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[Q] Charger Harmful?

I just got my hands on a Griffin AC Wall Charger (USB) for the iPad and iPhones/iPods. It outputs 2.1 amps. Would it be harmful to use the charging block on my HTC Sensation, since the charger that came with it is at 1 amp?

And the survey says....YES
Sent From My Pocket

Why do you say that? Why would it damage anything?

From what i've learned, more ampere is okay, less is harmful.
If the charger produces more ampere than needed, the device
will still just consume the 1A it's supposed to get from the charger.
If the charger produces less ampere than needed, the charger
tries constantly to supply the device with 1A which it can not reach,
resulting in overheating and maybe destroying the charger
(and thus maybe damaging the device).
Are both 5V? I guess more than this could be harmful.
It's been a few days since i had this in school, so i can not guarantee for correctness,
maybe some of the smarter guys/girls here could acknowledge/deny my statements just to be sure.

brndklng said:
From what i've learned, more ampere is okay, less is harmful.
If the charger produces more ampere than needed, the device
will still just consume the 1A it's supposed to get from the charger.
If the charger produces less ampere than needed, the charger
tries constantly to supply the device with 1A which it can not reach,
resulting in overheating and maybe destroying the charger
(and thus maybe damaging the device).
Are both 5V? I guess more than this could be harmful.
It's been a few days since i had this in school, so i can not guarantee for correctness,
maybe some of the smarter guys/girls here could acknowledge/deny my statements just to be sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct.
The phone (which actually contains the charger) will pull as much current as it needs from the power supply (the thing we plug into the wall and incorrectly call a charger).
Part of the charging circuit should stop the phone drawing more current than the PSU can supply and causing damage.
Voltage is the important one that must be 5v DC.
Idealy you need a PSU that can provide more current than the device can possibly drain, that way it will relieve the load on the battery and the excess current can then go towards charging the battery.

I would figure it would draw too much and damage it. I had one of those iGo chargers and it was only 0.75 amps and it made noise so I stopped using it altogether. The charger's I'm getting are rated at 2.1amps and have a DC current of 5V so from what I read above it should be alright since the phone limits the charger to 1amp.

The mA (or A) rating on the PSU is the maximum it can provide, not the amount it will actually pull.
The amount it pulls is down to the resistance of the device.
Think of your car's alternator, mine provides 95A.
My headlight bulbs are 55W, so at 14V they each draw only about 4A of that 95A.
Using the formula V=IR, rearranged to R=V/I we get 14/4=3.5 Ohms, so the resistance of each bulb is 3.5 Ohms.

xaccers said:
The mA (or A) rating on the PSU is the maximum it can provide, not the amount it will actually pull.
The amount it pulls is down to the resistance of the device.
Think of your car's alternator, mine provides 95A.
My headlight bulbs are 55W, so at 14V they each draw only about 4A of that 95A.
Using the formula V=IR, rearranged to R=V/I we get 14/4=3.5 Ohms, so the resistance of each bulb is 3.5 Ohms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Good to see there are a few people here who know, and can apply, Ohm's Law.
Also, I have the Griffin charger that looks like a small cube. It works fine.
The noise you hear is from the PSU circuit in the supply (SMPS = switch mode power supply). It takes your house voltage/frequency and converts it to a high frequency/low voltage DC for your phone's charging circuit to use. Thats the noise, and it is normal, although bothersome!
Matt

mrg02d said:
+1
Good to see there are a few people here who know, and can apply, Ohm's Law.
Matt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fear we may be a dying breed Matt

Touchstone teardown / schematics, anyone?

Being the DIY kind of guy, I'm wondering if anyone tried to disassemble the Touchstone charger and post a schematic so that anyone with some electronics skills can make their own, in whatever shape or colour they desire.
Just wondering.

