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High powered USB car charger?

Hi all,
Can anyone recommend a high mAh output usb car charger? It has to be one with a detachable USB lead.
The one I have currently takes forever just to charge the device by a 1% increment. It doesn't also seem to provide enough power when for example I have sat-nav/GPS running (the device still drops in battery power).
Thanks.

dont even think....
dont even think about it.... i got a charger that does 2 amps instead of 1 amp and guess what my battery blew up!

So what's optimal/maximum amp rating that I can use?
The one I have I would say is pretty much useless when using battery hungry applications/services.
Just tried to check my existing charger but there is no rating on it.
Would I able right in saying the following:
A charger with a 1000 mAh, would charge my battery by 1000 mA in a hour?
I believe HTC official chargers have a rating of 1000 mAh too right? Mine one may well be 500 I would guess.
How quick do other peoples car charger charge their Diamonds?

sh500 said:
So what's optimal/maximum amp rating that I can use?
The one I have I would say is pretty much useless when using battery hungry applications/services.
Just tried to check my existing charger but there is no rating on it.
Would I able right in saying the following:
A charger with a 1000 mAh, would charge my battery by 1000 mA in a hour?
I believe HTC official chargers have a rating of 1000 mAh too right? Mine one may well be 500 I would guess.
How quick do other peoples car charger charge their Diamonds?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A charger's specification would never indicate the mAh ( milliamp hour)rating, but would indicate the maximum current it can supply while maintaining an operating voltage (for usb its 5Volts.)
in answer to your question: yes your charger needs to supply more current when you have your Diamond operating and charging at the same time. not all chargers are made equal. some may max out by 500mA, therefore your diamond wont charge at all if its on. as far as I know, most chargers are rated to supply 2A (or 2000mA)
another thing: your diamond uses its own charging circuitry to recharge and maintain its battery. just because a charging adapter says it charges at 1000mAh, i doubt it would actually recharge your battery from 0% capacity to full% capacity in an hour(it just doesnt work that way, and if it did, then your battery could blow up).
as for my own diamond, i seems that it takes around 3-4 hours to get from 0% to full when it is off and using my stock 950mAh.
doing a little math here: 950mAh / 4 hours = ~250mA
therefor in order to recharge your battery, the charging adapter needs to supply 250mA.
but if your diamond is ON and you want to recharge then your charging adapter needs to supply 250mA AND and additional amount of current to maintain your diamonds power.
if youre still able to follow with what im saying here, you may conclude that you just have a DUD charger and you should just buy another one.
as for the other guy who said that a 2Ah charger blew his battery up. I'm a bit skeptical. I think your chargering circuit in your diamond is more likely to fry before blowing a battery up (and if a lithium battery blew up it would have taken out his entire diamond).

Yep, that all makes sense.
By chance, My battery (1800mAH) totally died last night. Put it on car charger and after almost exactly a hours worth of charging, the battery indicated 1% (!) Mind TomTom was running for about 30 minutes of that.
Ok time to buy a new higher rated charger I think. Any recommendations for one with a USB port on it?
Thanks.

i've been looking for one liek that on e-bay as well but i cannot seem to find one. having a detachable usb cord would be nice, but now that i think about it maybe i am better off finding one with a non detachable cable in the event that I dont have a usb cable around.

Yeah, I wouldn't normally mind one with an attached cord but the setup in my car is such that I already have a semi hard wired a usb from a 12v supply and have the [USB] cable hidden then have it pop out near to my car holder.

bingo
http://cgi.ebay.ca/USB-Cable-Car-Ch...|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:0|293:12|294:50

Check out Avantek. This charger works so much faster than any other charger I have. My Note goes from zero to hero in no time flat.

