[IvanAMANation]

Yes, thats right folks, I just did it. My battery was low on 53% battery life, an I got in my car and almost caught a anxiety attack because I left my charger in my house. So I looked around and saw my car charger and plugged it in, and drove off on a 20 minute ride towards my destination and when I looked at the status of my battery meter, it was 98% charged.

I was scared because I thought that I may have toasted it, so I turned it off an back on to see if it was a mistake, and the meter still was 98% and its now slowly dropping like normal.

If you're gonna charge it via car charger, I recommend paying close attention to it, just in case it could damage it, or worse, blow up. Can that even happened?

[howarmat]

car chargers are only 1-1.2 amps generally. the charger than came with the PB is rated at 1.8 amps i think. Im guessing the 53% reading was not correct.

[ceroberts75]

either wrong, or he has a rapid charger.

[pozi240]

Yeah, agreed, the rapid charger (docking style one) is rated at 2.0 Amps, and it charges pretty fast, but, I just looked at a generic micro USB car charger my wife has in her truck, and it is also rated at 2.0 amps..... hmmmmm.

[Altarocks]

i tried that just once and got a similar result. Something wacky going on, and I've been reluctant to try it again.

[IvanAMANation]

i tried that just once and got a similar result. Something wacky going on, and I've been reluctant to try it again.

Me too.lol.. im scared now.. but i swear guys, it did happen. My battery meter seems to be working fine as well still. Next time i need some juiced bad in my car I'll give a try again

[UnifiedTechs]

Car chargers almost always charge faster then a "wall-wort" chargers because there is no AC to DC conversion needed, just a small voltage drop to the 5 volts of USB. Amperage can be passed straight through because amperage is a maximum value, a device will only pull what it needs up to it's own max. So if you have a 20 amp supply and your device only is rated for 5 amps that just means you can plug in 4 such devices before overtaxing your supply.

I'm actually surprised so many people didn't notice this before because your phone charges much faster in many cases too. The only reason AC chargers have lower amperage is they would have to be much larger to provide as much amperage, and people like stuff to be small. Imagine if your travel charger was the size of your laptops power brick.

P.S.: This is how the blackberry rapid charger works, bigger converter so bigger amperage.

[fruitloaf]

Car chargers almost always charge faster then a "wall-wort" chargers because there is no AC to DC conversion needed, just a small voltage drop to the 5 volts of USB.

More efficient and perhaps cheaper to produce for a given amperage but certainly not faster due to no AC/DC conversion.

[UnifiedTechs]

More efficient and perhaps cheaper to produce for a given amperage but certainly not faster due to no AC/DC conversion.

Not directly, but AC to DC conversion is going to produce a lot of heat due to resistance, and the convertor has to be sufficiently built to handle and dissipate the heat without damaging itself or shorting and passing current directly to the device. If your not doing conversion you can just pass the amperage on to the final device with a simple in line resister. Conversion will involve a rectifier to initially change the voltage, a capacitor to smooth the output ripples, then followed by resisters to drop the voltage. All this has to be sized accordingly for the output you want.

[fruitloaf]

Car chargers are often higher amperage than wall chargers usually because wall chargers are designed to charge USB devices which have limits in the written USB specification defining how much current a device can draw from a charger. Manufacturers build chargers to meet this spec and don't generally exceed it as it costs more to make a higher current charger (not much more but why make something that is never going to be used).

Car chargers are often higher current presumably because its cheap enough to produce a higher spec because its all a DC system.

Devices won't be damaged by a charger that can produce more current than they can use as they will only draw what they need so, because the Playbook is designed with a rapid charger in mind, it seems it will draw all the current it needs from a car charger with a greater current capacity than the standard charger.

Voltage is a different matter, never connect a device to charger with a higher voltage than it is designed to take as this will most likely fry your device.

I was probably being quite harsh here and I'm sorry, UnifiedTechs was mostly correct except for his first sentence.

