As title. Getting sick of crappy cables taking hours to charge a phone.
Cheap USB -> Micro USB Cable for Charging
frowny on 06/05/2015 - 20:31
Comments
Either charging from the Xiaomi power banks or a genuine Samsung 5.3V/2A powerpoint. I have a genuine cord that came with the Note 3 as well, but it's USB 3.0 so I can't use it to charge anything else.
In desperation I bought a $10 usb -> micro usb cable from Coles to charge my Note 3 whilst at work. It's not bad.
tikbro cables on Ebay are meant to be really good. There were deals posted here but not for a while now.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/155747
at the moment they are about $3 on ebay.
The connectors on those tend to die fast.
They best I've found yet are the Anker ones from Amazon. Nice beefy yet flexible cable, 21 AWG power lines, and what seems to be quite a sturdy connector - I've been using my 2m one for 5+ months without issues. Problem is, they're slowly removing their catalog from Australian shipping… I think you can still catch their 5x assorted micro USB cables, but most other packs need to be forwarded now.
I purchased 4 of them last time, 2 to use and 2 spares. I've had one die on me because the the metal housing on the microusb side becomes detached from the rubber housing. I am not very gentle with them but I am not rough either. I purchased them so that I wouldn't have to be super gentle. It might have just been a bad one. Still using 2 of them and have one spare now.
The best ones in my limited personal experience are the ones that came with my nokia 5800 which have lasted since I purchased the nokia 5800. They came with the phone, no idea if they can be purchased separately.
thanks for this.. their 3x1ft also ships
- 3x1ft = 6.99 + 5.44 = $12.43USD
- 3x3ft + 1x6ft + 1x1ft = 12.99 + 6.19 = $19.18USD
might try apply for free shipping
Most of the time "cheap" doesn't always equate to good. Dropping a few extra dollars on a good cable is probably worth it in the long run. Being an Ozbargainer is tough!
I don't mind paying a bit more (not like 20 cents) for a cable, just not willing to shell out $29.95 for a new Samsung cable.
Looking for a decent cable around ~10 dollars.
Me neither! Over-priced much!
Read an article on a few tests ran to find the best micro-USB cable. Can't buy any of them in Australia, and here is the shipping fees:
Golly that's some ripe crap!
get a tikbro, seems they are the only ones that at least say what gauge wire they use. and will supply 2A with a 2A charger (no power drop.)
I was looking at that post reviews don't seem to be too great, I'll grab a cable and give an assessment.
@smileymiwo:
really, maybe another post said they were good - I know a while back they said there was a bad batch of cables I think 3m length ones (maybe thats the post I linked to - didnt read it just now)I understand about crap quality but how do you know - I would buy one of these but buggered if I would pay $20 for a brand name.
24AWG is OK, at one stage they had 28AWG wire. Would hate to think what the cheapies have.The shorter the cable the better too, less loss.
Tikbros are not durable though. I bought one and after 3 months, microUSB part broke (the tip just fell off).
@PVA: I think they were very good in terms of AWG, I remeber a guy talking about how it is very good in terms of charge speed on Ozbargain. That being said, I think they are not sturdy.
@AznMitch:
I'm not saying they're perfect, but you could have had a fluke. Mine's been going strong after more than a year of abuse.@tebbybabes: If you look at comments on Tikbro cables, you'd notice fair bit of people talking about "wonky head syndrome".
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/155747
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/170378I don't think I am the only person who've suffered from the head breaking off. That being said, I think the cable itself is fairly decent, it charges fast enough, it's fairly cheap etc.
this looks OK, says 28AWG wire http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1M-3FT-USB-2-0-A-male-plug-to-Mic…
no idea about the seller.
I just bought these, took a a few weeks to turn up. Charge at 2A.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pcs-lot-new-arrival-1M-2A-3…
28AWG has a resistance of 0.21Ω/m, 20AWG has a resistance of 0.033Ω/m.
If you have a one metre cable then you would have two metres of this wire (there and back) giving resistances of 0.42Ω and 0.066Ω respectively.
Using V=I*R;
The voltage drop across the wires at 2A will be 0.84V and 0.132V.
Assuming that there is a constant 5V at the source, the voltage available to the device will be 4.16V and 4.868V. This would be a blah-blah-blah circuit so a lower current will mean a higher voltage available to the device.
Lithium ion batteries have a voltage of 3.7V and a voltage of at least 3.7V is required to charge them. The maximum voltage should be 4.2V. Higher voltages result in degradation of the battery, a low current charge is best for the longevity of the battery.
The charging circuit is controlled by the device itself, the charger is generally dumb and will just try to provide a voltage of 5V for any current up to its rated current.
Constant current charging allows more of the battery to be used but is not as good when closer to 100% charge. Constant voltage charging is used near the end so that the current used will drop slowly until it reaches an equilibrium.
Well I'm off to work now. Will have to finish this never/another time.
Also take note that your cable is not too long. The longer it is, it will be less efficient to charge. When I buy cheap cables, it will be no more than 30 cm max just to ensure it can still run a strong enough current to charge effectively.
Exactly this!
I have lots of cheap 1M flat cables and they work fine. I bought a 3M and it charged 1% overnight.
Best way I've found is to actually quantitatively measure amperage moving across the charging system. I've identified good chargers and good cables this way. Unfortunately it requires having another device. One of those amp meter things for USB.
Pleasantly surprised that most of my cheap cables were performing up-to-par. Actually, it let me identify just 3 problem cables in my entire stash of cables.
