VZW's so-called "universal" car charger

[Ghostwheel]

Don't even have this thing in the same room as your Moto Droid. I plugged it in for a few seconds and got instant "possessed by demons" behavior (including incoming calls not ringing), which was only fixed by a data reset. The charger name/upc are

Verizon Wireless Vehicle Charger with USB Port - Universal
097738570516

So, anyone have actual firsthand experience with a car charger that doesn't suck?

 

[LaLongeCarabine]

How could a charger be responsible for this? I've used my blue tooth charger for my droid and it causes no problems at all. I also bought moto's car charger through Amazon.com and use it all the time.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

 

[Ghostwheel]

I'd seen plenty of threads here discussing the Droid being sensitive to the varying voltages/currents of non-Motorola chargers, and I was skeptical myself until it happened to me. Surely a charger sold by VZW themselves would be fine, right? Oh ho ho ho. No.

 

[hookbill]

I'd seen plenty of threads here discussing the Droid being sensitive to the varying voltages/currents of non-Motorola chargers, and I was skeptical myself until it happened to me. Surely a charger sold by VZW themselves would be fine, right? Oh ho ho ho. No.

Yep, I've seen a bunch of them too. If it says Universal don't buy it for the Droid. Seen way too many reports about this not to believe its true.

 

[JhankG]

I can vouch for RocketFish's universal car charger. I've been using it since say one with my Droid and it works fine.

 

[takeshi]

So, anyone have actual firsthand experience with a car charger that doesn't suck?

Motorola P513/SPN5400A. Works great. Plenty of mA even if you're actively using GPS.

How could a charger be responsible for this? I've used my blue tooth charger for my droid and it causes no problems at all.

A single data point does not define a line, much less a trend. That's how.

In other words, your experience with your charger is not indicative of how every charger works with the Droid's capacitive screen.

 

[TheOldFart]

I have both the Verizon universal home charger and the universal car charger and both work fine. Got them both 6 months ago when they were 50% off on verizonwireless.com. I use the car charger when I use the GPS and nav.

 

[tmoney2007]

My BB charger makes my droid go wonky. Keeps me from staying up and playing with my phone when I should be going to sleep.

 

[LaLongeCarabine]

So, anyone have actual firsthand experience with a car charger that doesn't suck?

Motorola P513/SPN5400A. Works great. Plenty of mA even if you're actively using GPS.

How could a charger be responsible for this? I've used my blue tooth charger for my droid and it causes no problems at all.

A single data point does not define a line, much less a trend. That's how.

In other words, your experience with your charger is not indicative of how every charger works with the Droid's capacitive screen.

How nice, but you still haven't answered the question. How does a charger change the behavior of a device? If the power supplied is too high it will get clipped by the circuitry in the phone and if it's too low it will not charge the phone at all.

 

[tmoney2007]

How should I know? I know that it happens. Every time I plug into that particular charger.

 

[7h3.4pp12en7ic3]

As someone in the CS field, I still have reservations about these issues. I really don't see how varying voltage from a charger is going to in any way modify how the system is reacting. There are two possibilities with the voltage: higher or lower than recommended.
If it's higher, you should see excess battery wear, possible shorting of circuits, overheating, or at worst physical damage to the boards.
If it's lower, you really shouldn't see any problems other than the phone isn't recognizing it as a charger, or something to that effect.

 

[kristoff125]

Amazon.com: Motorola P513 Vehicle Power Adapter MicroUSB Rapid…
I bought 3 of em, they were 3.99 each with 2.99 shipping at the time

 

[Ghostwheel]

As someone in the CS field, I still have reservations about these issues. I really don't see how varying voltage from a charger is going to in any way modify how the system is reacting. There are two possibilities with the voltage: higher or lower than recommended.
If it's higher, you should see excess battery wear, possible shorting of circuits, overheating, or at worst physical damage to the boards.
If it's lower, you really shouldn't see any problems other than the phone isn't recognizing it as a charger, or something to that effect.

I think there's a third option: variable/unsteady. If the voltage or power is changing rapidly, and there is plenty of spikes and dips, there could be unintended results, like we're seeing. The charging circuits might not be able to deal with a sufficiently noisy power source.

 

[kristoff125]

As someone in the CS field, I still have reservations about these issues. I really don't see how varying voltage from a charger is going to in any way modify how the system is reacting. There are two possibilities with the voltage: higher or lower than recommended.
If it's higher, you should see excess battery wear, possible shorting of circuits, overheating, or at worst physical damage to the boards.
If it's lower, you really shouldn't see any problems other than the phone isn't recognizing it as a charger, or something to that effect.

I think there's a third option: variable/unsteady. If the voltage or power is changing rapidly, and there is plenty of spikes and dips, there could be unintended results, like we're seeing. The charging circuits might not be able to deal with a sufficiently noisy power source.

So your cigarette lighter is to blame?

 

[Bob Dammit]

As someone in the CS field, I still have reservations about these issues. I really don't see how varying voltage from a charger is going to in any way modify how the system is reacting. There are two possibilities with the voltage: higher or lower than recommended.
If it's higher, you should see excess battery wear, possible shorting of circuits, overheating, or at worst physical damage to the boards.
If it's lower, you really shouldn't see any problems other than the phone isn't recognizing it as a charger, or something to that effect.

I think there's a third option: variable/unsteady. If the voltage or power is changing rapidly, and there is plenty of spikes and dips, there could be unintended results, like we're seeing. The charging circuits might not be able to deal with a sufficiently noisy power source.

So your cigarette lighter is to blame?

No, but the circuitry in the charger that drops the charge from 12-14V down to 5V very well could be.