[Q] Where can I get a 1A car charger in Canada?

ootz0rz · Dec 11, 2010

I bought this kit from e-bay and just got it in today, so have been trying it out on my drive from home <-> work.

The problem is, the car charger they supplied doesn't seem to be sufficient to charge the phone or at least keep its battery at a constant state when I'm using it as a GPS + Streaming music. On my drive home, I started at about 50% battery life. An hour or so later, I was down to about 35ish with it plugged in nearly the entire time. So clearly it's not pumping enough juice to the device

I was thinking of buying one of these from monoprice but I wanted to make sure it really would give me enough power. Obviously the power isn't that big of an issue, but I don't want to wait for it to ship only to find out that it doesn't help anyways.

Anyone tried the monoprice one I linked to, or one of the other ones from there? Or can suggest one to buy from elsewhere? Would greatly appreciate it, thank you!

*edit*
I should mention, I have a car charger uhh splitter thing...to split the one socket into two (one for an FM transmitter, and one for the phone). Could this be a limiting factor in how much power I'm getting to the phone as well? Or should the single socket have enough power for both devices?

r3ferrei · Dec 11, 2010

I got a Kensington PowerBolt from Future Shop which claims to be 2.1 amps and I still drained the battery a bit when testing the nav. Possibly not as much as you but there is still a net loss. If the charger is accurate in its power then I presume my car isn't delivering enough power.

Any car charger that supports the ipad should be well above 1.0a. Whether it delivers that is a question I cannot answer.

Im going to test direct power charging while having the nav on to see if this thing can ever charge positive while in nav mode. I wonder if that has ever been done.

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fatttire · Dec 11, 2010

I am not aware of any car charger that is 1amp. What you are looking for is pretty rare

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r3ferrei · Dec 11, 2010

They are a little more prevalent thanks to the ipads higher power requirements for charging.

Future Shop has a few of them available now if you want. A little expensive though at $30+. I don't see the PowerBolt anymore which is too bad since that was a slim model that barely poked out of the socket.

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alphadog00 · Dec 11, 2010

fatttire said:
I am not aware of any car charger that is 1amp. What you are looking for is pretty rare

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This is completely untrue... did you make this up?

Griffin makes many:

http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/1207248/griffin-technology-powerjolt-car-charger-reviews/reviews.htm

Belkin and Kensington make them as well. Many are now 2.1A for the iPad.

But to the OP - a 1amp charger is not going to fix your problem in most cases. You need a cable with the data pins shorted so that the phone thinks it is pulling power from something other then a USB port.

A USB port only supplies 500mA - the phone will draw a max of about 750mA; but only if it thinks it is not attached to a PC. The wall charger shorts the data connection so the phone knows to pull more current.

I purchased a dual port (1A per port) charger at target or walmart, and then a took a USB cable and cut open the cable and shorted the data wires (not red or white - but the other 2). My phone says it is charging on AC power and charging keeps up with GPS.

It is possible that you could buy a car charger with the cable built in and the circuitry set to tell the phone to draw more then the USB 500mA, but I am not sure.

But know this; if the phone does not say "AC Charging" under settings->phone-> about - like it does when the wall charger is in use; then you are only getting 500mA.

lastdeadmouse · Dec 11, 2010

I use a 2 amp 12v to usb adapter that is use for my ecig passthrough. Charges with bluetooth, streaming music, and navigation all running but charges slowly. Something like $8 on madvapes.com

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r3ferrei · Dec 11, 2010

Excellent. I am going to give that a try. I have one of those flat retractable cables so its going to be a pain in the ass to do but its worth it.

Sent by an Assonance.

ootz0rz · Dec 11, 2010

alphadog00 said:
This is completely untrue... did you make this up?

Griffin makes many:

http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/1207248/griffin-technology-powerjolt-car-charger-reviews/reviews.htm

Belkin and Kensington make them as well. Many are now 2.1A for the iPad.

But to the OP - a 1amp charger is not going to fix your problem in most cases. You need a cable with the data pins shorted so that the phone thinks it is pulling power from something other then a USB port.

A USB port only supplies 500mA - the phone will draw a max of about 750mA; but only if it thinks it is not attached to a PC. The wall charger shorts the data connection so the phone knows to pull more current.

