Hi,
Car charger I use is Belkin . It happily charges my older Clip+, Asus Google Nexus, smartphone and any other device which uses usb style charging. All except that is my Clip Zip. When I plugged my Clip zip to this charger it killed it. Stone dead. No power, no reset, no longer works via any pc or other charger. I used the usb charging lead which came with the Clip Zip. This lead is known good and has charged, via car device and mains plug in charger, all devices without problem.
Given that the Clip+ and other devices are fine with the car charger I conclude the Clip Zip battery/charging circuit is exceptionally sensitive.
The Clip Zip will be replaced. But I need a reliable car charger for it.
Any thoughts or suggestions, please?
Might just be a conincidence or a single bad unit. I haven’t heard of any others having this problem with any car charger.
Thanks for replying, Tapeworm.
Presumably the Belkin charger I use has an output voltage/drift/tolerance which exceeds the safe upper limit of the Zips input. (Just adding here that the engine was running prior to me plugging the charger to the Zip, so as to avoid spikes). Ideally, the charging voltage should be 5v. Do you happen to know what the maximum, upper limit safe charging voltage for a Clip Zip would be?
Thanks again.
If I’m not mistaken, 5v should be ideal.
USB is speced at a max of 5.5v, so any USB device should be able to handle that. I wouldn’t give it anything other than 5v though.
5 V for the Clips . . . .
Well, I butchered a usb lead to allow convenient terminals to take measurements on a digital voltmeter.
Tapeworm, you were correct. It was a single bad unit but, to my surprise, not the clip zip.
It was the car charger that was bad. It measured 12v off load. Present a 120 ohm load and it drops to 9v. Presumably a 60 ohm load would have dropped it nearer to 5v. This might explain why other heavier current load devices survived. Anyway, the Belkin charger is getting binned. No way it should its output be so heavily load regulated. I’ll be very carefull about what car charger I buy now…
Thanks.
Now, anyone got any suggestions as to which car chargers are more reliable?
