Can I get some help with a technical charging question?

[DeNachtwacht]

technical charging question

Hi guys, a little bit of a technical question here but important to keep the battery as fit as possible.

The problem: there is no charging unit supplied in the Band 2 package, only a charging cable. Question is: What kind of charger do I have to put the Band 2 on? On the Microsoft site they are only talking about charging it on the PC, but how about standalone chargers?

The one that came with my lumia is 5V / 1,3A. Since the Band 2 has a Lithium Polymere battery, which optimally should be around 3.7V, I was wondering if I might destroy battery capacity by charging my Band 2 with this. And how about using the well known "Fast Chargers"?

Since Microsoft didn't supply a charging unit I am kinda suprised I can't find any info about which charging unit to use on the Microsoft support page.

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: technical charging question

Follow the general rules that applies to all Lithium-ion and Lithium-polymer batteries:
1. Do not exceed a 50% charge/discharge difference.
2. Do not drain the battery.
3. Do not allow the battery to overheat.

 

[devbent]

Re: technical charging question

Hi Denacthwwacht,

USB is natively 5v no matter the source. USB devices are responsible for stepping down (or up) the voltage to meet their needs.

USB actually uses a clever combination of hardware pins and software negotiation to discover how fast a device can charge. Any properly certified charger that obeys the USB specs should work fine to charge any other compliant USB device. (A reminder that anything I say on this forums should not be considered official advice, our website is the final arbiter and represents our recommended best practices.)

There was a brief time period when quick charging phones first came out when you could find chargers that could potentially cause damage to other manufacturer's devices. Thankfully those chargers are really rare, typically whoever released them got ripped apart in reviews.

You can also come across really cheap knock-off chargers that are not safe to use. If you like electronics, my favorite tear down of an unsafe charger is over at Ken Shirriff's blog.

The vast majority of name brand Computer USB ports go through a certification process and have a good deal of safety testing done on them. I wasn't involved in the decision of what to write on that page, but I'm guessing that it is was just easiest to say "plug in to your PC" versus trying to explain what a high quality wall wart is.

 

[DroidUser42]

Re: technical charging question

^^^ What he said. Stay away from the really cheap stuff and you should be OK regardless of what you use.

 

[DroidUser42]

Re: technical charging question

If you like electronics, my favorite tear down of an unsafe charger is over at Ken Shirriff's blog.

That link needs a "time sink" warning. Seriously.

An IBM 1401??

 

[jfa1]

Re: technical charging question

Does charge cable work more reliably than the band 1 charging. The band 1 starts off working well , but the more its charged at least for me the more I have to fiddle with it to start charging. ( I am on my third band v1 ) with the new charging cable it is said that the charging port on the clasp works better. I'm wondering if this in fact is true. I'm tired of having the clean off wipe off both the cable and the charging port and connect and disconnect numerous times before it magically connects and actually starts charging, Also when I connect to my laptop even when its charging and therefore connected the sync app says its not connected at times.

 

[DeNachtwacht]

Re: technical charging question

I'm tired of having the clean off wipe off both the cable and the charging port and connect and disconnect numerous times before it magically connects and actually starts charging, Also when I connect to my laptop even when its charging and therefore connected the sync app says its not connected at times.

I have never had a Band, but on the Band 2 it's a simple click mechanism that works really fine in my opinion. On the downside: yes, the clasp gets scratched easily.

 

[jfa1]

Re: technical charging question

Thanks