Reasonable priced fast charge micro USB cables in NZ?

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wasabi2k

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#1474355 19-Jan-2016 09:42

Word of Warning - I bought 5 monoprice USB cables a while ago. After 3 months they stopped seating properly in my devices. tabs look fine, but have to wiggle them in the port to get them to charge.

What I thought was a bad USB port in a device turned out to be my cables. Swapped them out and everything is back to normal. Entirely possible I have a device that murders them or got a bad batch - but I won't be buying them again.

richms

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#1474517 19-Jan-2016 12:34

I had to file the teeth on mine because they were far too agrssive about holding into devices. No problems with them not working - yet. Most of the issues I had with things not charging have been the crap anker charger shutting ports off because it was in a temperamental mood.

Richard rich.ms

1eStar

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#1475926 21-Jan-2016 09:43

timmmay: Related thread and cable recommendation. Monoprice cables work very well, and strangely monoprice ("one price") has tiered pricing. Though interestingly the monoprice cable with a Belkin charger that does 1500mah or so with my phone does a lot less with my new Lenovo tablet. Interesting charge behavior though: - Monoprice cable/Belkin dual charger: slow - Monoprice cable with my old TF101 charger is a little better, but slow - Lenovo cable with the Belkin dual charger is slow - Lenovo cable with the TF101 charger is really really fast. I have no idea why - anyone else?

You need to understand that your charger doesnt 'push' current to your device to charge it fast, your device 'draws' the current. if your cable is too narrow a guage or the charger is too small in output, the charge current is reduced (charging takes longer). Also a device does not necesarily charge at a constant current, often as a device is reaching full capacity the charging current is scaled back, so it's a little subjective if you state a time to 'full'. The best method for testing charging current is with a $5 usb dongle that measures current, and notice the figure when the device is around 50% charged.

I have around ten different cables of various lengths and they all have different charge rates on the same device, the highest current is displayed using my original LG GPad cable that has 20AWG imprinted on it's side. The highest current I've ever recorded is 1.8A charging my 20000mAH Pineng powerbank with a KMS AC-09 fourport charger. My note 2 usually charges at 1.13A or occasionally it's shown 1.3A if I use a very (0.2m) short cable

timmmay

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#1475950 21-Jan-2016 10:10

1eStar:

You need to understand that your charger doesnt 'push' current to your device to charge it fast, your device 'draws' the current. if your cable is too narrow a guage or the charger is too small in output, the charge current is reduced (charging takes longer). Also a device does not necesarily charge at a constant current, often as a device is reaching full capacity the charging current is scaled back, so it's a little subjective if you state a time to 'full'. The best method for testing charging current is with a $5 usb dongle that measures current, and notice the figure when the device is around 50% charged.

I have around ten different cables of various lengths and they all have different charge rates on the same device, the highest current is displayed using my original LG GPad cable that has 20AWG imprinted on it's side. The highest current I've ever recorded is 1.8A charging my 20000mAH Pineng powerbank with a KMS AC-09 fourport charger. My note 2 usually charges at 1.13A or occasionally it's shown 1.3A if I use a very (0.2m) short cable

Yep, I only have one engineering degree but I get how basis principles ;)

What's puzzling is when two chargers, both proven to be able to supply a lot of current, charge devices hugely different with the same cable.

richms

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#1475960 21-Jan-2016 10:34

The devices limit their current based on voltage drop. Some chargers will also kick the voltage up a little with current draw - sort of a negative resistance up to a point to overcome cable losses. Others sag a little up to their limit and then start to sag a lot once past it. Others will have no sag at all to the limit and then totally shut off if you go past the limit.

Richard rich.ms

surfisup1000

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#1475964 21-Jan-2016 10:44

Slightly off topic, I had an apple cable catch on fire before xmas. Plugged into an anker charger the wire was shorted (apple cable) and it started sparking and flaming. The charger got super hot too -- i was thinking they should have some kind of thermal cutoff maybe.

Lucky my son saw it...but it took out another cable with it :(

richms

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#1475965 21-Jan-2016 10:50

The anker chargers certainly do have a cut off on them. They will cut off because they feel like it.

Richard rich.ms

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