I purchased a dual port (1A per port) charger at target or walmart, and then a took a USB cable and cut open the cable and shorted the data wires (not red or white - but the other 2). My phone says it is charging on AC power and charging keeps up with GPS.

It is possible that you could buy a car charger with the cable built in and the circuitry set to tell the phone to draw more then the USB 500mA, but I am not sure.

But know this; if the phone does not say "AC Charging" under settings->phone-> about - like it does when the wall charger is in use; then you are only getting 500mA.

Oooo that's interesting, didn't know that. So perhaps the issue could be that my cable is not supplying enough power. Are there instructions somewhere detailing how to short the cable?

lastdeadmouse said:
I use a 2 amp 12v to usb adapter that is use for my ecig passthrough. Charges with bluetooth, streaming music, and navigation all running but charges slowly. Something like $8 on madvapes.com

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Do you mean this? Isn't 2 amps too much though?

fatttire · Dec 12, 2010

Didn't make it up - just havent looked in the last 6 months. Ur right they are pretty common now.

Might invest in one

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norcal einstein · Dec 12, 2010

ootz0rz said:
Oooo that's interesting, didn't know that. So perhaps the issue could be that my cable is not supplying enough power. Are there instructions somewhere detailing how to short the cable?

You're going to need to strip a cable so so that you can get to the individual wires for each pin. You want to short pins 2 and 3 together which are Data- and Data+. Normally that is WHITE and GREEN

Once you do that, you'll have a charge only cable.

Here's the detailed directions:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=46449

lastdeadmouse · Dec 12, 2010

I think the shorted data pins are necessary, but 2 amps wouldn't be too much. Li-ion batts love fast short charges.

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fatttire · Dec 12, 2010

Are you saying that the phone will only draw a max of 750mAmps and so anything greater wont provide utility?

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ootz0rz · Dec 13, 2010

norcal einstein said:
You're going to need to strip a cable so so that you can get to the individual wires for each pin........

Awesome! I'll try this out and see if it works, thank you

lastdeadmouse said:
I think the shorted data pins are necessary, but 2 amps wouldn't be too much. Li-ion batts love fast short charges.

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I thought there might be a limit on how much current you can provide at any one time.

On the original subject: I've started using a different car charger, and now have it plugged directly into the socket in my car. This results in it showing up as being charged by AC power in the settings -> phone status. However, it still loses power over time instead of keeping at the same charge or (ideally) charging the phone slowly.

I'm going to see if I can get my hands on that 2A charger and modify a cable, and see what happens then.

If anyone would like to see if the same thing happens to them, the main applications I have running are:
Google Navigation
TuneIn Radio (streaming from one of the DI.FM stations, and outputting audio to the headphone jack to my car)

I have 3g and GPS on, wifi off, brightness set to auto (have also tried with it set to the lowest it goes and the highest it goes, doesn't seem to make a substantial difference. Or even if it does, there is still a net loss in battery charge.)

It's on stock rogers rom, rooted, with no lag fix. And uhhh, that's all I can think of that would be relevant.

Moosehunter · Dec 13, 2010

I've got an New Trent IMP1000, which is an 11.1Ah battery pack. It can output a max of 1A, but the phone doesn't see it as an AC charger, so it only draws .5A. If I short out the two pins so that it draws more power, how will the battery life of the battery pack be? Meaning how many phone charges will I get out of it? Will it be shorter, longer, or not have an impact?

ootz0rz · Dec 13, 2010

Moosehunter said:
I've got an New Trent IMP1000, which is an 11.1Ah battery pack. It can output a max of 1A, but the phone doesn't see it as an AC charger, so it only draws .5A. If I short out the two pins so that it draws more power, how will the battery life of the battery pack be? Meaning how many phone charges will I get out of it? Will it be shorter, longer, or not have an impact?

You should still get the same number of "phone charges" out from the pack...they'll just be quicker charges afaik. i.e. if the pack took 4 hours to do a full phone charge before, it may only take 2 hours now. The same amount of power is used up each time though.

J3ff · Apr 5, 2011

any progress?

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[Q] Where can I get a 1A car charger in Canada?

ootz0rz

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r3ferrei

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fatttire

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r3ferrei

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alphadog00

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lastdeadmouse

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r3ferrei

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ootz0rz

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norcal einstein

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lastdeadmouse

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fatttire

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ootz0rz

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ootz0rz

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