wall chargers, my browser acts very strange while charging. Even though I have only one finger on the screen the page I'm viewing will zoom in and out very randomly and render my browser unusable. It just seems to me I got what I paid for, crap. I like the cables at any rate, just cant use the chargers.

 

[crspyjohn]

my experience with monoprice.com's wall chargers is not very good. I ordered two AC chargers and two usb cords, one six foot, one ten foot. The cables seem to work just fine if I'm using them with the OEM charger that came with my phone, or if I use them with my computer. The problem is when I use the monoprice wall chargers, my browser acts very strange while charging. Even though I have only one finger on the screen the page I'm viewing will zoom in and out very randomly and render my browser unusable. It just seems to me I got what I paid for, crap. I like the cables at any rate, just cant use the chargers.

same here, im looking for another ac adapter

 

[masterxchief]

So is it not a good idea to use the car charger with the Verizon branding on it?

 

[cuskit]

So is it not a good idea to use the car charger with the Verizon branding on it?

Have I missed anything about the VZW car charger being bad (or are you referring to the hissing)? I've been using mine with no issues at all.

How many have had issues with the monoprice ac chargers? I see one poster, are there more? My experience and that of most has been very positive - though I have only bought their cables.

Anyone? mike

 

[masterxchief]

I'm asking about the Verizon charger because someone on the previous page said that there's a difference in the way it charges and can shorten your battery life.

 

[mikes]

Charging is controlled by the Droid. As long as it's a regulated "charger" (meaning it maintains a pretty accurate 5 volts DC), and puts out at least 800mA, it should be fine.

I'm not familiar with the VZW charger, so I can't comment on it.

Some people appear to have troubles with the touchscreen or noise during calls when using some AC chargers. This is probably due to a poor quality charger which allows too much AC ripple through to the DC output.