Accessories Blackberry charger for Incredible?

[shaggymatt]

BTW - for clarity since some people are saying car charger and others are saying charger at work... The car charger is what you need to be careful with. The charger at work is nothing more than a standard USB cable and the phone will make the determination of how much power it needs to draw.

 

[InfoJester]

BTW - for clarity since some people are saying car charger and others are saying charger at work... The car charger is what you need to be careful with. The charger at work is nothing more than a standard USB cable and the phone will make the determination of how much power it needs to draw.

Really, why's that then? I would have thought the other way around. Surely a charger plugged into the wall is an AC-DC converter. Especially as the HTC converters can kick out upto 1 amp, twice a standard usb cable, that would seem perfectly not the same as a standard USB cable. The car charger is just a voltage step down from 12v DC to 5v DC.

 

[tracerprix]

I tried using my BB tour charger and it would not charge the phone. i get this error message. I then looked at the charger and it was putting out 2A! I was like wow.

Mike

 

[shaggymatt]

Really, why's that then? I would have thought the other way around. Surely a charger plugged into the wall is an AC-DC converter. Especially as the HTC converters can kick out upto 1 amp, twice a standard usb cable, that would seem perfectly not the same as a standard USB cable. The car charger is just a voltage step down from 12v DC to 5v DC.

"It's not the voltage that kills you, it's the amperage."

There is more than voltage to any electrical component. Voltage and amperage are key. Obviously, you want to be under or at amperage and at the same voltage. If you're over on the amperage, you'll run into the same problems I had with the Storm charger on my Droid, frying the phone or battery. If you're under, it's just going to take longer to charge.

As previously stated, I didn't search out the HTC charger specs yet, but now that you mentioned it...

Quick searching (sorry lots of sites blocked at work):
This travel charger is compatible with the following BlackBerry models : Storm 9530 Storm2 9550 Tour 9630 Bold 9700 Features : Input : AC 100V-240V, 200mA, 47-63Hz. Output : DC 4.5V-9.5V, Max 800mA. - Of course looking at that, it is obviously a wall travel charger, but the voltage and amperage requirements should carry across to a DC based item.

So it would appear that a BB Storm charger would be fine for the Incredible if the max output amperage is 800mA. The voltage is a bit scary. So personally, I'll stick with OEM or use my 110volt inverter in the car! In all honesty, I'm going to get a hard wired Pro Clip mount once they release it for the Incredible.

 

[InfoJester]

Now I'm confused. I just tried charging my N1 with a BB charger rated at .5 amps. It charged nearly as quickly as it did from it's OEM charger rated at 1 amp.

What's happening here then? Is the phone managing to drag nearly 1 amp out of the BB charger even though it's not designed for it? I just felt the charger, it's a little hot but nothing unusual.

 

[InfoJester]

@shaggymatt

I think you missed my point, "The charger at work is nothing more than a standard USB cable" that isn't correct as a standard usb cable is plugged into a computer but a charger is a DC in it's self.

Granted you'll definitely get the right everything from an OEM charger in an inverter in your car but you're putting DC to AC to DC again and that's not very efficient.

As for "It's not the voltage that kills you, it's the amperage." of course it's both.

 

[4160-highvoltage]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but...

Amps will kill you more so than volts, volts are merely the "force" that drives the killing power, amps. Having said that, if you touch a 12kva transformer that only pushes 10 amps, you will be hurting. As an electrician i can attest to this...

I was getting error messages using my storm car charger on my incred. It was almost like the micro usb wasnt fitting snug enough...havent used it since.

 

[mtollin]

So I think I'm gathering from all this, using an AC charger, devices like IPhone, Nano... that use AC chargers 5v at .5a SHOULD NOT be attached to the Incredible charger as it is 5v 1a, BUT the Nano and other AC chargers are safe to use for the Incredible.

Now... DC... it is interesting to note I have an Igo and all you do is change tips for devices. It is safe to use on Apple, BB, HTC..... and the a97 tip is recommended. I haven't found specs for it yet, but most of these tips are slightly over 1 amp as they claim faster charging than OEM. Interesting...

 

[shaggymatt]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but...

Amps will kill you more so than volts, volts are merely the "force" that drives the killing power, amps. Having said that, if you touch a 12kva transformer that only pushes 10 amps, you will be hurting. As an electrician i can attest to this...

I just went back and read through Ohm's law again. Bit of a misnomer about the voltage not killing you, but like you said, the voltage carries the amperage. 17ma can induce fibrillation in a human.

 

[rcicu]

BB should be fine... I use Moto Droid chargers for my Inc...

 

[InfoJester]

Now... DC... it is interesting to note I have an Igo and all you do is change tips for devices. It is safe to use on Apple, BB, HTC..... and the a97 tip is recommended. I haven't found specs for it yet, but most of these tips are slightly over 1 amp as they claim faster charging than OEM. Interesting...

That is interesting. I'm starting to think the only thing you have to worry about is damaging the charger by puling to much charge from it, but as long as the devices are smart enough not to do that perhaps that's not a problem.

I don't know why some devices have issues. Perhaps many of the chargers don't give exactly 5v and this causes difficulty for some devices and not others?

 

[amarryat]

Now I'm confused. I just tried charging my N1 with a BB charger rated at .5 amps. It charged nearly as quickly as it did from it's OEM charger rated at 1 amp.

What's happening here then? Is the phone managing to drag nearly 1 amp out of the BB charger even though it's not designed for it? I just felt the charger, it's a little hot but nothing unusual.

More likely that the phone doesn't really draw much more than 0.5 amps. So the HTC charger is overspecced.

 

[bob_loblaw]

I had issues with different charges and did some research why they weren't charging the similarly even thought they were rated the same. Not all chargers use the data lines the same. See this thread why all chargers aren't the same

 

[droid_head]

my blackberry charger killed my Incredible. Use on your phone at your own risk.

My thread about it: My blackberry micro usb killed my Incredible and Verizon had to send me another. Use at your own risk. My thread on it: http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/93326-warning-blackberry-charger-killed-my-incredible.html?highlight=blackberry+charger