USB chargers

I have a two-part question.

First, I've been looking for the past year or so for an inexpensive USB charger. A small adapter that'll plug into the wall and has a USB port for my device's cable.

Apple's device is clearly the nicest out there, but the real one costs too much. This one gets close, but I'm still concerned with...

Second, do these devices differ from each other in some way? Like how they're wired? I know some (including the one I link to above) have a higher powered port for charging tablets like the iPad, but is there any other way in which they differ?

I ask because I feel like the Apple charger I have might be dangerous to my Galaxy Nexus. Hear me out here: about 7 weeks ago, I noticed my phone was doing something peculiar. It was showing that it was charging even when it wasn't plugged into anything. Then, it started having trouble charging at all. Eventually I had to replace the phone entirely. Then, about a week after getting the new phone, I had it plugged into the Apple charger again and when I unplugged it I noticed the same thing: the battery icon indicated it was still charging. This freaked me out, and I've since stopped using that charger to charge my phone. I was only using it in the first place because I wanted a charger by our couch so I could plug in my phone while watching TV. I've since swapped it out for another one, and I haven't had the same problem since.

Is there something different Apple's chargers, some chargers in general, or is this just a busted device? If there's something to look for in general, I'd like to know before I stock up on these things. I want to order a bunch of them, so I can keep them all over the place just in case (we use our phones a lot and run out of battery pretty often).

Third (and this is a short one), is there a difference between micro USB cables? Quick example: if I plug my wife's Kindle into my computer with one of my generic Monoprice micro USB cables, the device will charge and that's it. If I plug it in with the original Kindle micro USB cable, the Kindle will charge AND show up as a drive. What's up there?

That last part... Wow. I'd really like to know what's up there as well.

With regards to the first part, I suspect a bad device. From what I know of how these things work, they should all simply be supplying the required voltage at the correct pins. The actual charging circuit is built into your device and it's up to that device, via its power management to regulate its charging cycle.

I'm sure there are differences to the build quality and safety aspects of different wall warts. It would be nice to have one that didn't draw any current until something was plugged into it for example.

EDIT. Wow, just after posting this, my computer just spontaneously went to sleep. I have it docked right now and am also in the middle of a dual-core intense video encode. See, odd shit happens to Apple hardware too.

There are definitely some charge only non-data cables out there. The cables that came with my Panasonic 3D glasses do not work for data connections. The same applies to a couple of other micro USB cables that I have.

This caused me several wasted hour and much pain when I was trying to setup my Logitech remote.

I believe the same at one point applied to Apple 30 pin cables ?

That's true Andy, including for 30 pin connectors. But what threw me was that Matt bought the cable from Monoprice which would lead me to believe it's a full-featured, all pins connected, USB cable, not some thin charge-only model.

With regards to the dock connector, you can tell even by looking at the wire casing thickness that some cables are not fully wired. Charge-only cables can be super thin, whereas you need more wires if you're also going to do USB data and then more for analog audio, video, etc.

Matt, I can only see one kind of fully-featured micro USB cable at Monoprice, which is the same as the two I bought previously. Available in different lengths, here's a link to a short one:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produc...rmat=4#feedback

If yours isn't working with the kindle then it might be an insertion problem or other manufacturing defect. Monoprice does ship bad cables every now and then. Sometimes a handful of them as was the case with some HDMI cables I bought.

There was a pretty in-depth USB charging discussion late last year:

http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/353705/2

I'll add one thing, relative to our earlier discussion: I have a variety of USB cables around the house. Some from old phones. Some retractable. With the crappy ones, you plug them in and you never know what will happen. Sometimes the phone just flat out crashes. Suffice to say that the Galaxy Nexus is sensitive to crappy cables. Don't use with a crappy cable.

And, to gratuitously summarize the whole other thread, there are Apple chargers and there are standard chargers. Random third party chargers often follow the Apple non-standard. A handful follow the proper standard. Make sure you get proper standard chargers.

Yeah, that's why I made a new thread instead of getting through that one. I read that one and wasn't sure what folks were talking about. I also had some additional areas I was confused about. Thanks for summarizing this. I would imagine, though, if the Apple charger has any chance of doing this to another phone, it would be a huge problem to make them differently like this, wouldn't it?

