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Droid Charging Question?
- Thread starter gan6660
- Start date
Does the charger light up when you plug it in? If it does then sure. I use the charger from my Blackberry Storm. I don't think I've ever used the Droids charger, no problems.
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Does the charger light up when you plug it in? If it does then sure. I use the charger from my Blackberry Storm. I don't think I've ever used the Droids charger, no problems.[/QUOTE]
I havent tried it yet I just wanted to make sure that it wont damage my phone. Thanks for your input.
Does the charger light up when you plug it in? If it does then sure. I use the charger from my Blackberry Storm. I don't think I've ever used the Droids charger, no problems.[/QUOTE]
I havent tried it yet I just wanted to make sure that it wont damage my phone. Thanks for your input.
Tillers_Rule
Member
My bluetooth headset has the same connection as the droid, didn't plug my Droid into the headset charger as I didn't want to risk destroying the phone.
What I did do was plug the phone charger into the headset and it did not work, so I assume it won't work the other was around either.
My point being, maybe you could do the same sort of test with something of lesser value than your phone......
What I did do was plug the phone charger into the headset and it did not work, so I assume it won't work the other was around either.
My point being, maybe you could do the same sort of test with something of lesser value than your phone......
JessiesGirl
Member
Don't know for sure. But I have seen many, many posts from people saying that their Droids went all kerflewy when the used chargers that were not branded for the Droid.
There have been a few post by some people who said while in the charger they had some difficulty texting. The Droid is not going to overload and go crazy on anyone, if you can put the end of the mini USB into the phone you will be fine.
Think about it, when you charge it off your computer your not using the same voltage and amps that you are using from the wall adapter. If you have a charger with a USB mini it should be fine with the Droid no reason to fan the fear flames.
Anonymouse
Member
What about the people whose phones have randomly called and texted people with random chargers?
Well... Actually, all computers have a standard as to the amount of Volts and amps the USB port will put out. Wall chargers are generally referred to as rapid chargers because they use a slightly higher voltage and amp.
According to a posting, the charger that comes with the Droid is 850 mA. So long as the Amp charge is 850 mA or lower, it SHOULD be okay. Any higher, there might be an issue.
For those of you not familiar with electronics, Amps is what drives the voltage. While high Voltage is bad, higher current will definitely screw up things if it is too much for the system to handle. Some of the portable equipment will have issues if you have a charger that sends the wrong amount of current along with the voltage.
According to a posting, the charger that comes with the Droid is 850 mA. So long as the Amp charge is 850 mA or lower, it SHOULD be okay. Any higher, there might be an issue.
For those of you not familiar with electronics, Amps is what drives the voltage. While high Voltage is bad, higher current will definitely screw up things if it is too much for the system to handle. Some of the portable equipment will have issues if you have a charger that sends the wrong amount of current along with the voltage.
No, no, no, no, and no. You are giving people wrong information.
The phone will try to draw 850mA from a charger, regardless of the rating. If it tries to draw 850mA from a charger that is rated for 1000mA, it will only draw what it is rated to draw: 850mA. If it tries to draw 850mA from a charger that is rated for 500mA, it only draw 500mA.
Doing this will max out the charger and potentially lower its life. When you draw current at the limits of a power supply, the voltage will sag low. This is obviously bad.
I would not do it, people have had some super weird problems with their Droids while/after using chargers for other phones. I don't recall specifically but it was something like the touch going crazy, screen jumping all over and what not. I would imagine it may also be detrimental to your battery if the output is not the same. And charging the Droid via anything USB is a no go, takes hoouuurrsss. Wall socket or 12v in the car is only way to go as far as I am concerned.
No. Assuming the Droid properly implements the USB standard, it will draw no more than 100 mA from a normal USB port. That is the limit given by the USB specification. In order to draw more, it must communicate its desires with the USB device it's connected to - that's why installing a USB driver for the Droid on your computer is good, as it allows the Droid to negotiate for up to the full 500 mA of current allowed by USB.
