Are Mobile Car Chargers Good for Phone Batteries?

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with charging my mobile phone. These days, with weeks-long battery life for phones you tend to forget to plug in at night. So sometimes we use a car charger when on the road. I didn’t realize car chargers weren’t so good in terms of battery care.Chris Pirillo quotes: Any charger that goes into the car is bad for the device battery. Why? Because the power is not regulated like in your home. In my line of work, I have seen many batteries die because people use their car chargers

What if your “car charger” is also the device that allows you to play your tunes/podcasts over your car stereo?

I have one of those power converters in my car. You plug it into the cigarette lighter and it converts the power to 110/115v. It has a regular 3 prong outlet in it and I just plug my regular charger into it. I use it for my cellphone, laptop, MP3 player, etc. You can buy them from most electronics stores for about $40-$100, depending on it’s size. Works like a charm for me and no dedicated car chargers needed.

I have always believed that an inverter 12v/120v is a safer way to go since it allows the normal charger to do its best at what it does.

One thing about 12v inverters is to be sure (if you can) that the output voltage falls not only within normal standards±, but that it is a sine wave of 50~60 Htz and not some “harmonic”.

I had an unpleasant situation with one such harmonic inverter. This was back in 1988-ish. The inverter came from a support group for Osborne computers and worked wonderfully with them, so I tried it with a fairly new Sharp PC-7000 “lunchbox” computer. It worked for about 10 minutes then the Sharp gave forth this really nifty blueish-yellow smoke. I tried to shut it down, but realized that a B+ canister (rather large capacitor – oil-filled – had overheated and begun a smokey near-burn situation). I plugged the Sharp back into the wall and it worked like nothing had happened. When I reconnected to the battery system (Florida has so many ground-strike lightening storms, it’s imperative, … at least back then before UPS) it began smoking less and finally stopped.

From then on, the system ran flawlessly until I traded it to the Clearwater Marine Science center for their older colour CRT 8088 system and a Wang 5-station they no longer needed. Last I heard, it was still running wonderfully.

The point is that equipment back then was more tolerant of some things modern equipment might not survive. Such things as a harmonic power source may not be so usable today as back then.

What I do not know – since I have no “Scope/ocilliscope” – is what brands give “pure” 50~60 Htz outputs. Anyone know? (Hint: I live in rural north-central Missouri, so Wal-Mart and Radio Shack are all I have locally. I can get to Columbia for Best Buy, Circuit City and Staples, but not frequently.

What do you know?

I had no idea that car chargers were bad for devices. It’s amazing how unaware of the dangers of things we do every day we are, and it’s really not our fault. Products should have proper warnings on the packaging. I’m a bit mad that they would allow something that could negatively effect you like this, without proper warning.

Great advice considering I hang on a boat that has 2 12v sockets for charging up various appliances. I’ll keep it to a minimum now.

Thanks for the heads up but what is the background data for the information quoted from Chris Levo? Is this just his opinion or based on some actual scientific facts?

Thank you Chris. Very useful information. I’ve been looking for this information for a long time. Permission to copy paste this blog to mine.

Hanz

Chris, Sorry, I can’t agree with all you’ve said. I have over 30 years repairing and maintaining electronic equipment.

1st. The car system is regulated, really well, but that being said, any good car charger will be regulated itself. Most batteries, in most modern phones, are charged with about 5 volts, the charger regulates the automotive ( nominal 12v really 14-14.5 volts) voltage down to the required 5 volts or so.
Some chargers actually pluse the phone battery as well.

2nd. Most phones have the charge control circuit built in, so the charge amount and rate is controled by the phone.( As long as the charger is somewhere near the correct voltage)
And if the voltage is too high, the control circuit just turns off the charging.

Bob Francis

Chris,

I’m an electrical engineer by profession, so I feel somewhat qualified to question the statements by Mr. Levo concerning the unsuitability of car chargers.

There is nothing about car chargers that makes them inherently worse or better than home chargers. A poorly designed charger of any type is not good for battery health, but a properly designed charger manufactured by a reputable company is suitable in either location.

Device life may be shortened in a vehicle environment by things like dirt, vibration, extreme temperatures, etc., but statements such as “Any charger that goes into the car is bad for the device battery.” and “Because the power is not regulated like in your home.” are not based in fact.

Mr. Levo’s advice about not purchasing “cheap” chargers is sound, but his opinion about vehicle chargers is not.

Do you have test data that backs this up? What about the car charger supplied by the phone manufacturer?

If the voltage regulator is in the home charger as implied, then use a 12 v DC to 120 vAC converter in the car and plug the home charger into the converter..