Ifixit has a pre touchstone tear down. They are similar, maybe you can request that site complete one on the TouchPad version.
I just looked mine over, there are no exposed screws. Any screws must be under the rubber foot, or the back may snap off. I'm not risking breaking mine. But, for $40 you could find out yourself
Sent from my Galaxy S II (i777)

All you need is a USB source with an output of 5.3V and 2A. But on that note, doesn't the higher level of amps charging the TP batteries more quickly kill the overall battery life of the batteries?
I use other brands of usb chargers unless i'm in a hurry, because the TP official charger will get it all juiced up in no time. Lower amperage, slower charging, longer overall battery life (i presume.)

teddyspaghetti said:
All you need is a USB source with an output of 5.3V and 2A. But on that note, doesn't the higher level of amps charging the TP batteries more quickly kill the overall battery life of the batteries?
I use other brands of usb chargers unless i'm in a hurry, because the TP official charger will get it all juiced up in no time. Lower amperage, slower charging, longer overall battery life (i presume.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure about the truth of that, because I think it has something to do with the actual cycles. I'm not 100% sure so if I'm wrong someone correct me.

The OP was referring to the wireless induction charging in the Touchstone, not just a generic USB charger.
As to the whole more amps = lower health battery debate, I won't touch that. I've seen "proof" both ways. What I know is the OEM charger is 5.3v at 2 amps. I am going to trust HP that is the proper specs. Plus, any "smart" device doesn't pull more amperage than it needs, so its software controlled.
Sent from my Galaxy S II (i777)

Indeed, I am not talking about the wired charger, I am talking about the wireless Touchstone charger.
50 USD wouldn't be a problem for a Touchstone. However HP hasn't brought Touchpad's or accessories in Romania and offer no support for them, and I don't want to wait for 2 weeks for delivery.
And I also am the DIY kind of guy, and in the near future I'll be designing and building a custom desk which I would like to include a nice built-in stand for the Touchpad.

teddyspaghetti said:
All you need is a USB source with an output of 5.3V and 2A. But on that note, doesn't the higher level of amps charging the TP batteries more quickly kill the overall battery life of the batteries?
I use other brands of usb chargers unless i'm in a hurry, because the TP official charger will get it all juiced up in no time. Lower amperage, slower charging, longer overall battery life (i presume.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any old 5.3v/2A source will not give 2A to the TP. The device relies on switch signaling on the data lines which aknowledges that it is connected to the correct (ie HP barrel) charger and this allows the full charge rate to be applied.
In all other cases the charger only gives a low level trickle charge with the resulting longer charge times.
LiPo batteries and their charging profiles are very efficient and are perfectly capable of handling higher charging currents without detriment.
If they become very drained these higher currents are required to start the charge cycle whereas lower power chargers would not.

This thread is not about charge current or cycles, not sure why you haven't gotten a real answer yet, so I decided to register to give you one.
Even if you had the schematics and a source for the components, winding the coil for the inductive charging would be your biggest issue. At best it probably wouldn't be efficient enough to be worth it and it would likely take a long time to charge if it did at all. All the parts and work it would take for a kind of crappy result wouldn't be as good as just spending the $50 or whatever.
That's the negative side though, so don't get me wrong. If I could I'd totally be building one myself as well. I wish more people were into DIY stuff like this. I also really like the idea of building it into a desk and you may be able to do that with an official Touchstone charger.

FjarrKontroll said:
This thread is not about charge current or cycles, not sure why you haven't gotten a real answer yet, so I decided to register to give you one.
Even if you had the schematics and a source for the components, winding the coil for the inductive charging would be your biggest issue. At best it probably wouldn't be efficient enough to be worth it and it would likely take a long time to charge if it did at all. All the parts and work it would take for a kind of crappy result wouldn't be as good as just spending the $50 or whatever.
That's the negative side though, so don't get me wrong. If I could I'd totally be building one myself as well. I wish more people were into DIY stuff like this. I also really like the idea of building it into a desk and you may be able to do that with an official Touchstone charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While the OP was not about charge current or cycles I do sincerely hope that you understand the value of correcting misinformation and wrong assertions about any aspect that may raise it's related head in these threads.
To jump into a thread and the forum with such a comment is perhaps an indication of the levels of accepable politeness at large in the world today.
But I for one don't take too kindly to it.
But then us 'older' members may be a little too sensitive.
Any impropriety and the mods will deal with it!

