Database Users

Charging via car charger while navigating (long GPS usage time)

Hi all,
It is really exciting to see how a new device's forum gets filled up so quickly . (i'll be getting my device sometime today so I feel like a small kid waiting to go to the candy store hehe)
I did do some reading on http://www.batteryuniversity.com/ and also in different parts of the forum.
But i am not sure how this case fits in all of the battery discussions out there. If am going to drive in the states for 3-5 hours a day where i;ll need to use my phone afterwards to continue my day.
Will keeping the phone plugged in the car charger hurt the battery?
Thanks all.

The best to do in order to increase your battery's life is to let it drop to 5 or 10% then plug it on your car charger.
It will last longer then if you keep it plugged on the charger, that's for sure.
On the other hand, the average life of a battery of this type is between 1 year and 1 year and a half.
Personally I keep a second battery with me all the time.
That's what I used to do with all my previous devices so I never be short of battery

Thanks, then i guess i'll play it safe and recharge when it goes low on juice.
If i dare ask, given the scenario where you disrubt the battery while charging, would it hurt it? I read that it is better to keep it charging once plugged in, but then again this is Li-Ion which should not get hurt if you take it out while charging!
Thanks

Not charging in the car
I noticed that when I have my device pluged into car charger and use it as GPS, it does not charge or loose power. In other words, if it is half-charged when I get into the car, and I drive for 2 hours, it is still half-charged, no more and no less.
What is going all?
Thanks

Fadik said:
but then again this is Li-Ion which should not get hurt if you take it out while charging!
Thanks
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This is correct, but for the good of the battery you need to have it down to 5% (or less) from time to time

michael_r said:
I noticed that when I have my device pluged into car charger and use it as GPS, it does not charge or loose power. In other words, if it is half-charged when I get into the car, and I drive for 2 hours, it is still half-charged, no more and no less.
What is going all?
Thanks
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Click to collapse
I used to have this behavior with my HTC Athena, but did not see it yet on the blackstone. I'll check in the coming days and will let you know

Hi Fadik,
I'd recommend just using your GPS and charging at the same time. Go with BigDede's advice and let it run down a bit before plugging in. This will help avoid possible overcharging.
Compare this with what most laptops are put through - permanently connected to the charger and hardly ever being used on battery. Our Dell still has more than half its capacity after three years of this. If you are still using your HD in 2 years, give a battery as a birthday present!
I don't know of anything that would damage your phone's battery during normal usage. The main battery killers are deep discharge (protection circuits turn your phone off before this point) and very high temperatures (you weren't going to leave your HD on the dashboard of the car during summer while you shop??). Oh, and the obvious, including blocking your car's wheels on a hill, providing canine nutrition, etc...
Hope this helps...

Thanks all for the feedback and input.
and I guess, I should replace the battery every year and a half

BigDede said:
This is correct, but for the good of the battery you need to have it down to 5% (or less) from time to time
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This is a common misinformation.
Do charge the battery often. The battery lasts longer with partial rather than full discharges.
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Avoid full cycle because of wear. 80% depth-of-discharge recommended. Re- charge more often. Avoid full discharge. Low voltage may cut off safety circuit
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No maintenance needed. Loses capacity due to aging whether used or not.
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All quotes from this handy table at batteryuniversity.com
So to adress the question of the OP:
Your battery will probably do just fine, as long as the pack itself does not heat up too much from the prolonged charges. The battery it self should be protected from overcharge, and tickle charge should not hurt it.
-KJ

fjevel said:
This is a common misinformation.
-KJ
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You can stick with what you found on batteryuniversity.com
Im talking about personal experience here
I got my 2 batteries dead in less then 2 monthes on my HTC Athena
due to charging the device everyday while on 50% or more. (Actually charging it in the car, in the office at home, etc ...)
The 3rd one lasted more then a year when I was letting it drop to around 15 or 20%
Again, this is personal experience

michael_r said:
I noticed that when I have my device pluged into car charger and use it as GPS, it does not charge or loose power. In other words, if it is half-charged when I get into the car, and I drive for 2 hours, it is still half-charged, no more and no less.
What is going all?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this same thing when charging through the USB port in the car stereo. I had to revert to the dedicated car charger providing power from the cigarette lighter socket to get it to charge.