I never really thought about this. I’m going to have to take my car charger apart to confirm this. It only takes a small chip and a couple other cheap components to make a voltage regulator, I just assumed that these chargers would have that in them. Likewise the phone itself should have a voltage regulator in it. This is pretty standard technology.

Perhaps you should poll someone with a some degree of technical knowledge. The closest this article comes to providing any basis for his warning is “the power is not regulated like in your home”. News Flash: the power in your home is not regulated. In the US the voltage range allowed is almost 40 volts and in practice exceeds that. Any “regulation” is done in the charger by a voltage regulator chip. Is he saying that _no_ vehicle chargers use such a chip? And that that is the difference between the “$10″ and the “$30″ chargers? Sensationalistic, unsupported, “Chicken Little” warnings like this provide no service at all beyond entertainment value. In fact, you do yourself a disservice by promoting it without validation.

I’d like to hear more evidence why car chargers are bad. what does he mean “the power is not regulated”? of course it is! car batteries put out about 12.5 volts give or take some. is that “give or take” really so bad? if so, why?

I use my home charger, but plug it into an inverter in my car…wouldn’t that be as good as home charging? Mr. Levo’s comment, “…because the power is not regulated like in your home ” would only apply if you were not using the home charger (which I assume is the regulator that he is referring to) but I do, just plugged into my high-end aftermarket inverter.

What about external batteries? Also what about car to home converters? Are they bad for batteries?

This is false information. Most car charges use voltage regulators such as diodes or voltage regulator chips. I don’t know of any 12V cellular telephone. Most run on 3-5V. Also, when a cell phone charger manufacturer makes a charger they have to account for the fact that when the car is off the car provides 12VDC and when the car is running the car will provide as much as 15.5V in some cases.

As an electronics tech, I see alot of false information which is written by those whom know just enough to be dangerous. Did you know that 50 years ago people actually put covers on their electrical sockets so that the power didn’t leak out?

Exactly what is he basing his information on? Is it the simple fact he feels the power is unregulated? If so, he should see my APC UPS log file…. Ninety percent of the logged outages are due to low voltage levels and cycle drops, not actual power outages. Charging exclusively in your hoome is no guarentee, especially in central PA.

What difference does it make if you replace your phone every two years? With my last phone, I used the car charger probably as much as the indoor one and the device is still OK.

I disagree with the part about emptying my pockets before bed. I think most people empty their pockets when getting home then go to bed hours later. This is the best time to charge the phone. I’ve heard differing opinions over the years about possible over-charging, but if you plug it in when you get home, you can check to see when it’s at 100%. I’m not too comfortable leaving it plugged in for 8 hours while I’m asleep.

Levo must be some kinda workaholic.

I would think that charging the batteries often just to keep them full, triggers the “memory effect” which is common in any type of battery.

Having used car chargers (and I mean the cheap ones from convenience stores) almost exclusively for the past 10 years I have to say this guy doesn’t know Jack!

[...] be doing more harm than good to the device’s battery. Tech blogger Chris Pirillo published an e-mail from Chris Levo of Nteract Solutions discusses how the unregulated power supply in your car can cause damage to [...]

I have to agree with those poo pooing the idea that car chargers are bad. Were did you get this from? did you just make it up on the spot? What a load of rubbish, it’s funny because I was just looking @ my car charger yesterday, cuz I am going into running stuff in car @ the moment in a big way(that’;s another story), the one I use is a Nokia branded one for my Nokia phone and it actually came in the package when I got the phone. It says on it 5v, so as the car is 12v it is obviously regulated. My work is 30 mins away from were I stay so the phone gets 60 mins a day on the car charger, it has never even been attached to the mains charger I couldn’t even tell you what it looks like, my phone (N95 gr8 phone BTW) is ~18 mnths old and work perfectly.

Certain car phone chargers whether they were bought through oem providers or aftermarket, did not regulate voltage, and therefore shortened the life of the cell battery.
Whether this was by design (to sell more batteries) or just shortsightedness, is immaterial. Most newer cell phones come with just a car charger, which makes one wonder why cell phone providers find it more convenient to supply just a car charger. My personal phone charger broke after 4 months, as I change cars often. I now have both a car charger, and purchased the appropriate home charger as a backup and have had no problems with either, although I suspect the home charger will last considerably longer.

all I can say is bullshit just charge the phone however and whenever you like it’ll be fine

Well, the most safe to charge cell phone by it original charger. No others. Why we have to bring our cell phone to car and charge it with car charger? Make it easy, don’t make it difficult.

Yeah.This is a very convenient and safe way to charge your mobile by your mobile charger.I think to charge mobile by a car charger will not be as safe as mobile charger.