Question about chargers

I have an HTC Explorer, which came with a USB cable and an adapter to allow me to charge via mains as well. (Something like this: http://i.expansys.com/i/g/g232723.jpg - that's not the exact same one, but you get the idea). This charger says on it that it has an output of 5V and 1A. I also have a Blackberry Playbook, which came with a charger with a micro USB connector. However, this charger says on it that it has an output of 5V and 2A.
I have tested the HTC charger with my playbook, and it worked, but the question I want to ask is this: would it be dangerous to try the playbook charger on my HTC phone? (2A output from Playbook charger versus the presumably expected 1A input on the phone) I would like to be able to only carry one charger when travelling and the playbook charger has interchangeable adapters for international plugs, so it would be better to take, but obviously I don't want to overload the phone and have it burst into flames or whatever.
Any advice on the matter would be great, thanks.

It's not recommended by the manufacturer. It can void your warranty, though I don't know how they'd ever find out you were doing so. There can also be issues when using the cable to transfer data and such.

I did watch a video about that Blackberry charger.
Supposedly because of that 2A output, it charges your phone twice as a fast.
Sent from my Ainol Novo7 Elf using xda premium

I don't think there would be considerable damages but..I'd just use them both, even if it's less comfortable

I looked around and I think it should be safe. From what I've read online, the phone will only take a certain amount of current, regardless of the current being made available by the charger. Because the voltage is the same (5V), and the resistance of the phone circuitry is constant, by Ohm's law, I = V/R, so I will always be the same as long as V is the same. Presumably it'll drop with a lower input current, but the max I will always be the same, and that'll be limited to a safe level.
It might take a slightly higher current (say if the max the phone can take is 1.2A or something, the 1A charger can only give 1A but the 2A would give the full 1.2A), but no higher than the circuits in the phone will allow. After reading this, I realised that it made a lot of sense, and I think it's right. I also read that if it does charge the phone faster (which it will if the phone is taking a higher current e.g. 1.2A) it'll reduce the number of charging cycles that you get out of the battery. But the consensus seems to be that doing it every now and again when travelling etc. should be fine.
Thanks for all your responses.
EDIT: I think at worst, I might damage the battery, and they're not overly expensive to replace I don't think.

I agree, the rating on the charger is what it's MAX output, not that it will push that much current to your device. If you have an extra USB cable (that you dont mind cutting apart) and a mulit-meter, you can check to see how much current your phone is pulling from the BB Playbook charger. connect your mult-meter in-line with the red wire in the usb cable (just connect all others together)
Just make sure your mult-meter is rated for at least 2A.
Hope this helps.

Devices with lithium batteries usually have a charger circuit that limit the peak current that is sent to the battery. They also utilize temperature compensation so if you are charging the battery too fast, it starts limiting the charge current.
Where you might have a problem is when it's plugged in and you are using it, especially if the battery is low. You get high charge currents, combined with the operating current.

[Q] PowerBank /External Battery Pack

Does anyone know if there is any way to use the Surface RT with an external battery pack?
I know there are surface RT compatible powerbanks on sale right now but those are really expensive!
Afaik, the surface charges with 12V whereas USB ports output at 5V.
The only difference that I can tell is that the power output is different. This should just result increased charging times but should not have any safety issues at all.

If you aren't aware what a difference between 12v and 5v means in electronics, you probably shouldn't be giving advice like "should not have any safety issues at all". I mean, you're probably right in this case (though only "probably") but if you think that voltage = power output, it's only by sheer luck.
To answer your actual question, I am not. However, I strongly advise against simply... experimenting with this sort of thing on your own. You could easily start an electrical fire, damage your tablet, or do one of many other unpleasant things.