Hello
I had some trouble in the past, charging an Ipaq in my car.
You have to check how much the device can provide.
I think the wall charger is giving 1A.
On my USB car charger it could output 750mA. Maybe that's enough to maintain battery level in the case of the HD in GPS use.
I'll check.
You can check how much your usb on your car radio/USB can provide.
But I suppose it's 500mA which is the standard level given by a PC.And that may not be enough.

[TIP] battery swap without power down

I have a couple of spare batteries and tried a hot swap of battery without powering down while connected to a charger, and it worked to my surprise.
handy for charging spare batteries, or popping on a fully charged one if you're on the way out somewhere or even keeping open apps in a running state.
I guess this may be common knowledge for some people, I never tried before with my N1 as I am sure I had tried it on other phones and they did not stay booted.
If it makes any difference I am running Cyanogen 6.0 rc3.

scote said:
I have a couple of spare batteries and tried a hot swap of battery without powering down while connected to a charger, and it worked to my surprise.
handy for charging spare batteries, or popping on a fully charged one if you're on the way out somewhere or even keeping open apps in a running state.
I guess this may be common knowledge for some people, I never tried before with my N1 as I am sure I had tried it on other phones and they did not stay booted.
If it makes any difference I am running Cyanogen 6.0 rc3.
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Don't know if it's the same, but on the back of my laptop battery, it says being connected without a battery may cause damage to your system.
Not sure about that, but just sharing.

thatguyzx said:
Not sure about that, but just sharing.
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Think batteries offer an extra degree of filtering.

I have tried this before, it did not work for me. Phone shut off as soon as I took the battery out. Was connected to USB at the time.

Tried it with a car charger and it turned off lucky!!!
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Appears not to work for everyone - I was using an HTC mains charger, maybe it has something to do with the type of charger or what ROM/kernel you are using?
As far as laptops are concerned, i am sure I read somewhere that it is beneficial not to have the battery connected if you use them on mains most of the time due to the heat degrading Li-Ion batteries over time, but I can see the point about the battery filtering and providing protection against spikes and brown outs

xm0is3sx said:
Tried it with a car charger and it turned off lucky!!!
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
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Your car charger probably only provides 450mAh then.

i wouldn't be surprised if it only worked with the htc charger plugged in. as long as the power is stable (aka won't dip in voltage when something high power like the vibrator turns on) then the phone will be fine. The phone knows if it's an htc charger, a computer usb power, or some 50c knock-off charger and it's understandable that it would protect itself by changing its behavior based on the power it can reliably draw.
macbooks, for example, will downclock their cpu when the battery is removed to make sure the silly little apple transformer can keep the voltage up.

Batteries provide voltage stabilization from wall power, so it's definitely safer to leave them in...but a few moments of wall-only power won't hurt. If you're really worried about it, hook up your charger to a power conditioner.

Works for me via USB but only when ADB is running... if I kill the ADB server the phone shuts down...

When using phone heavily and charging battery drians.

Hey guys thought I would post here has anyone else expierence this before?
When charging in my car and using either gmaps with gps and listening to music with my g2 the battery drians even while charging!
Yesterday it screwed me over. I was going to a place I had never been and no matter what I tried it wouldn't boot any more. Even after plugging it in to the car charger.
The farthest I would get is that it boots into recovery I hit reboot now and it endlessly loops. Its weird. Is my battery bad?
Thanks!
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Your battery is fine. I suggest you pull the battery out for a minute or 2 and put it back in
BUT
do not turn the phone on yet. let it charge for half and hour to an hour to give it some charge back and see what happens from there.