Fast charging N1

It seems the only way to fast charge a N1 is with the supplied wall charger. Standard Micro USB chargers whould only allow at much as 450mA of charge current regardless of the adapter current capacity.
The bundled charger however, manages to push 900mA into the N1. I made a cut in the charger wires and measured the current draw to make sure.
Now.. I'd like my car charger to be able to do the same. There must be some hack in the plug of the N1 charger since there are only 2 conductors from the case to the plug. You can see that the plug is somewhat longer than similar Micro USB plugs..
So I tried to see if one of the 3 unused pins can tell me anything but.. they seem unconnected as far as I could tell. Diode measurement (to test for any digital part inside) also did not produce any results. The next obvious step is to take the molded plug apart but I'd rather not...
Does anyone have any clue as to what makes that plug so special?
And please - I did my tests with a bench power supply - not the car chargers - so don't go around telling me it has to do with charger current capacity.
Thanks,
Nir

are you sure the micro usb cords you are using are able to handle the amps? most chargers made prior to now, only push about 450mA, the G1, and N1 chargers i have push a full amp though. I just ordered a car charger that pushes an amp too. There is nothing "special" about the plug.

followinginsanity said:
are you sure the micro usb cords you are using are able to handle the amps? most chargers made prior to now, only push about 450mA, the G1, and N1 chargers i have push a full amp though. I just ordered a car charger that pushes an amp too. There is nothing "special" about the plug.
Click to expand...
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I beg to differ. All the cords can easily supply 1 AMP. It is the phone itself that decides how much to draw from the charger based on something IN THE PLUG.
I am an electronics engineer so do understand I know perfectly what I am talking about
And your 1A car charger does not supply anything over 0.45A to the phone.. you will see that if you are using the phone while it charges (say nav or phone call) the phone actually looses some charge albeit it being charged... This will not happen with the stock wall charger.

I have a 900mAh car charger that I use and it does in fact give 900mAh to the phone while charging. I can tell because I used a 450mAh charger at home before and it was slooow and I could drain my phone while charging it. With the car charger I can stream music with spotify, use the GPS, have the screen on full brightness and the battery % will still go up.
I also bought a new wall charger recently, which is 850mAh on the USB port and has a 350mAh charger for a loose battery as well, works quite nice.

Has anyone measured the voltage or put a scope on the output of the stock charger?
maybe stock charger has a slight variance in voltage over USB chargers or some signalling going on and this tells the N1 to take more current from it?
I would like a solution to this too I've seen my phone discharge while on a supposedly 1A car charger using co-pilot.

SBS_ said:
I have a 900mAh car charger that I use and it does in fact give 900mAh to the phone while charging. I can tell because I used a 450mAh charger at home before and it was slooow and I could drain my phone while charging it. With the car charger I can stream music with spotify, use the GPS, have the screen on full brightness and the battery % will still go up.
I also bought a new wall charger recently, which is 850mAh on the USB port and has a 350mAh charger for a loose battery as well, works quite nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forget the numbers on the chargers - what counts is what really goes into the phone and that needs to be measured with a current meter (test equipment). What you may think to be fast might not be that.
Original HTC chargers obviously do the trick of fast charging but this comes at a price compared to the $3-$4 garden variety on Ebay and the likes.

now I cannot help you with the electronics at all, but, my old HTC Touch Pro charger seems to charge the same as the one which came with the phone, is this correct?
(suits me if it is, as then I have a charger for home and work)
my blackberry bold 2 charger only says it outputs 700MAh, but both the google and htc chargers both say 1.0A

dnts said:
Forget the numbers on the chargers - what counts is what really goes into the phone and that needs to be measured with a current meter (test equipment). What you may think to be fast might not be that.
Original HTC chargers obviously do the trick of fast charging but this comes at a price compared to the $3-$4 garden variety on Ebay and the likes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it is just anecdotal evidence as I don't have any equipment to measure it. But my phone no longer discharges when I use it while charging, which it used to do with the old charger I used. So while I can say for a fact that the charger I use now is faster, I can't say by how much (this goes for both the car charger and the one I put in the wall socket).

I ordered this charger a few weeks ago and it charges my phone as fast as the original charger. The label says 5v / 1200mA.
Genuine Nokia Mini AC-10U US Type AC Charger (100~240V)
$7,25 and free shipping. (Takes a while before you get it tho.)
GazzaK said:
now I cannot help you with the electronics at all, but, my old HTC Touch Pro charger seems to charge the same as the one which came with the phone, is this correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC Touch Pro = mini USB
Nexus One = micro USB

Not an engineering here, but I am guessing the phone not always drawing more than 500ma may be is to do with the charger itself.
There is this "fast charge" USB standard where a wall plug has the USB data pins shorted to indicate that it is a wall plug and hence the phone knows when to draw more power. So even if the charger is rated 1A, the phone might not know if it could utilize that if those pins aren't shorted. Try doing a quick Google on this ....
If someone can test if the stock charger that came with the phone in fact does have those pins shorted that would confirm part of this theory.