The surface uses a 7.4V battery pack. Attempting to connect a 5v supply to charge without a stepup converter will not charge the surface at all and instead lead to damaging your 5v supply as the surface attempts to supply 7.4v to it, which may also damage the surface too.
In electronics nothing is more important than the correct voltage. Take a raspberry pi, many people (including myself) use them for electronics projects. Both me and a friend added ultrasonic rangefinders to our pi's except I observed the fact that the module in question uses 5v signalling and my friend did not. We both connected the +5v and ground lines to the corresponding points on our pi's. I connected 1 GPIO pin of the pi to the trigger pin of the HC-SR04 (module in question) as did friend. The pi uses 3.3V on its GPIO pins, the HC-SR04 is safe with a 2.7v-5v trigger voltage, thats fine. The echo pin however is +5v. I ran my echo pin through a voltage divider to give myself a 3.0v output instead, this is safe for the pi (it is fine with 2.7-3.3). My friend did not, he connected the echo pin direct to the pi, tried to use the sensor for the first time ever and found he didnt get any results, do a few test lighting an LED and he found he could no longer use that pin, he damaged it.
I would be more concerned about the surface damaging the supply than the other way around in this case.
However you are correct in believing the device charges at 12V (2A or 4A depending on whether its an RT or pro charger). The surface would have the correct voltage regulation to charge the battery and supply 5v to USB internally. There are 4 wires within the charger. Red: +12V, Black: Ground, Blue: charger detection, Yellow: signal for the charger LED. I don't think its known *exactly* how the yellow and blue wires function, the surface does charge without them. Blue is rumored to be something to do with the RT charger identifying itself as a 2A device and telling the pro to not draw more than 2A (it draws 4) hence damaging the charger but exactly how it does that is unknown. If the 12V supply can supply more than 4A your golden. A supply capable of higher currents than the device needs is actually perfectly safe, current is drawn by the device from the supply, the supply does not force the current at the device. If a device requires 2A and the supply is capable of 10, the supply will still only give out 2 as that is all the device is drawing. A device drawing more than the supply can cope with on the other hand IS DANGEROUS. Lets say you were to use a 5v>12v converter from a computer USB port to charge a surface, a computers USB only supplies half an amp under normal conditions (and by shorting D+ and D- it can do 1.2), the pro trying to draw 4 combined with the inefficiency of 5v-12v stepup converters will cause a current draw so large on the USB port that I would be surprised if damaging the USB port is the only thing to happen, you could fry the entire USB controller easily, damaged USB controllers can then cause their own issues, primarily with this amount of current the possibility of fire.
If you want to charge your surface. Find a voltage source *above* 12V (but not too high above) and use a voltage regulator to make a clean 12V. Then make sure both the regulator and battery can cope with the current. The regulator will determine how far above 12V you are safe to go, some might safely regulate 100V to 12 (most likely a switch mode regulator which although highly efficient won't output a clean 12V, it will have alot of voltage drops and spikes) whereas some might only do 20 to 12 (linear, much less efficient but a very clean 12v, stick a heatsink on it as they get warm). A car battery btw is not 12V, its 12.6 nominal and when fresh off the charger as much as 14.

Yeah, I know the basics of electrical physics. Not a complete speculating noob.
P=IV
Power of a 5V 2.1A is 10.5w
The original power adapter supplies 12V at 2A = 24w
My physics may be rusty but, I was under the impression that it would still charge at lower power output albeit half as fast. I've read that the RT when using the 48W charger would still charge at the same rate as the 24w. This means that the current that is drawn by the surface rt is capped at 2A. Hence, I believe that there would be any significant issues with drawing 2A from a charger that is designed to output 2A anyway though at a lower voltage.
If I'm still wrong here, would love some clarification.

lambstone said:
Yeah, I know the basics of electrical physics. Not a complete speculating noob.
P=IV
Power of a 5V 2.1A is 10.5w
The original power adapter supplies 12V at 2A = 24w
My physics may be rusty but, I was under the impression that it would still charge at lower power output albeit half as fast. I've read that the RT when using the 48W charger would still charge at the same rate as the 24w. This means that the current that is drawn by the surface rt is capped at 2A. Hence, I believe that there would be any significant issues with drawing 2A from a charger that is designed to output 2A anyway though at a lower voltage.
If I'm still wrong here, would love some clarification.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The wattage is not of concern. The voltage and current must be treated independently. Also, consider that you are trying to charge a 7.4v battery from a 5v supply, the current will not flow from the 5v to the 7.4v (assume old electrical flow not real electron flow), it will end up doing the opposite, 7.4v flowing towards the 5v.
So lets say you step up the 5v to 12v, there is inefficiency in doing that. To get 12V @2A you would not be drawing 5v @2A, you would more likely be drawing 5V @4 or 5A.