Pretty much agree with the above. Make sure you use the wall charger, not USB or the car charger, as those supply lower voltage (EDIT: current or mA, thats the term/units I should have said, per below). Let the phone charge for a long time, maybe overnight, and see what happens.
I've never tried using GPS and playing music at the same time (at least not for any significant length of time). What do you have your screen brightness set at? Since the screen is always on when using Maps/Navigation, turning it down may have a big impact on battery drain, and might result in the charging rate being greater than the drain rate.

I bought the official HTC car usb adaptor for this very reason. Most car adaptors only output between about 300 to 500mA which is less than the battery drain when you play music, use gps and have 3g activated. The HTC adaptor outputs 1000mA and is the fastest car charger I have found. It is as fast as the Nokia N86 home charger I have. Buy one and you won't be dissapointed. It comes with a coiled usb lead in the pack but I use mine with the retractable usb lead that came with my powertraveller.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

USB supplies only 500mA and car chargers often only supply 1000mA as mentioned. This might not be enough to cover everything =/
My car charger (the official HTC Nexus One car dock) does 2000mA though so it's great =)

matt_not_andrew said:
I bought the official HTC car usb adaptor for this very reason. Most car adaptors only output between about 300 to 500mA which is less than the battery drain when you play music, use gps and have 3g activated. The HTC adaptor outputs 1000mA and is the fastest car charger I have found. It is as fast as the Nokia N86 home charger I have. Buy one and you won't be dissapointed. It comes with a coiled usb lead in the pack but I use mine with the retractable usb lead that came with my powertraveller.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
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Great info. I didn't realize the HTC car charger was that much better than others.

Ah ok this has to be it! Yes I imagine between taxing the cpu, generating heat, 3g, gps, and the screen on with music playing would drain faster than a regular usb can keep up with! Thanks guys. I will be finding a better car adapter! Anyone have any links of where they went?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

I purchased the Motorola Car Charger from the thread below. Did some research on it, and it is rated to put out 950mah. Not quite as much as the stock HTC car charger, but its only $5 if you follow the link from the thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=819465&highlight=car+charger
I don't use my phone nearly as heavily as you do in the car, only for GPS directions when I need them. But it works great when I need a quick charge. Drove to work last night (about 15 minutes) and it took me from 22% - 34%. Enough to make it through the evening shift!

battery drain with car usb and gps

Hi
Using today the phone @ 100% brightness with car charger connected and using Sygic / Copilot, I see that my device can't not even charge at the same time that I am using it, but maintain their % of battery. Even with the charger the phone drains battery.
WTF samsung, So i cant make a long travel without running out of battery?
Anyone more with this problem?
PS: My HD2, HD, TyTN2, etc doesn't have this problem with the same car charger, they even charge at the same time.

What's the rating on your charger? I had to swap mine out for a 1A one in order to cope with GPS use in the car. Haven't had a problem since then.
I suspect the one you're using is 750mA or even potentially 500.

I have just had the same problem. I knew i needed a higher amp charger but i thought i would give it a try. The one i used is 650mA, so that's definitely not large enough. The normal 'house' charger is 0.7A (700mA) so in theory that size or above should charge whilst the S2 is being used.

I have a 1200 mA usb adapter for car (a sony ericsson, very very slim one) and I have no issues. You need a decent amount of power for that phone so 650mA will not do, have at least 1000.
http://www.nextag.com/Sony-Ericsson-AN400-Compact-853915153/specs-html
Not sure if this is the exact model but I found it to be the best because it's slim and there is nothing sticking out of the car socket, has a lot of power and I can power any usb device with it.

padlad said:
I have just had the same problem. I knew i needed a higher amp charger but i thought i would give it a try. The one i used is 650mA, so that's definitely not large enough. The normal 'house' charger is 0.7A (700mA) so in theory that size or above should charge whilst the S2 is being used.
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Yest but probably you hava a chinese charger. The rating on it is never near the real one.

oh, I see, crappy charger, ill change then thanks guys

TomTom recently released a high speed multi charger. I replaced my old car charger with this one as I had a similar slow charge problem. Never had a problem ever since. All my weapons are always fully loaded with enough power! Expensive though!
http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/product...-cables/high-speed-multi-charger-9UUC.001.04/

If someone is using a cheap higher-powered mains adaptor without issue, could you please post a (UK) link? Also if anyone knows of a cheaper alternative to the £20 car charger that would be great too!