Beyond that, there are chargers which use USB jacks, such as the one Motorola ships standard. These don't actually talk USB protocols, but use another method (a short between the D- and D+ pins, which are normally used for USB communications) to allow the phone to sense that it's OK to draw more than 100 mA of current. I don't know how much more current the phone will actually take advantage of, but the provided charger is rated at 850 mA. A third party USB charger may, or may not, short those; one can't assume that the phone will draw more than 100 mA. I have a USB charger from another manufacturer which uses a particular value of resistor to signal the device.
Thank you for the further explanation. I was speaking from a purely electronics fundamentals perspective without the specific knowledge of how Droid negotiates its charging on USB.
I came upon this thread from Google searching "Droid charger current" and the information provided earlier was so wrong that I felt the need to respond before others made themselves poorly informed.
Again, thanks for the information.
As a VZW employee in a corporate store, what I have noticed is that Motorola devices tend to be the most 'picky' about the charger that is plugged into their charging ports.
What I mean by that is more and more micro and mini USB chargers now double as USB connectors, so the charging apparatus disconnects from the USB end of the cord, and in the stores we often have a mishmash of USB cords and disconnected charger connectors, so if I connect say, an LG charger to the end of the USB cord and plug it into a Motorola device, the prompt will come up on the screen "This charger is not compatible with this device", or "Use Authorized Charger" (the wording may not be exact, but it is along those lines).
So for that reason I would suggest that people only used the Moto charger that comes with the device (or one of the universal ones that are sold at the stores, as they are authorized by the manufacturers) for their Moto devices.
Just my .02
What I mean by that is more and more micro and mini USB chargers now double as USB connectors, so the charging apparatus disconnects from the USB end of the cord, and in the stores we often have a mishmash of USB cords and disconnected charger connectors, so if I connect say, an LG charger to the end of the USB cord and plug it into a Motorola device, the prompt will come up on the screen "This charger is not compatible with this device", or "Use Authorized Charger" (the wording may not be exact, but it is along those lines).
So for that reason I would suggest that people only used the Moto charger that comes with the device (or one of the universal ones that are sold at the stores, as they are authorized by the manufacturers) for their Moto devices.
Just my .02
The main reason people have had their droids go nuts with aftermarket charges is that the chargers' voltages are out of spec. Think of an electrical wire as a piece of pipe (which it is, in a sense, carrying electrons instead of water). Amperage is analogous to the rate water flows through the pipe while voltage is analogous to the pressure of the water in the pipe. If the water is flowing slowly, it will take a long time to fill a bucket. Same with a charger, a low amperage charger will charge the battery, but only very slowly and since the battery is the equivalent of a bucket with a hole in it, it may not charge fast enough to overcome the draw.
Voltage on the other hand, is the pressure of the water. If you put water into something at a higher pressure than it's designed for, it's likely to cause damage. Same for voltage, if you try to charge your droid with an adapter with too high a voltage (more than about 5.25 volts), it's likely to misbehave and could potentially damage it. Too low a voltage is unlikely to cause damage, but it's also unlikely to actually charge the battery either because it can't overcome the "back pressure" of the battery (greatly simplified, so any EEs out there, don't yell at me!).
In short, what you want is a charger that provides 5V +/- 0.25 volts at between 500-1000 ma current. If you stick to those specs you shouldn't have any problems.
Voltage on the other hand, is the pressure of the water. If you put water into something at a higher pressure than it's designed for, it's likely to cause damage. Same for voltage, if you try to charge your droid with an adapter with too high a voltage (more than about 5.25 volts), it's likely to misbehave and could potentially damage it. Too low a voltage is unlikely to cause damage, but it's also unlikely to actually charge the battery either because it can't overcome the "back pressure" of the battery (greatly simplified, so any EEs out there, don't yell at me!).
In short, what you want is a charger that provides 5V +/- 0.25 volts at between 500-1000 ma current. If you stick to those specs you shouldn't have any problems.
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