As 6677 says, the Voltage and current (and not the power) are what matters. Power (Wattage) is a derived value (and you correctly gave the derivation); it's handy for making comparisons when certain core assumptions are valid but meaningless on its own. In this case, the core assumptions are *not* valid: not all chargers are producing the same Voltage.
To take another example of where assuming all Watts are created equal would get you in trouble, consider an incandescent light bulb. Light bulbs are rated in Watts because incandescent bulbs operate by turning electrical power (Watts) into heat (also measurable in Watts) via resistive filaments that can only dissipate a limited amount of heat. Thus, a 60W bulb has a filament designed to dissipate 60W of heat. However, since power is a derived value, let's look at what it actually means: In the USA (mains run at about 120V) we can use Ohm's Law: P=I*V; V=I*R, so I=V/R, so P=V*V/R=V^2/R, so R=V^2/P. Therefore, the resistance of a 60W bulb in the USA is (120^2)/60=2*120=240 Ohms. Cool. Now, let's take that 60W bulb from the USA and connect it to European mains. It should still consume 60W of energy and produce the same amount of light, right? After all, it says "60W" right on the box! Hmm... but European mains run at 240V. The resistance doesn't change; it's a physical property of the filament. So, using P=V^2/R, we get P=240*240/240=240W That's four times as much as the bulb is meant to handle; it will flash very brightly (much brighter than normal) and burn out instantly! The bulb isn't defective, it just wasn't made to handle 240V. The "60W" on the box is based on an assumption of 120V; the bulb itself does nothing to ensure that it only consumes 60W.
While the basics of Ohm's Law will equip you to understand things like I describe above, it is *not* enough (by itself) to make assumptions about complex electronics. Even a 101-level electrical engineering course will make that abundantly clear; there are many more forces at play in the world of electronics than the familiar and relatively-easily-understood Voltage, current, resistance, and power.

Thanks guys for clearing the air. Man, I thought it would have been possible to jerry rig a Surface Charging USB cable to be used with battery packs.
So from what I understand, to avoid unnecessary complications, it would be best to find a way to supply 2A @ 12V. Obviously finding a power supply that natively does so is most ideal. But there is an alternative of stepping up the voltage from 5V to 12V with will lead to losses due to conversion inefficiency which basically rules this out.
12V Power Bank
I found a 12V 2.5A external battery pack listed above. This seems to work doesn't it? It has a 12V output with a max draw of 2.5A. The Surface RT draws a maximum of 2A from your power source. I can simply splice the provided cables with the Surface Charging Cable and it sounds to me it'll work.
Since the Surface RT is reported to have a 31.5Wh battery, this battery pack seems to have a 78Wh battery making it rather ideal.

If it is indeed 12V @2A or more then yes, it should charge an RT

Use a power gorilla I use one for my macbook pro and other usb items

Just saw flyer for Surface pro/RT powerbank
Got an email with flyer for Surface + laptop Powerbank. I haven't put an order yet but you can check it out at -> qi-infinity website
It seems they already include Surface adapter and its on sale. I have Lenovo X1 carbon laptop and they have proprietary connector for that one included as well. So I might go with them

[Q] Wireless Charging + Daydream Bizarre Performance

This is my first experience with wireless charging so I'm probably missing the obvious here so please, anybody, point that out.
I'm newly using a wireless charger with my N5 & performance just doesn't make any sense to me. It's the Korean/Chinese knock-off of the N4 Orb which others on XDA have used successfully. On basic charging it does work but I can't make any sense of these numbers:
Charging I get roughly 10% per hour -- not great, but okay for bedside/overnight.
Charging with daydream on (Dashclock) on I get a loss of roughly 10% per hour! Yes, the phone keeps indicating it is charging in spite of this heavy drain.
But sometimes daydream just turns off & it returns to charging -- this seems to happen if I start off with the phone (mostly) charged. For the most part though, if I leave the phone on the charger overnight with daydream enabled I'll wake to a nearly empty battery.
As I said, these numbers make no sense to me at all. Part of the problem may be the power source for the orb - it's only 1A but even if it's underpowered I can't see the drop from +10% to -10% /hour.
Second part of my query -- does anyone know if it would be effective (and safe!) to feed 1.2A to the orb & maybe get faster charge. Or maybe that would be enough to keep up with the Daydream drain?
FWIW the the USB charger (1.2A) is very fast, I get better than 1% per minute -- unaffected by Daydream.

