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Is the 12 volt from my car cigarette lighter bad for my phone?

H

HarryC

Well-Known Member
As far as I know most USB charging is around 5-6 volts, but when using one of those cigarette lighter to usb power supplies in the car, is the voltage too high?

Can it damage the phone or the battery?

The lower priced more compact ones surely don't have any kind of transformers in them.
 
HarryC said:
As far as I know most USB charging is around 5-6 volts, but when using one of those cigarette lighter to usb power supplies in the car, is the voltage too high?

Can it damage the phone or the battery?

The lower priced more compact ones surely don't have any kind of transformers in them.
Click to expand...

If you are using a USB charger, it is converting the 12V to 5V. So, no it won't harm your phone or anything else assuming you are using a quality charger. Best way to know if you have a quality charger is to buy one from a reputable source that has user reviews and read the reviews.
 
And just to add: DC to DC conversion doesn't use a transformer anyway, so none of them will have one no matter how much you pay :-)
 
I've been using a 12/24V car charger for a couple of yeas now with no damage to my phones. Provided it's passed the relevant safety tests any car charger should be perfectly safe to use.
 
Only problem I have is that my 1A car charger doesn't provide enough power to maintain the charge in my phone when it's being used as a GPS. My workaround is to turn the screen off whenever I see a long stretch with no turnings etc coming up.

[Edit]

Actually, just checked ebay to see if I find a charger with a higher ampage and lo-and-behold, first one I looked at was a two port at 3.1A. Somebody's currently bidding
 
SiempreTuna said:
Only problem I have is that my 1A car charger doesn't provide enough power to maintain the charge in my phone when it's being used as a GPS. My workaround is to turn the screen off whenever I see a long stretch with no turnings etc coming up.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I'll keep that in mind as I do use my phone for navigation from time to time, but haven't done so with it plugged in yet.
 
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