[UnifiedTechs]

fruitloaf,

No hard feelings I was trying to make my original post as simplified as possible, and a teacher would have slapped my hand for it, but I was trying not to lose anyone.

Exceeding the USB spec on large devices is not new, the "device that shall not be named" does it, this is where the complaints it would not charge from a standard PC's USB port came from. In actuality it does charge, but so slowly that it does not change the icon to a charging icon to prevent people from thinking it was a normal charge. It contained circuitry (actually a simple resistor shorting 2 pins) in the charger that told it if it could draw the higher current or if it should stay within spec.

As a side note the USB 3.0 spec increased the size of a unit load as well as adding an additional unit, this results in nearly doubling the maximum amperage from 500mA to 900mA.

[greggebhardt]

Anything would beat the little POS charger that came with the unit. Car charging would be way faster as the unit would be able to draw all the amps it needed.

[IndubitablyMe]

So does that mean that any micro-usb car charger will work on the PlayBook without risk of overload? We're taking a trip in a few weeks (12 hr car ride, each way) and it would be nice to ensure that it has enough charge the entire way. The charger in question has been used countless times on my 9650, with no issues. Is there a chance I could ruin the battery, or do y'all think it should be able to handle anything that the BlackBerry can take?

[toyanucci]

I've always found car chargers charge very fast, but the charge doesn't hold as long.

[fruitloaf]

fruitloaf,

No hard feelings I was trying to make my original post as simplified as possible, and a teacher would have slapped my hand for it, but I was trying not to lose anyone.

Exceeding the USB spec on large devices is not new, the "device that shall not be named" does it, this is where the complaints it would not charge from a standard PC's USB port came from. In actuality it does charge, but so slowly that it does not change the icon to a charging icon to prevent people from thinking it was a normal charge. It contained circuitry (actually a simple resistor shorting 2 pins) in the charger that told it if it could draw the higher current or if it should stay within spec.

As a side note the USB 3.0 spec increased the size of a unit load as well as adding an additional unit, this results in nearly doubling the maximum amperage from 500mA to 900mA.

Does the iPad not make use of the USB charging spec where anything that's a charger (has pins 2 + 3 shorted) can draw an increased load (1.5A I believe?) so its presumably in spec just doesn't charge well from a PC. If it wasn't in spec it wouldn't be able to use the USB logo.

EDIT: this is also why some chargers in particular car chargers are faster, they short these pins so the devices know they can pull more charge.

[ptpete]

I have a couple questions.

1) Is it safe to use the Playbook charger that came with the unit. eg 5v, 1.8 amps to charge a cell phone, say a Droid X or maybe another blackberry phone?

2) I got the Playbook rapid charger, which I was pleasantly surprised to see was smaller than in the pics. The mag attachment is nice. It is listed as 12v, 2amps. My related questions are a) Is 2 amp what make it charge faster than the the charger that came with the playbook? b) Does the 12v listing mean that the playbook can safely be charged by a micro usb rated at 12v?

TIA, it seems like we have some knowledgeable people here. I know next to nothing about Volts and Amps

[fruitloaf]

I have a couple questions.

1) Is it safe to use the Playbook charger that came with the unit. eg 5v, 1.8 amps to charge a cell phone, say a Droid X or maybe another blackberry phone?

2) I got the Playbook rapid charger, which I was pleasantly surprised to see was smaller than in the pics. The mag attachment is nice. It is listed as 12v, 2amps. My related questions are a) Is 2 amp what make it charge faster than the the charger that came with the playbook? b) Does the 12v listing mean that the playbook can safely be charged by a micro usb rated at 12v?

1) Yes you can use any micro usb charger with any other phone, some may be low powered and charge devices slower than others though however almost all the new ones I see for smartphones are high powered (1.5A+). The one that comes with the playbook is high powered.