Does anyone think the linked charger in my first post would be a problem?


I'd be happy to follow that advice, but it's hard to know what's a crappy cable. In my experience, Monoprice is pretty trustworthy with their products. Should they not be used with the GN? I don't know...


That seems like what I've ordered. At some point in the past I ordered a bunch of micro USB cables of varying sizes (along with a bunch of other cables to build up my stock). I'll have to check my order history, but that certainly seems like the type of cable I have. I don't know why on earth the Kindle wouldn't completely work with these cables. I'll have to see if I have some non-Kindle/non-Monoprice micro USB cables lying around here.

One thing I've noticed is that the Monoprice cables appear to have slightly shorter ends than the Kindle ones... I don't know if I'm imagining that, though...

Yup, checked my orders and that's the exact cables I've ordered. I was using a 3' cable, but they're the same thing...

There's at least one positive comment in the reviews from a Kindle owner.

Odd... I'll have to try a few of those cables (I have something like 8 of them) and see if I get different results (although the computer I was using is packed up right now...).

How to distinguish a crappy cable? So far as I can tell, it's if you have any problem even once (lost connection, crashed phone, etc.), you immediately toss said cable in the trash.

Yep, I went to dealextreem for a pair of 6' lg. 30 pin cables. The ones that arrived looked like apple's standard 3' cable. Right down to the branding. Couldn't charge anything reliably with either.

Related question:

I got yet another USB device that wants to charge itself and talk to my computer at the same time (a Fitbit, which I'm not entirely sure is anything other than a dumb gimmick, but let's leave that aside for the moment). When I plugged it into my generic USB hub, it didn't work because it wasn't getting enough power.

This leads to a challenge: I want to buy a powered USB 2.0 hub with 8 ports, give or take, that supports all the correct charging modes. For example, this Monoprice hub looks attractive and claims to support 500 mA maximum per port. Is that likely to do the job or do I need something different?

What do the reviews at Monoprice say? Usually some quality reviews in there.

EDIT: This may be a concern for you:



and...



and...

Right. I'm willing to pay good money for a USB hub that actually works for all these sorts of things. The question is if anybody here is aware of such a hub. The Amazon reviews for the CyberPower 7 port hub make it seem promising. Here's a Pluggable 4-port hub that explicitly supports the USB battery charging spec. And D-Link also has a hub with two "high power" ports. It's unclear exactly what the "right thing" to buy might be.

The write-up for that product sounds excellent. And it's only $20 (+shipping).

No hesitation.

According to the chart listed on that page, only one of the listed devices would actually charge at more than 500ma, and even then at less than 900ma.

This Pluggable device may meet the B.C. 1.1 spec but that spec would appear to be rather limited. Max 1800ma power only when no data is flowing over USB, and only 900ma when in high speed data mode. And apparently very few (any?) devices that can actually fully utilize this specification.

What I would like to see is a spec and a USB hub product that could deliver a full ten watts (2 Amps) to multiple USB hub ports at the same time. Something that would simultaneously charge two iPads at full rate and two iPhones (5 watts, 1 Amp each). Or handle non-Apple devices that require higher than 500ma current for fastest charging.

The 2.5 Amp power supply feeding a four port hub is weak sauce, in my opinion. Show me a hub with a ten Amp (50 watt) power supply and you will have my attention.

Part of the problem is that Apple doesn't follow the charging spec standard. Luckily, I don't have any Apple products that I want to plug in. I'm mostly just looking at all the dorky little things in my life (e.g., Fitbit's charging hub / base station), which just don't work when you plug them into anything other than a "real" port.

However, you're indeed correct that it would be nice to see a USB hub with a large enough power supply to at least ostensibly supply its maximum current to every port simultaneously.

To be fair, Apple did charging way before there *was* a USB charging standard (back in those days, most things that had USB had separate charging plugs - eg the Rio Karma); the shorted D+/D- is pretty recent, and the more complex stuff even more recent. Back then everyone invented their own schemes.

The Belkin hubs I have have suitably sized power supplies (for 0.5A/port). Don't think they do downstream charging tho...