For all practical purpose - I used two cables/plugs with a bench adjustable power supply. Simple micro USB plug would only let me draw 450mA regardless of power supply voltage in the range 4.5-5.5V. Tried shorting data pins - nothing. Tried shorting spare pin to VCC or GND or any of the other pins - nothing.
Used original cable and plug - draws 900mA at voltages from 4.9-5.5.
So it's in the plug somehow.
Tried (very difficult) to see if the pins on the plug are shorted and all 3 spares (except for 5V and GND) seems unconnected.
Next step is the irreversible hot knife...

I'm bugged by this, too. I tested with my desktop dock connected to my car charger (which states 1000 mA): it loads slowly and my battery widget reports USB- instead of AC-charger.
Might it be that the phone tries to load more than 1000 mA at the beginning to be sure that it doesn't overload the charger? And if that fails, it falls back to 500 mA?

Could N1 use a simple logic of:
- always watch the voltage
- start drawing 500ma (or whichever is the lowest current as per USB spec)
- increment in say 50ma steps
- if voltage drops below 4.x V, back off and stay at that level

I just did a little test of my own. I have a Palm Pre car charger (actual Palm brand one labeled as 1000ma output) and I plunged my N1 into it on my way home from work. In twenty eight minutes, my battery went from 47% to 70%. Much faster than plugging into my computer, which is 500ma max. I don't have any fancy test equipment, and don't claim to know a whole lot about electronics, but seems pretty fast to me.

I have a 4-port 2A 5v USB charger, and connecting it to my Nexus OR Milestone with a MicroUSB cable (the one that shipped with either phone, or the one from my Kindle) yields painfully slow charging - it basically won't charge if you are using the phone.
Connecting the Nexus One charger yields fast charging on either phone - so it is not HTC (or Motorola) proprietary.
The Milestone comes with a 900mA USB plug, and connecting THAT to either phone with either of the MicroUSB cables yields fast charging.
I have another aftermarket 2 port 2A 5V USB wall charger (brand: T'nB) AND I have an iPhone USB plug, and both give fast charging on the Milestone, and I have not yet tried them on the Nexus One.
Breakdown (on things I've tried):
FAST CHARGING on Nexus One AND Milestone:
Nexus charger (either in the US (110v/60hz) or in France (220v/50hz) through an adaptor)
Milestone wall French USB plug (which I think is something odd like 850mA at 5.9v) with ANY microUSB cable (in fact, it seems to charge both of the phones faster than the stock Nexus One plug)
SLOW CHARGING on Nexus One AND Milestone:
USB plug on computer
One aftermarket 4 port 2A 5V USB charger (NOT a hub, only a charger)
FAST CHARGING on Milestone, untested with Nexus One
T'nB 2 port 5v 2A USB wall charger
Apple iPhone 1 port 1A 5v USB wall adaptor

Seems found the answer for Fast Charging N1
I had just do some test for Charging N1 With Original AC Charger , Other band USB Charger and PC USB charger.
1. Orginal Charger give N1 from 0% to 100% at about 2 hour and something.
2. The other band AC charger and PC USB Charger can only finish the same job over 5 to 6 hours.
The Fast Charging is Due to 5.1V (Measured at N1) and 5.2V(Measured inside AC charger). 0.1V Drop is due to resistance of USB cable.
The Slow charged is due to 4.8V (measured at N1) and 5.0V (measured on PC USB and Other AC Charger)
i.e. Original Charger mod from 5.0 V to 5.2V (about 10% increase in Voltage)

Looks my theory is correct then ? N1 watches the voltage and if it droops too much, it backs off the current.
So the key would be: get a charger than can maintain at least 1A @ 5.2V, use
a decent gauge, short wire from the brick to N1.

