Battery Charging while in Car Dock

[chrispt]

Who knows what of this is related or not, but I noticed on Saturday (after having gotten my Droid Friday) an interesting behavior. I have not yet purchased a DC charger for my car for my droid, but since I got a home dock I used the cable that came with the Droid and plugged it into my power inverter in my car. Not sure if it did this the whole time, but I noticed when I used Navigation I couldn't use the touch screen effectively. It was almost like the sensitivity got wacked out or something. I also tried to answer a call by sliding the talk bar like you have to do when anyone calls and that wouldn't work. Does anyone know why this would be happening? Could it be because I am using the AC cable in the car and not a DC one?

 

[Alcapwn89]

Some cables mess up the capacative touchscreen/digitizer's charge, so it messes up the touchscreen.

Try swapping your inverter or cable for a different one.

 

[chrispt]

This shouldn't mess the phone up should it?

I think I'll just go pick up a DC cable from the store.

 

[omally]

This is exactly what I wanted to find out about this morning. I noticed the same wacky behavior when using my car dock the past two nights. It was really bad trying to enter my unlock pattern - I would try to slide my finger across the dots and the pattern would just start zooming off to the right and left all on its own. I thought it was my car dock, but now that you mention it I was charging the phone using an inverter at the time. Add to that it seemed to work just fine when I wasn't charging.

I do hope this hasn't damaged the phone, though it still seems to work ok. I really hate if this is the explanation, though - as much money as I've spent just getting the phone up and running, I'd hate to think I can't use my otherwise perfectly good AC adapter to charge it in the car.

Anybody know if this is a common problem with other phones? I just came off of an HTC PPC6800 and never had any problems with the touch screen while charging the same way.

 

[Laurence5905]

120V AC inverters are *notorious* for noise in the line. The cheaper ones, espeically so.

This noise, unless filtered out properly, will cause interference in electronic devices like laptops and cell-phones. If you have a *high-quality* surge-protector (like Panamax or APC -- something in the $30+ range) then maybe you can plug that into your inverter and it will filter out enough of the noise to make the inverter useful.

But if you're going to go through all that trouble, why not just buy the Droid car-charger for $22.49.
Verizon Accessories

 

[G8TR]

So my question is if I plug my car docked Droid into the USB port does it charge my phone at the same time, as it does an iPhone?

 

[omally]

120V AC inverters are *notorious* for noise in the line. The cheaper ones, espeically so.

This noise, unless filtered out properly, will cause interference in electronic devices like laptops and cell-phones. If you have a *high-quality* surge-protector (like Panamax or APC -- something in the $30+ range) then maybe you can plug that into your inverter and it will filter out enough of the noise to make the inverter useful.

But if you're going to go through all that trouble, why not just buy the Droid car-charger for $22.49.
Verizon Accessories

Well, I suppose that's good to know, if somewhat disappointing. The inverter worked great for switching between charging my phone and my GPS in the car. Google Maps still has a ways to go before it'll work as well as my Garmin, but I suppose it's good enough. If I keep the phone (about 75% sure I will at this point) I guess I'll grab a DC charger. Thanks

 

[GolfProRM]

I bought one of these to use, and it works just fine with the cable that came with the Droid. It's a cheaper and more flexible option than the mini-usb car charger.

Rocketfish™ - USB Vehicle Power Adapter - Black - RF-M357

 

[omally]

I bought one of these to use, and it works just fine with the cable that came with the Droid. It's a cheaper and more flexible option than the mini-usb car charger.

Rocketfish™ - USB Vehicle Power Adapter - Black - RF-M357

Now that looks interesting! No issues with the touchscreen when using this?

 

[GolfProRM]

No issues. I did try using a cheap USB cable with it and if I was playing music, i'd get some static, but no issues at all when used with the original cable that came with the phone. Swapped the cheap cable to my home charger that I don't use for music.

 

[omally]

Well, sounds like a good catch then - I can just switch USB cables if I need to charge my GPS, and save some money to boot. Thanks for the tip!

 

[G8TR]

Just plugged mine in with the USB cable that came with the phone. It will charge through my USB so that I can actually use my lighter for another use. I guess the next question is how do I get the car to recognize the phone like it did my iPhone, so that I can play the music through the car's stereo and use the steering wheel controls?

 

[omally]

I bought one of these to use, and it works just fine with the cable that came with the Droid. It's a cheaper and more flexible option than the mini-usb car charger.

Rocketfish™ - USB Vehicle Power Adapter - Black - RF-M357

Just to update, I finally got around to picking one of these up at Best Buy (the closest one I was able to find simply by telling the phone, "Navigate to Best Buy", btw. How awesome is that?) and it works great! Charged the phone and didn't affect the screen at all, and only cost $14.

I definitely recommend this anyone who doesn't want to buy the DC charger.

 

[Sarreq Teryx]

I bought one of these to use, and it works just fine with the cable that came with the Droid. It's a cheaper and more flexible option than the mini-usb car charger.

Rocketfish™ - USB Vehicle Power Adapter - Black - RF-M357

Just to update, I finally got around to picking one of these up at Best Buy (the closest one I was able to find simply by telling the phone, "Navigate to Best Buy", btw. How awesome is that?) and it works great! Charged the phone and didn't affect the screen at all, and only cost $14.

I definitely recommend this anyone who doesn't want to buy the DC charger.

I actually just got the same exact thing branded as Belkin, same price. world very well.

 

[joscon]

120V AC inverters are *notorious* for noise in the line. The cheaper ones, espeically so.

This noise, unless filtered out properly, will cause interference in electronic devices like laptops and cell-phones. If you have a *high-quality* surge-protector (like Panamax or APC -- something in the $30+ range) then maybe you can plug that into your inverter and it will filter out enough of the noise to make the inverter useful.

But if you're going to go through all that trouble, why not just buy the Droid car-charger for $22.49.
Verizon Accessories

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Correct^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is because the inverter (simplified) make the 120vac at 58Hz and in a D sine wave. Your house make is 60Hz with an S sine wave. Unless you're pay top dollar for a very high quality inverter you should not use it for electronics.