im using this and mine gets full charge within 1 and half hours
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

10% per hour? Something's wrong. A wireless charger shouldn't take much longer than wired.
It's possible your adapter is a dud. Try using the 1.2a adapter, it'll be fine. If it still isn't faster, you might have a bad charger.
Also, if it came with a USB cable, don't use it. The wires are too small to carry a reasonable amount of current.

NotFromMountainView said:
This is my first experience with wireless charging so I'm probably missing the obvious here so please, anybody, point that out.
I'm newly using a wireless charger with my N5 & performance just doesn't make any sense to me. It's the Korean/Chinese knock-off of the N4 Orb which others on XDA have used successfully. On basic charging it does work but I can't make any sense of these numbers:
Charging I get roughly 10% per hour -- not great, but okay for bedside/overnight.
Charging with daydream on (Dashclock) on I get a loss of roughly 10% per hour! Yes, the phone keeps indicating it is charging in spite of this heavy drain.
But sometimes daydream just turns off & it returns to charging -- this seems to happen if I start off with the phone (mostly) charged. For the most part though, if I leave the phone on the charger overnight with daydream enabled I'll wake to a nearly empty battery.
As I said, these numbers make no sense to me at all. Part of the problem may be the power source for the orb - it's only 1A but even if it's underpowered I can't see the drop from +10% to -10% /hour.
Second part of my query -- does anyone know if it would be effective (and safe!) to feed 1.2A to the orb & maybe get faster charge. Or maybe that would be enough to keep up with the Daydream drain?
FWIW the the USB charger (1.2A) is very fast, I get better than 1% per minute -- unaffected by Daydream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I'm using DashClock also and when it doesn't crash, my phone will charge just fine. Seems like about 3 hours total with daydream on, and about 2 hours with it off just regular charging. Here's my charger: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DOW1RD0/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Seems like you have a defective charger but it is a really weird situation.

Thanks guys, the jump to 1.2A made a world of difference! It still seems strange, but I guess there's a minimum threshold for the phone to properly charge. (I am really guessing!) Plugging the OEM charger into my qi orb I finally get a positive charge with daydream -- not fast, but good enough to wake with a charged phone! Without daydream I just got about 36% in the past hour.
A quick scan of eBay and the only 1.2A USB supplies I can find are refurbished LG & cost as much as the full qi orb! (from US with crazy shipping costs on these - I'm in Canada) But there are lots of 1.5A blocks, cheap (and free shipping from China). So... do you think it would be safe to try the 1.5A? According to Play the Google qi comes with a 1.8A supply but I have no idea how much the pad modulates the power or if that is all in the phone itself. It would be nice to have fast wireless charging, but with the dramatic jump with just the .2A increase I may be looking at something too powerful.
My concerns are (in order) 1. Don't want to fry the phone!
2. Don't want to burn down my apartment!
3. Would rather not trash the orb. The orb was inexpensive so I'm willing to gamble on point # 3.
Advice / assurances / suggestions? Please.
Mr. Sprinkles said:
Also, if it came with a USB cable, don't use it. The wires are too small to carry a reasonable amount of current.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume you mean USB out from PC since OEM charger is USB and orb power supply is USB as well. Point taken on PC charging though.

NotFromMountainView said:
Thanks guys, the jump to 1.2A made a world of difference! It still seems strange, but I guess there's a minimum threshold for the phone to properly charge. (I am really guessing!) Plugging the OEM charger into my qi orb I finally get a positive charge with daydream -- not fast, but good enough to wake with a charged phone! Without daydream I just got about 36% in the past hour.
A quick scan of eBay and the only 1.2A USB supplies I can find are refurbished LG & cost as much as the full qi orb! (from US with crazy shipping costs on these - I'm in Canada) But there are lots of 1.5A blocks, cheap (and free shipping from China). So... do you think it would be safe to try the 1.5A? According to Play the Google qi comes with a 1.8A supply but I have no idea how much the pad modulates the power or if that is all in the phone itself. It would be nice to have fast wireless charging, but with the dramatic jump with just the .2A increase I may be looking at something too powerful.
My concerns are (in order) 1. Don't want to fry the phone!
2. Don't want to burn down my apartment!
3. Would rather not trash the orb. The orb was inexpensive so I'm willing to gamble on point # 3.
Advice / assurances / suggestions? Please.
I assume you mean USB out from PC since OEM charger is USB and orb power supply is USB as well. Point taken on PC charging though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The official orb charger comes with a 1.8a brick. You should be fine.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