Has anyone tried a Blackberry charger on the N1? Will they work to full capacity as well? (They're on Amazon for a fiver)

Because the nokia charger is working
http://pinoutsguide.com/CellularPhones-Nokia/micro_usb_connector_pinout.shtml
see info under table.
I tested also HP charger + standard USB cable delivered with Nexus, and it is charching cca 1A.
Then I tested one noname Carcharger + standard USB cable delivered with Nexus, and also charging cca 1A.
I dismantle the noname carcharger and here is a result:
data line (pin2+3) is shorted and connected do + (pin1 ,Vcc) thrue resistor cca 630kOhm.
1 - 4 = 5.1V
2,3 - 4 = 3.2V
rashid11 said:
Looks my theory is correct then ? N1 watches the voltage and if it droops too much, it backs off the current.
So the key would be: get a charger than can maintain at least 1A @ 5.2V, use
a decent gauge, short wire from the brick to N1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I try to use power supply 5.2V 2A with cable without dataline (pin 2and3 not connected) and it is charging 480mA only.

I have now tested with an HTC car charger for the HD2. It's fast charging (tested with Waze running, two bluetooth connections and playing mp3 - and it's still loading the battery, whereas before it would be stuck at the current percentage) and even shows AC power instead of USB.

Can I use a Blackberry Charger to charge my Droid?

My Samsung Droid Charge charger has an OUTPUT of the same voltage and 700 MILI amps.
My Blackberry Bold charger OUTPUT has the same voltage but is 1 AMP output... or 1,000 MILI amps.
If I use the Blackberry charger in my new Samsung Droid Charge will that mess anything up in the Samsung? could it shorten the life of the battery?
Thanks!

sure can, including wall chargers and car chargers

well if the amperage doesn't match exactly couldn't that mess up the Droid Charge?

it should be fine...but you might confuse your phone into thinking that it is a cutting edge smartphone circa 2006

If the power output of the charger you want to use is rated at less than what the OEM one is, you would only damage the charger itself if it isn't made properly.
The phone will pull a specific charge from the charger, say 500mA as an example. If the charger is rated at 400mA and doesn't have wiring to prevent an over-draw, you will damage the charger, especially if you use it for extended periods of time. If the charger does have circuitry to prevent over-drawing power, you'll just charge the phone slower. If you use a charger rated at 1000mA and the phone pulls down 500mA, using a higher rated charger doesn't make the phone charge faster as it will still just pull the 500mA. You'd just be less likely to damage the charger using one rated for more than what the device will accept.

Charge faster
imnuts said:
If the power output of the charger you want to use is rated at less than what the OEM one is, you would only damage the charger itself if it isn't made properly.
The phone will pull a specific charge from the charger, say 500mA as an example. If the charger is rated at 400mA and doesn't have wiring to prevent an over-draw, you will damage the charger, especially if you use it for extended periods of time. If the charger does have circuitry to prevent over-drawing power, you'll just charge the phone slower. If you use a charger rated at 1000mA and the phone pulls down 500mA, using a higher rated charger doesn't make the phone charge faster as it will still just pull the 500mA. You'd just be less likely to damage the charger using one rated for more than what the device will accept.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had purchased a usb cable a couple of years ago on kijiji for my BB bold back then because I didnt have a charger for it. Then I got the S3 and one time I randomly used the BB cable connected to the S3 charger via USB, I noticed the phone charged WAYY faster than the normal S3 cable does. Now I got an S4, and it still charges a lot faster than the normal cable for it. In fact I'm charging both my S3 and S4 at the same time right now, the S3 with normal cable charged from 4% to 15% in the exact same amount of time my S4 charged from 48% to 72% with BB cable. Does this mean I'm damaging my charger that's connected to the BB cable?

FlashThisB said:
I had purchased a usb cable a couple of years ago on kijiji for my BB bold back then because I didnt have a charger for it. Then I got the S3 and one time I randomly used the BB cable connected to the S3 charger via USB, I noticed the phone charged WAYY faster than the normal S3 cable does. Now I got an S4, and it still charges a lot faster than the normal cable for it. In fact I'm charging both my S3 and S4 at the same time right now, the S3 with normal cable charged from 4% to 15% in the exact same amount of time my S4 charged from 48% to 72% with BB cable. Does this mean I'm damaging my charger that's connected to the BB cable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If by charger you mean that little box that plugs into the wall, that is actually a power supply. It just converts 120VAC 20A to 5VDC and whatever current it specifies. Also the stock s4 uses qualcomm quick charge, which means that if you use the stock power supply with the s4, it will charge at up to twice normal speed, provided you have a compatible cable (which it seems the BB cable is).
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

