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Car charger for fuze
I have a cheap car charger with a mini usb connector can it hurt my battery if i use it?
thank you
thank you
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Smurfette27
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Entropy512
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Earlier chargers for some phones contained the charge control circuitry for the phone, and could easily trash the phone. (Example: My first phone was an LG/Bell Atlantic Mobile BAM330, the "smarts" were in the adapter and not the phone, and I did kill a battery with a cheap charger in that phone.)
Many modern chargers (especially for USB-connectable smartphones/PDA phones) supply straight 5 volts and the charge termination "Smarts" are in the phone. This is the case for any phone that has a Mini-USB connector that is used for both charging and syncing.
One issue is that USB devices are not allowed to draw more than 100 mA unless they have negotiated a connection with a host (aka computer). Any device that draws more than this without either a computer connection or some other indication that it is allowed to draw more is in violation of the USB specification.
As a result, many devices that charge via mini-USB signal the presence of a "dumb" charger by grounding a pin on the mini-USB connector that is not normally grounded. This is the convention that high-current Motorola devices, Blackberries, and HTC devices use, among others. Some low-current Motorola devices don't need this signal and chargers designed for those devices won't ground the pin in question. In this situation a higher-current device (such as any HTC PDA phone) will refuse to draw more than 100 mA, and as a result will effectively not charge, and in fact the battery will drain. It won't damage the device though.
My experience is that the chargers designated as being for Motorola/Blackberry in Target or WalMart work fine for charging my Tilt. The Target ones made by "Wireless Gear" have a really bad design (interchangeable tips with a cheap connector for the tips) that causes them to fail prematurely though - they won't damage your device but they won't power it either. The "Durabrand" ones from Wal-Mart work fine and don't have this design flaw, they have no intermediary connector between the phone connector and the power supply.
eBay chargers might damage the phone by providing more than 5 volts.
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Smurfette27
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crutnacker
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Entropy512
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15 years ago
That's pretty much my criticism of the interchangeable-tip "Wireless Gear" chargers Target sells. Mall kiosk accessories tend to be as bad as (sometimes worse than) eBay.
Cell phone chargers seem to be one of the exceptions to the rule of Target usually carrying slightly higher quality products (on average) than Wal-Mart.
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