Help GPS battery drain on car charger

[brandonmg99]

i went on vacation with my girlfriend about 2 weeks ago and at that time i had some serious battery issues so my phone was constantly on the charger. i noticed that while i was using my navigation the battery was actually draining while i was charging it. is this because my charger blows or something worse?

 

[Fabolous]

Is your phone out under the sun while you're driving?

When I have mine in my dock and it's really sunny out, the phone gets hot and the battery temp goes up to around 50C. At this point, the phone shuts of charging since the battery is overheating.

That may be what's happening.

 

[rajun50]

Your charger is underpowered. I had the same problem. I purchased a Griffin PowerJolt 2.1 Amp charger off Amazon.com that was designed for the iPad and I no longer have that problem. Most chargers only offer 1/2 Amp or 1 Amp of charging power which just isn't enough when you have your Droid X navigating, syncing, playing music, etc. all while the screen brightness is at 100%.

 

[brandonmg99]

i dont have a dock yet so i just sit it in my lap. i figured it was the charger but i just needed a second opinion. its a walmart car charger i bought for $9 in a pinch cuz my battery was dead and i was moving to bloomington. it was originally for my old enV touch but since the micro usb was the same i thought it would work for the time being. guess not. thanks for the help!!!

 

[dookie1]

assuming it's not the overheat issue, which should be obvious as the charge indicator (lightning bolt) won't show...

check the battery stats while on the charger. is should show either 'charging usb' or 'charging ac'.

if it says usb, it will only draw 500mA current max, in order to be a good neighbor on what it thinks is a shared usb bus, potentially with other devices. this is not enough to power gps/3g data simultaneously.

if it says ac, then it will try to draw the current that it needs and your charger is incapable of providing it. look at the fine print on the charger? what does the output current show? i used a micro-usb charger from another phone that was rated at 750mA and had the same problem you describe. i got a usb vehicle adapter from radio shack rated at 1000mA, which the phone sees as AC and which (slowly) charges the phone even with bluetooth/gps/3g running simultaneously.

 

[brandonmg99]

assuming it's not the overheat issue, which should be obvious as the charge indicator (lightning bolt) won't show...

check the battery stats while on the charger. is should show either 'charging usb' or 'charging ac'.

if it says usb, it will only draw 500mA current max, in order to be a good neighbor on what it thinks is a shared usb bus, potentially with other devices. this is not enough to power gps/3g data simultaneously.

if it says ac, then it will try to draw the current that it needs and your charger is incapable of providing it. look at the fine print on the charger? what does the output current show? i used a micro-usb charger from another phone that was rated at 750mA and had the same problem you describe. i got a usb vehicle adapter from radio shack rated at 1000mA, which the phone sees as AC and which (slowly) charges the phone even with bluetooth/gps/3g running simultaneously.

ok ill get back to you on this. i never thought to try that!! thanks!!