yesterday got caught out using my phone as sat nav and batt died.
I need a cigar usb port and wondering if any consensus on which ones are good. HJK did the wall plug test but no info for car ones. It’s a expensive phone and want to send it clean power or does it not matter as the phone has it’s own charging chip?
It would potentially be used for any device that has a usb port.
Here’s a review (The 3 Best USB Car Chargers of 2023 | Reviews by Wirecutter) I read after I went cheap and bought one of these . It doesn’t make good contact as it pushes itself out of the socket.
I’ve had many cigarette USBs before, and most of them have failed. I like the USAMS branded USB ports because they have dual ports and the one I have has not failed on me yet. And at $2.06 it is a great deal.
http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10000315/1035501-usams-compact-dual-usb-car-charger-adapter-black
If you are looking to buy a few of these, DX has a better deal. 5 for $7.37
http://dx.com/p/dual-usb-car-charger-adapters-black-12-24v-5-pcs-289166
Also, I would not recommend the following one. I bought 3 of these because they looked nice and fit well in my car. It almost looked like it was OEM. Unfortunately every one of them failed on me. They would first make a whining noise, then poof.
http://www.fasttech.com/products/1201/10006730/1540600-single-usb-car-cigarette-lighter-charger-adapter
As for “clean” power, I have a Sansa MP3 player and the power from the switching regulators used in these things means I can’t listen to music at all because of the noise level. I’ve tried other chargers but they all produce the same noise. I was told that my only other choice is to use a 5V regulator. I assume larger devices with room for filters or something don’t have that problem.
There’s battery packs which can charge and discharge at the same time. Couldn’t you just add a battery pack to your setup and plug the MP3 player into that? Then you could keep your battery pack plugged into the cigarette lighter and the MP3 player plugged into it.
I think I’ll grab a couple ebay ones and see how we go.
HJK please do a test….pleeeeease!
I have the Powergen 3.1 and it's been fine so far.
I repair and resell GPS units. There are definitely differences in USB car charger adapters. I would go with one that offers at least 2.1 amps of output, so it can charge an iPad or a newer GPS. I have seen some adapters with cheap unfused wiring and others with quality fused regulating circuitry. Unless you spend the money for a name brand or select one that is well reviewed, it’s a crap shoot. If all you need is one amp, most will deliver that with no problem. But some of the cheap ones will surge and cook a diode every now and then. IMO, not worth the risk for a damaged phone or device.
I recently went looking for a 12v to usb lighter adaptor after my latest one went west…but then I decided to side-step the whole issue and fit usb ports to the dashboard.
I bought a couple of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251299641815
…and cut out suitable holes for the sockets in a couple of empty switch plates. I wired them up to the lighter terminals (so they share the same fuse).
It’s a bit of extra work (ok, quite a lot), but the end result is much neater.
NEVER leave a Li Ion battery charging in a hot car...temperatures inside during the summer can easily exceed the safe max temp, add on to that a source pushing current into the battery and it elevates the risk of a thermal runaway condition and a battery vent (aka kablooey!)
Ever notice these smart car (prius) batteries are separate from the enclosed cab area of the car and usually insulated and heavily vented, not inside the little "oven" space of the enclosed cab
I use it on my scooter which didn’t have a cigar lighter socket so it’s less trouble and complexity to just use a regulator. Right now, the cigar lighter and USB socket are just laying in the glove box getting bumped around. I’d like to just mount a USB port next to the player where glove box space can’t be used for anything else. Back in the day, you could get these scooters with a Hondaline Kenwood stereo system installed so it already has dedicated switched and unswitched 12V connectors to give two options.
I suppose you mean me.
I have been thinking about testing some of them, but with cars there is one special problem: voltage spikes.
But I have not been able to find some good description of it. The usual descriptions talks about load dumps with 200 volt spikes that can be 0.3 second long, that does not happen that often. What I would like is a more realistic description of the spikes in a car.
I could just do a voltage sweep between 12 and 15 volt, but the voltage spikes is much more interesting and I do believe that many product may not handle them.
Sorry for sp mistake, yes I meant you lol
It’s a good point you raise, and not a easy solution then? Some sort of voltage stabilizer would be needed for a reliable in car setup?
I just want to be able to charge my usb stuff safely, I resolved myself to a generic 12v usb adapter and hope for the best.
No, but the adapters needs to handle the spikes and that is what I would like to test, but I do not really now what that involves and my searches has not succeeded yet.
If anybody can supply some links, it would be a good help.
