Faster Power Supply?

[Phoibos]

I understand, that the Surface 3 comes with a 13W charger which is 2.6A (right?). I saw online that there are 3A chargers, originally meant for a raspberry pi. If I'd now use one of the raspi charger, will the surface take advantage of the additional 0.4A?

 

[Dewg]

It will - however you need to be careful you don't overpower the battery. Batteries heat up when they're charged, and if you pump too many amps into them, they might burn up (or explode). I would imagine 3A would be fine (only .4A over standard).

 

[iSherifs]

I am not 100% sure but the phone and other devices that use Li-on batteries has some circuits that protects the battery for too high power input when charged (and from overheat). Therefore when you use stronger changer you don't use its full capacity and you use devices max input charge capacity.

I use my surface 3 charger to charge my lumia 820. I don't remember but I assume that my phones original charger was about 1A or 1.2A and as u mentioned S3 charger has 2.6 A. Therefore at least 1.4A difference and no problems encountered. I am not completely sure that this is a good practice but oh well..

 

[AndyCalling]

Your device will only draw what your device can draw in amps as a max. If you connect a lower rated power supply it will charge slower, but it will only charge faster if it can. The 820, for example, could draw more than the default PSU provided as Nokia supplied a fast version of the charger, which is what I got with my 930 so it charges the 820 faster. You only have to be cautious if there is a non-standard voltage (some Apple chargers I believe). Do note that some chargers (like my tablet charger) will not provide full amps to devices that don't signal it to do so. So it will charge them slower than the rating implies. No such tricks with my Nokia chargers.