Understanding AMPs and Charge Times

So, after doing a smidgen of research I found out that charge time relates directly to the amp output of the wall adapter. Now, on to my question...
I bought a 10 foot charger from a local 7-11 knowing it was probably not of any quality but thinking it would at least charge my phone. However, it didn't, my s4 would actually lose charge while connected. Now that I have a small understanding of the amp thing, I can see how the standard 2.0 amp Samsung charger would have trouble producing enough power to travel 10 feet AND THEN charge my s4.
My question is, if I were to get a higher rated adapter that's been tested at say 4-5 Amp output, would that produce enough power to travel 10 feet AND THEN charge my s4? And what variables would be included? Like with it being a cheaper USB Cord could the extra power burn the cord out? Are USB cords rated as for the power it can safely carry? Does the Galaxy s4 have any safety precautions in the event that TOO much power was coming through?

A charger with more than a 2.1A rating will not do anything for you. Or I should say, the Galaxy will not accept more than a 2.1A rating. Whether it helps "push" the current through the cable I dunno.
But for reference, any high quality cable longer than 6' is going to suffer from a lower charging rate.
Also, there are two types of cables. You have "charging cable" and "data cable". The data cable is not going to give you high charging rates. It's about 1/4 the charging speed actually.
Go to amazon.com and look up red label charging cables for some good product.

Ok... so physics won't change..just because you don't understand physics.
The longer the cable--the bigger the voltage drop and you'll see a lower current flow/charging rate. 3-5 feet is optimum..ever notice that is all OEM's give you.
7-11 cord is probably garbage.
Monoprice a few 3ft cords.
Also.. the phone DRAWS amps.. the charger does not PUSH amps.. You can hook up a 5amp charger, but if the phone was designed to only draw 1.8A or 2.0A, that is all it will draw.. you can't shove more current into it.
If you want a good second charger that does higher rates, Anker makes a good 40W charger than will work to charger iPads, S4's, iphones so it.. itll provide enough power for all those devices.

[Q] I just found out my N5 apparently supports fast charging

So my friend borrowed me his charger from his phone, which is a galaxy edge. It said it was charging rapidly and omg it sure did. It was super fast. Does the N5 support any kind of fast charge? Will this break my battert?
Also attaching screenshot
Thx,
Dan

how many output amps was that charger?

I tried charger that came with Galaxy S6, which has output of 5V - 2A, and 9V - 1.7A when recognizes fast charging device. It charges my N5 from 15% to 100% in about one hour, but on lockscreen, it only says "Charging", and charges it really fast, without heating the phone, which then seems to be pretty much safe.
@tampitzel If the phone doesn't get hot to touch on the back while not used when charging (warm is ok), then it probably is safe to use.
If the screen starts to flicker, or doesn't respond well to touches (eg. while typing), that means that charger is giving too much voltage and that's bad for phone. But that mostly happens with cheap non-original chargers.
Cheers!

Mairo said:
how many output amps was that charger?
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Click to collapse
I will check, I didn't look to be honest, I was just baffled by fast charging

Nexus 5's OEM Charger (by LG) is rated at 1 amp - whereas the Blackberry OEM travel charger (folding plugs) is rated at 1.8 amp - been using it for a year - and, it fast charge the battery typically in 1 to 2 hours (even when it's down to 25% to 40% on heavy use for the day) with its extra long micro-usb cable. http://www.amazon.com/BlackBerry-Pr...1449956341&sr=8-6&keywords=blackberry+charger
No need for custom rom or other "tweaks" - for in-car use, a 2-amp mobile charger with a high quality micro-usb cable is the "key".

Good and beefy cable makes an improvement more than you would ever imagine!

The stock charger is rated for 1.2A not 1A.
The Nexus 5 doesn't have any kind of official fast charging. However it will allow up to a 1.8A charge rate. Plug in a 2.4A charger it won't go any higher than 1.8A. Its what the TI power circuitry is rated for.
I find it a bit strange that through coincidence that the Blackberry folding blade charger is the best (I would say perfect) charger for the N5. It was cheap and plentiful as well as high quality.