2) There should be no 12V micro usb chargers, do not try to make one you will break things!
Power = current X volts so a 12V 2A charger can deliver more than twice as much power as a 5V 2A charger. The playbook actually has two batteries inside it one to the left and one to the right of where the charging sockets are, they take up about 2/3rds of the volume of the case. I suspect the rapid charging pod has circuitry that delivers the power in series to the batteries giving a > 100% decrease in charging time. I'm not an expert in charging tech nor do I have any experience of the PB circuitry other than seeing teardown pics though so this may not actually be what happens.

[UnifiedTechs]

Does the iPad not make use of the USB charging spec where anything that's a charger (has pins 2 + 3 shorted) can draw an increased load (1.5A I believe?) so its presumably in spec just doesn't charge well from a PC. If it wasn't in spec it wouldn't be able to use the USB logo.

From what I understand the iPad will sense the 2+3 short and draw 1.5A (tested at 1.8A but close enough) but if it detects certain resisters on 2 data lines it goes a little beyond the spec, supplying 2.1A from the wall charger.

Lots of info on it here: MintyBoost - The mysteries of Apple device charging

[ptpete]

2) There should be no 12V micro usb chargers, do not try to make one you will break things!
Power = current X volts so a 12V 2A charger can deliver more than twice as much power as a 5V 2A charger. The playbook actually has two batteries inside it one to the left and one to the right of where the charging sockets are, they take up about 2/3rds of the volume of the case. I suspect the rapid charging pod has circuitry that delivers the power in series to the batteries giving a > 100% decrease in charging time. I'm not an expert in charging tech nor do I have any experience of the PB circuitry other than seeing teardown pics though so this may not actually be what happens.

Thanks Fruitloaf,

Actually, I have an old and trusty Kensington slim power adapter that has all these great tips. One of them is a micro usb. the splitter rates the "AUX" out tip as 0-12 VDC/0-2.5A. (See pic). So indeed there is a 12v USB micro charger!

So can you please elaborate on 'breaking things' because I sure don't want to break my playbook! So you think 12V / 2.5amp is safe for the playbook?

FYI, the technology was bought by Lenovo and they now provide computer tips only for Lenovo notebooks, but they still provide a USB female, micro USB, mini USB and iphone tip.

Lenovo Power Tips


a

[brento]

I noticed the "super" charge as well when I used my car charger. It kind of scared me, but it worked.

[range.stormer]

Omg I loved the two nerds' back and forth about charging.

(Really, I did, it was very informative.)

[HaTaX]

Thanks Fruitloaf,

Actually, I have an old and trusty Kensington slim power adapter that has all these great tips. One of them is a micro usb. the splitter rates the "AUX" out tip as 0-12 VDC/0-2.5A. (See pic). So indeed there is a 12v USB micro charger!

It's still putting out 5V when using the micro USB tip. The charger can provide a 12V feed there, but if you look at the tips, there's more then 2 pins there, thus different voltages. Basically the charger is saying that anything that is in the AUX spot could draw between 0 and 12 volts at a max of 2.5A. The micro USB has 5V, but could go up to 2.5A.

[UnifiedTechs]

Omg I loved the two nerds' back and forth about charging.

(Really, I did, it was very informative.)

Who you calling nerds!

[ptpete]

It's still putting out 5V when using the micro USB tip. The charger can provide a 12V feed there, but if you look at the tips, there's more then 2 pins there, thus different voltages. Basically the charger is saying that anything that is in the AUX spot could draw between 0 and 12 volts at a max of 2.5A. The micro USB has 5V, but could go up to 2.5A.

I see. Learned quite a bit about micro USB power today. So it is ok to charge the playbook with the micro USB tip! I wasn't sure if the tip regulated the max V x A out or if it was the splitter.

However, it won't be as fast as the 12V/2A rapid mag charger.

I love that rapid charger and it certainly is faster than the usb charger included with the playbook.

Thanks all.

Geeks, but very important! Don't want to fry the PB.

[travaz]

My OEM Blackberry Car Charger for my Tour is rated 12v 500 ma it hardly added anything to the battery in 30 min