I had same problem.I bought Samsung charger and no problem after
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

2.1 Amp TomTom charger is way too much for this device. Samsung wall charger is only rated at 750mA, but someone even found out that in source level Samsung has limited the power current at only 650mA.
With 1 Amp (1000mA) top quality car charger, the phone lost charge while using Navigation on full brightness.
Very slow charging in general for this phone.

shawt said:
I had same problem.I bought Samsung charger and no problem after
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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Same here

Mittaa said:
Same here
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Can you provide a link? I'd like to get one

I bought mine on eBay for £6.Just search "genuine samsung car charger"
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

I bought today a Belking car charger of 2.1amps and suprise!, same problem battery drain.
Can be maybe the car? I doubt it, any idea?
http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=525940

When you have the car charger plugged into the phone go into Settings/About phone/Status & look at "Battery status"; it should tell you if the phone thinks it's plugged into a USB port (in which case the phone will draw only 450 mA) or an AC charger (from which the phone will draw 650 mA). These limits are built into the Samsung ROM, presumably to keep the phone cool and/or extend the battery's lifespan. They could be overridden (especially the AC charger current limit) in a custom ROM.
Absent a custom ROM, if the Status display says you're connected to a USB port, you could try a different charger, or connecting USB pins 2 & 3 (the two center pins on the USB A connector) together. That's how the phone decides if it's connected to a USB port or AC charger -- the low-resistance (less than 200 ohm) connection between the two USB data pins is the key. The spec calls for 200 ohms resistance between the data pins, but some of the low-end high current chargers I've seen just have a direct short.
If that doesn't work, or if the Status display says you're charging off AC, then try some of the other battery-life tricks documented here in the forums; they should reduce the device's draw from the battery, allowing the charger to do its job.

Wow, this is kind of disappointing i have to say. I have noticed the USB charging is incredibly slow. You can't ever rely on it, i think it would take close to 5 hrs to fully charge from USB, that's insane! By mains it's somewhere between 2 and 3, but that's still way too high.
I take it if you buy a higher-powered mains adaptor (not one for the car) then we'd definitely get the benefits of a faster charge? Can someone post a link to one they are using and know works faster that the stock one?
Cheers

I ll try ur tricks guyz.
for the time being this is my situation (and it sux):
-car charger 1A 5v
-slow chargin and hot device
-using navigator equals : phone burns, drains battery and in the worst scenario freezes
yesterday I received a call while phone plugged into car charger with navigator session. wot happened is phone freezed (screen didnt switch off) and I saw PROXIMITY SENSOR WAS RED!

shawt said:
I had same problem.I bought Samsung charger and no problem after
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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The first post got me worried for a while, but this info has put me back to ease. Pre-ordered the GS2 (India) and getting the original Samsung charger along as a freebie.

Yeah, i have simelar experience with the samsung s2 in my car.
Its eating the battery even when its plugged in and i think i have a good charger..
I found 1 solution.. I use now copilot, you can set different setting to disable the screen automatically when you drive a straigt forward for some kilometres, only when you need to turn it comes up again.
thats how i set it and it loads a little, but bad anyway.
Maybe thats what the + means in Super Amoled + (+batteryusage)

(•.•) said:
Maybe thats what the + means in Super Amoled + (+batteryusage)
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nexus S didnt have such a problems. it's only around how samsung managed chipset.
I ll try to set cpu downclock while temperature goes over 40..

