Wierd charging problem?

[jungleexplorer]

I use my i727 as a navigation device in my car. I have a 2amp charger to keep chaeged on long trips. But there is something strange going that makes no sense. In my Honda the chager will charge the phone up during a trip, but in my Toyota the same charger cannot keep up with the drain and the phone slowly discharges. It makes no sense. I wish the were an app that could tell me what amprage the charger is outputing into the phone so I could tell if the problem is actually the charger or if something else is going on.

 

[hiredgun]

Long shot, but could it have anything to do with the Amps each car battery has?

 

[jungleexplorer]

I don't t think so. I can run a 500 watt inverter off the same port with no problem. And here is another thing. The same charger that cannot keep my phone charged in my Toyota can power and charger my 5"Garmin 1450 GPS. This is what is so confusing. If I plug it into my phone it discharges while the GPS is on, but if I change the usb cord and plug it into my Garmin it chargers it just fine. Very strange!

 

[codesplice]

My guess is that the two vehicles output a different amperage through their 12V accessory ports (cigarette lighter adapter), or else the current in the Toyota is split to other devices as well.

And I'm not surprised that the Garmin charges while the phone doesn't - the Garmin doesn't have a power-hungry mobile radio which is likely the highest source of battery drain second to the display itself. I bet that if you disable the mobile radio by putting the phone into Airplane Mode it will charge without too much issue

Also, I don't remember for sure, but I think that Elixir will let you see the exact charging amperage.

 

[jungleexplorer]

Drove 400 miles yesterday in my Toyota. I tried several things. I tried two chargers ( PowerGen Dual USB 3.1A and Duracell USB Car Charger 2.1A). I tried all four usb ports and none of them could keep the phone from discharging even though nothing was plugged into any of the the other power ports in the car. I downloaded Battery Doctor Pro and ran the Battery Save function which essentially shut down a bunch of apps. I then tested the phone with Google Maps. The phone continued to discharge. I then reran Battery Doctor Pro and then tried using Waze as my navigation app. The phone started slowly charging up while using waze.

Maybe the Google Maps app is the problem?

 

[funkylogik]

theres something about samsung phones, two pins in the charger cable have to be shorted or something(?) for them to accept full current so a samsung cable is best (imo theyre pulling an "Apple" )
Hopefully someone can clarify that more :thumbup:

 

[jungleexplorer]

theres something about samsung phones, two pins in the charger cable have to be shorted or something(?) for them to accept full current so a samsung cable is best (imo theyre pulling an "Apple" )
Hopefully someone can clarify that more :thumbup:

I had heard this about apple but not about Samsung. Are sure about this?

 

[Slug]

At least with the old S2, the handset could tell if it was connected to mains supply, USB, or an "other" source and adjusted its amperage draw to match. I wonder if there's something about the Toyota's aux power outlet that's confusing your phone into thinking it's connected to USB and therefore only has 500mA available?

 

[jungleexplorer]

At least with the old S2, the handset could tell if it was connected to mains supply, USB, or an "other" source and adjusted its amperage draw to match. I wonder if there's something about the Toyota's aux power outlet that's confusing your phone into thinking it's connected to USB and therefore only has 500mA available?

For the life of me I can't think what it could be. I mean car power outlets are pretty simple. They are all 12 volts and can handle up to a 20 amp draw. Their original design was to light cigarettes which required a massive amount of power and they can still do that. As I said before, I can run a 500 watt power inverter off off anyone of the DC power ports in my car. My son powers his 10" Acer A500 of the same ports as well. There are just no extra connectors in the power port itself to send any instructions to the phone to get it confused. I am not saying it can't be the car, I just don't understand how it could be the car. I am going to try testing it in another car today and see if the problem persist.

 

[jungleexplorer]

My guess is that the two vehicles output a different amperage through their 12V accessory ports (cigarette lighter adapter), or else the current in the Toyota is split to other devices as well.

And I'm not surprised that the Garmin charges while the phone doesn't - the Garmin doesn't have a power-hungry mobile radio which is likely the highest source of battery drain second to the display itself. I bet that if you disable the mobile radio by putting the phone into Airplane Mode it will charge without too much issue

Also, I don't remember for sure, but I think that Elixir will let you see the exact charging amperage.

Thanks. I will look at Elixir. My Garmin is an LTM model, so it does have an additional Traffic radio to power. That, plus that screen is twice the size of the phone's screen and it runs at full brightness during the daytime. I think it probably requires way more power to run the Garmin that is design to be power by a power outlet then a phone that is designed run almost exclusively off battery power. I don't think lack of power from the car's DC power port is a problem. I mean, you have a 200HP power generator powering the cars DC port. It's not short on power. The problem here I think, is a very technical one. It could be as technical as the DC wave pattern or something. Or it could just be that the GPS in the i727 is just a power hog, though it seems that a 3.1Amp car charger should be enough to handle any power usage a smartphone gps could throw at it.

 

[funkylogik]

I had heard this about apple but not about Samsung. Are sure about this?

Im not sure of the ins and outs of it but on the galaxy s3 ive read people say that the stock charger cable is wired slightly different and you can short two pins to make the kernel think its a samsung one and draw full current.
My nexus charger charges my s3 fine though so take it with a pinch of salt.
Also (on my s3 anyway) the kernel is very sensitive to (what it thinks is) a damaged cable and drops the current draw dramatically. Its over sensitive imo :thumbup:

 

[jungleexplorer]

So it seems the Toyota is the problem. I drove 70 miles in my Chevy Silverado today. When I got in my truck my phone's batt was at 84%. With gps, bluetooth and wifi all on using Waze to navigate my battery fully charged to 100% in about 35 minutes using the same 3.1amp charger and cable that I used in my Toyota. Later after my batt was down to 89% I switched to Google maps and my batt charged to 97% in 30 minutes.

This appears to be a problem with Toyota's because, I remember now that I had the same charging problem on a long trip with in my son-in-law's Toyota Tundra a while back.

 

[codesplice]

So it seems the Toyota is the problem. I drove 70 miles in my Chevy Silverado today. When I got in my truck my phone's batt was at 84%. With gps, bluetooth and wifi all on using Waze to navigate my battery fully charged to 100% in about 35 minutes using the same 3.1amp charger and cable that I used in my Toyota. Later after my batt was down to 89% I switched to Google maps and my batt charged to 97% in 30 minutes.

This appears to be a problem with Toyota's because, I remember now that I had the same charging problem on a long trip with in my son-in-law's Toyota Tundra a while back.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Toyota is trying to be "smart" or "green" and only supplying the standard .5A through the USB port/adapter. You know, so it doesn't put too much strain on that 200hp generator

 

[jungleexplorer]

Okay. Still can't figure out what is causing this charging problem. I have a thread running over on the Toyota Nation forum and they are stumped over there too. I have done more testing in my car. I used my wife's brand new i727 that is just as about as stock as it gets. Her phone has the same problem of discharging while being used for navigation in our toyota.

A person over on the Toyota Nation forum is reporting that they are having weird charging issues with their S3. They live in a two story house and their S3 goes into trickle charge mode when being charged on the second story of the house, but will charge normally on the first story of the house. They have tried many different chargers just like me and the problem persist. So it would appear that this is possible a Samsung issue, since the problem is being experienced by multiple Samsung models of phones. Maybe Samsung phones are very sensitive and some kind of noise on the line is causing them to go in to trickle charge mode?