NotFromMountainView said:
Thanks guys, the jump to 1.2A made a world of difference! [...] you mean USB out from PC since OEM charger is USB and orb power supply is USB as well. Point taken on PC charging though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mean if your orb uses a USB cable and came with one, don't use the cable it came with. They're often very cheap and add a lot of resistance which will increase charge time.
It wasn't the step up to 1.2A that made a world of difference, it's using a quality adapter that made the difference. Your 1A adapter must have been faulty or grossly overrated. Sounds like it was putting out less than 500mA.
As for a higher amperage power supply somehow damaging things? Not possible. The circuitry in the wireless charger is only going to use what it needs, you could hook it up to a 50A power supply and it'll still draw around 1A. The N5 is also input current limited to 1.2A, so using a crazy high amperage adapter won't have much benefit anyway.
Still, not a bad idea to get a 1.5A - 2A adapter to compensate for whatever current the wireless charger itself uses. This is probably why the official one includes a 1.8A adapter.

Mr. Sprinkles said:
10% per hour? Something's wrong. A wireless charger shouldn't take much longer than wired.
It's possible your adapter is a dud. Try using the 1.2a adapter, it'll be fine. If it still isn't faster, you might have a bad charger.
Also, if it came with a USB cable, don't use it. The wires are too small to carry a reasonable amount of current.
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Mr. Sprinkles said:
I mean if your orb uses a USB cable and came with one, don't use the cable it came with. They're often very cheap and add a lot of resistance which will increase charge time.
It wasn't the step up to 1.2A that made a world of difference, it's using a quality adapter that made the difference. Your 1A adapter must have been faulty or grossly overrated. Sounds like it was putting out less than 500mA.
As for a higher amperage power supply somehow damaging things? Not possible. The circuitry in the wireless charger is only going to use what it needs, you could hook it up to a 50A power supply and it'll still draw around 1A. The N5 is also input current limited to 1.2A, so using a crazy high amperage adapter won't have much benefit anyway.
Still, not a bad idea to get a 1.5A - 2A adapter to compensate for whatever current the wireless charger itself uses. This is probably why the official one includes a 1.8A adapter.
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El Daddy & Mr. Sprinkles thanks, that's just the type of reassurance I needed!

just use the 2,1A amazon kindle charger with your orb... its cheap, safe and wont fry your phone
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Mr. Sprinkles said:
I mean if your orb uses a USB cable and came with one, don't use the cable it came with. They're often very cheap and add a lot of resistance which will increase charge time.
It wasn't the step up to 1.2A that made a world of difference, it's using a quality adapter that made the difference. Your 1A adapter must have been faulty or grossly overrated. Sounds like it was putting out less than 500mA.
As for a higher amperage power supply somehow damaging things? Not possible. The circuitry in the wireless charger is only going to use what it needs, you could hook it up to a 50A power supply and it'll still draw around 1A. The N5 is also input current limited to 1.2A, so using a crazy high amperage adapter won't have much benefit anyway.
Still, not a bad idea to get a 1.5A - 2A adapter to compensate for whatever current the wireless charger itself uses. This is probably why the official one includes a 1.8A adapter.
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Click to collapse
So from what I heard wireless charging, like a pogo plug can charge at a higher rate than the micro USB port in some devices (I've heard pogo plug can go up to 2.5A where the micro USB in that device is limited to 1.8A). So I'm wondering as these qi chargers get better, will this also be true. Mine is a 1A but seems like it charges around .8A so it's maxed out. I guess this also raises the question as to how fast is good for a battery also.
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