[Q] Vehicle Charging

Any idea why I can't seem to get the phone to actually charge in a vehicle while I am using Google Maps/Navigation or even just Spotify. I tried turning the brightness way down (can't read it), and tried turning Fast Charge on via Toggle. What does Fast Charge do anyway?
I am using a good 2.1A vehicle charger with a good USB cable. Is this normal even for stock ROM? I do know signal strength has a say in that. I just did 6 hours of driving and my battery dropped from 100% down to 60% by the end of the trip. I know it's more than not having it plugged in..
I am currently on AOKP ROM Milestone 2.

Im on a s3 with a s4 rom chaos latest same problem ! Get hot battery as well seems to even out if blue tooth is off its a 4.2.2 problem /glitch
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

You guys may have weak batteries. I had a bad battery right out the box. While charging in the car, my battery level would drop rather than rise. I took the battery back to the Sprint store where I bought the phone and they load tested the battery and said that it was bad (they have a special load tester for phone batteries). They gave me a new battery out of another, brand-new S4 box. One of the advantages of buying stuff in a store is getting better service (not always, but usually).

Seems strange.. I plan on getting a spare OEM battery anyway. I guess I'll try another battery and see what happens. Got the phone @ Best Buy.

I just did a test out of curiosity. I left my house and my battery was at 58%. I plugged it into my car charger and turned on gps navigation and played music. Twenty minutes later I was at 70%. I am using my stock odexed mf9 with all of my mods.
What is this fast charge toggle?
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4

You need to get a 2 amp car charger. The white samsung block that comes with the S4 and note 2 use 2 amps vs the 1 amp charger that you prob have in the car. If you use any applications that draw a lot of battery, the 1 amp charger will basically keep the battery elevated, when I am watching a youtube my battery does not "charge" and if it does it charges very very slowly on a 1 amp charger. Most places that sell chargers will have a 1 amp charger so you need to look for 2 amps or "rapid" charger, which are most likely 2 amp chargers. Just make sure it's from a credible manufacturer as well, that ebay **** will allow spikes from your vehicles charging system and decrease battery life.

mista_k said:
You need to get a 2 amp car charger. The white samsung block that comes with the S4 and note 2 use 2 amps vs the 1 amp charger that you prob have in the car. If you use any applications that draw a lot of battery, the 1 amp charger will basically keep the battery elevated, when I am watching a youtube my battery does not "charge" and if it does it charges very very slowly on a 1 amp charger. Most places that sell chargers will have a 1 amp charger so you need to look for 2 amps or "rapid" charger, which are most likely 2 amp chargers. Just make sure it's from a credible manufacturer as well, that ebay **** will allow spikes from your vehicles charging system and decrease battery life.
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Like he said, a quality charger is the key, and the problem with most car chargers are they aren't wired correctly. When the charger communicates to the phone it will appear as a usb charger and then the phone will only charge at .5 amps because it thinks its charging from a usb port instead of a charger. There are mods out there to mod the chargers so the phone thinks its connected to a wall charger and will charge much faster.

I was kind of wondering if there would be a better car charger out there for our phones. I've been using my old reliable VZ charger I've had since the Droid X. It does the job, but not as great as it should or could be. Haven't had any issues with it & charges okay. I'm due for a new one lol.

The problem is likely the cable you are using. After lots of research it became clear to me it is my USB cables that is stopping my nexus 4 and 7 from being charged in the car.
I bought a good quality dual 3.8A charger but couldn't get it to charge my N4 while using Co-Pilot UNTIL I changed the cable to a "charging only" cable. Basically the cable does not put the device in data mode and allows the device to be charged at higher rate than a normal data cable.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0088HTYUE/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

P1NK13P13 said:
I was kind of wondering if there would be a better car charger out there for our phones. I've been using my old reliable VZ charger I've had since the Droid X. It does the job, but not as great as it should or could be. Haven't had any issues with it & charges okay. I'm due for a new one lol.
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Best buy has Rocket Fish 2 and 3 amp chargers for the car that work great. They also have 2 usb input ones also. You can just buy the charging part and use any cable you want or buy the one with the cable.
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