On Galaxy phones, the charging current drawn depends on the resistance between some of the pins and whether the shields on the sockets are connected. Most cheap cables fail this criteria, even if they are otherwise good quality.
Apart from the $20 genuine Samsung cables, I've also found the $2.80 black 50cm cables from Daiso to be reusable. I've wasted heaps trying cheaper (and dearer) ones from ebay etc that only provide 1 amp. The longer 1m cables from Daiso have been mixed in my experience.
Most of mine from Kogan, along with a 4 way USB charger for the 2 tablets, 3 phones and 1 usb wifi dongle that we carry around.
$1 1m cable with free shipping:
https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/micro-usb-to-usb-cable-1m/$25 4port fast USB charger @5V 3.4A with free shipping:
https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/4-port-usb-rapid-wall-charger/The slow charging is usually caused by a current limiting USB charger. The cable in itself plays a minimal effect on the charging. However charging from laptops etc take a long time as the current is limited on the ports. Poor quality cable usually results in breakages near the plugs.
Kogan shipping for these items were somewhat slow though.
I have one of those 1m cables, never in my life have I seen anything charge that slowly.
That charger you linked seems to be marginally better than any other charger, capped at 2.4A for a single port, using two at the same time would max it out at 1.7A each. Compared to a 2.1A Samsung charger.
Interesting. I never gave much thought earlier about the cable thickness.
A little math done here. I just measured a cable (not a Kogan) and it has an internal resistance of 0.3 ohms for one line, making it 0.6 ohms total on the total length. The cable was marked 28AWG/1pr +26AWG 2C. A maximum micro usb plug current rating is 1.8A thus an internal device resistance is about 2.8 ohms. With the usb cable in series, that makes the total of 3.4 ohms which could potentially drop the charging current to 1.5A or roughly 20% drop. That could potentially add 20% charging time.
I'll try to measure my Kogan cable and Asus cable resistance over the weekend when I get a chance. Will check the cable with my $14.50 Optus ZTE phone too!
If the ZTE cable is good, that will make a good excuse to pick up more ZTE phones!
Microusb rating:
https://techpinions.com/why-apple-couldnt-go-to-micro-usb-ch…
Charging rates:
http://lifehacker.com/cables-can-significantly-impact-the-ch…
USB port ratings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBI did a few checks of some of my cables over the weekend, most marked 28AWG had an internal resistance of 0.2 ohms for each line which matches what rolypoly mentions above. In my earlier calculation, I forgot to minus 0.1 ohms from the meter's own cable. For the Kogan wire which was unmarked, it was about 0.2 ohms per line (1m long), so it does have a significant drop. Most of my cables including my ASUS tablet and ZTE phone were o.2 ohms, so they're all probably 28AWG. I guess I may have to ditch the Kogan cables and buy more ZTE phones for the cables and chargers.
Just from empirical evidence, using the Kogan cord, it took me an hour and 20 minutes longer to charge my 3200mAh Note 3 than my genuine Samsung cord, using the same adapter.
@smileymiwo: Sorry - in comment above, Kogan resistance was about 0.2 ohms extra per line - reading about 0.3 to 0.4 ohms (my meter was fluctuating between the readings). It makes sense as the voltage will drop and the resulting voltage of about 4.5V will be way too low to power the device charging circuit which will make it charge forever. The charging time will not drop linearly with the decreasing charge voltage. I've noticed that on my Asus tablet is slow to charge on a charger with the Kogan cable but did not realize it was the cable at fault until now. I'll just use those cables for data. The solution is use a minimum of 28AWG, 26AWG will be better if it can be found, and to use the shortest possible cable.
Google PortaPow cable. supposed to be da bomb! even charging on PC apparently provide high current.. (haven't tested this myself)
4cabling in NSW supplies them. not cheap though!In general, I would agree with you, but when dealing with low voltage (5V) and high current (1.8A on micro USB) wire resistance can play an important role as shown in my calculation above. I have seen even big companies skimp on wire, like when I recently repaired a pair of Sony XBass headphones. The wire was so fine that I doubt that even a micrometer could measure it. Unsurprisingly, the fault was caused by a broken wire.
So if cables have no impact, why does my OnePlus One charge fully in an hour when I use the cable it came with, vs about 4-6 hours using lower gauge cables from the same USB charger?
Seeing your post of really REALLY dumb things. Like, mind numbing dumb things.
You have ZERO clue.
Thats interesting. Can you post a link to your source or at least some calculations or something?
I found this, some guy did calculations on power loss.
Buying a 99c cable off ebay.. you can't expect much.. However buying this http://www.dicksmith.com.au/computer-accessories/dse-1-8m-us… …. thats a ripoff! Don't need to drop that much money, but an $4 cable should be good enough.
I didn't realise there were so many physicists/engineers here on OzB :)
I may not be some big city engineer, and I don't know anything about resistance or induction, but if it were me I'd just buy a handful of cheapo 1m cables on ebay. If they wear out just chuck it and use another.If you don't know about these stuff, at the very least, don't be condescending about something that you are not sure about?
Nobody cares if they wear out, they care how fast it charges the device….
I am nobody.
Cool nobody, now put yourself in context. :)
Just bought a few 2m cables from this ebay seller for $6.79. Not knowing the quality, I just gambled on the fact that he has sold over 7000 of them and still retains a feedback score of 99.7%. As long as they can charge a phone overnight and the connections are solid. We'll see.
What are you charging from? The cable might not be the problem