10 Inexpensive Automotive USB Adapters Tested -- Are They Any Good?

[mrmez]

Check out Anker brand products. Pretty cheap for good quality stuff, and their better models don't have amp specific outputs. Ie: Will figure out the difference between a phone and a tablet and charge accordingly regardless of what usb port you use.

 

[synphul]

For what seems like a mundane teardown on the surface the article was pretty interesting. Things that most people don't think about, I've known many people to charge their expensive iphones using cheap noname adapters from the local drugstore or buy a load of cheap ones off ebay 10 for $10 or something.

I actually figured most of the cheap ones to be all out of the same or similar factory and bought/resold in bulk so to see the variation in the internals was a bit surprising. Good to know that some of the more expensive ones are actually delivering and not just slapping a name brand on the same $1 adapter with a ton of markup.

I wonder if this pans out the same or similar when it comes to wall plug usb adapters like people use at home? Good article.

 

[firefoxx04]

Would like to see the Samsung charger. It does quick charging for supported phones. Mine seems to worn well.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

I actually figured most of the cheap ones to be all out of the same or similar factory and bought/resold in bulk so to see the variation in the internals was a bit surprising.

Where cheap Chinese electronics are concerned, the generic housings are mass-produced and often shared between multiple manufacturers instead of having distinctive custom-made ones. Even among "name brand" units, many appear to be using the same in-socket body as some of those generic adapters. AC adapters are much the same with countless generics sourcing bodies copying Apple's cube form factor from the same injection molding companies using copies of the same counterfeit/look-alike die set.

 

[NeatOman]

I learned YEARS ago that a cheap charger can very easily mess up your phone/device. I noticed this when I plugged in my 6 month old Nexus 4 into a cheap car charger (very much like the "First Batch") and the phone started stuttering and it wasn't overheating at all. Then for the first time i have ever owned the phone it suddenly rebooted instantly.

Since then, I've been asking people with flaky phones if they use cheap chargers at any time.. home, car, work. Almost everyone say they do. Its not the most scientific at all and of course falls into the correlation and causation thing lol.

 

[JonDol]

Hi there,
Thanks for the review. After your CyberPower tear down I was just about to suggest you do some scrutiny on USB hubs. They are greatly popular amongst the laptop users (as myself) and I always wondered why my own Amazon basics 7 ports sometimes continously reboots itself and sometimes it does not reboot but my external USB sound card is never seen by the laptop. Then you may perhaps suggest how to investigate further such dysfunctionalities and find who's to blame: the hub, the laptop or other device plugged into the hub (mouse, keyboard).

Regards.

 

[Ben Archer]

Worth noting that the outlet circuit (cig lighter) is fused, usually at 15A. So the LDNIO would burn that when outputting much more than 3200mA, as it measured 3100 mA - 17.286 W (1460 mA @ 11.84 V) draw.

 

[Ben Archer]

Wait, no I'm dumb. Got that wrong by an order of magnitude. Redact

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Thanks for the review. After your CyberPower tear down I was just about to suggest you do some scrutiny on USB hubs.

I could use a hub or two to reduce the frequency at which I have to dive under my desk and hunt for a spare USB port - I already have one and all of its ports are used. Two of my Dell monitors have built-in four-port hubs but those turn off with the displays, which is no good for devices I want to be always on.

If you want to know if your hub issues are from the laptop, hub or device, simply plug the device directly in the same USB hub. If that works fine, your problem is most likely the hub. A different combination of host chipset and endpoint devices may yield different results too. With host-powered hubs, other potential issues are exceeding the host port current limit and excessive voltage drop.

Wait, no I'm dumb. Got that wrong by an order of magnitude. Redact

5V x 17A = 85W. Including ~10% conversion loss, that would be about 7A at 13V input, half of a 15A accessory fuse's rating.

Even if the adapter was drawing 17A from the outlet, standard 15A fuses will usually take several seconds if not minutes to blow under a mild overload. Power distribution fuses are there mainly to protect the wiring and only need to blow fast enough to prevent wires from melting their isolation or becoming a burn hazard if they are in a normally human-accessible locations.

 

[ceomrman2]

What about keeping a decent USB battery pack plugged into the car and your gizmos plugged into the USB battery? That way, you get the clean and safe power from your battery and you also always have a topped off USB battery in your car for when you arrive at your destination and realize you need it. If the car fries your battery, that sucks, but it's no big deal.
While I have the stuff to do this, I actually just plug my phone in to a $1 adapter every time I get into my '03 Acura, just as I've been doing for ten years, with never any problem.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

What about keeping a decent USB battery pack plugged into the car and your gizmos plugged into the USB battery?

Unless the battery has adequate protections against what a defective or dead adapter might put out (whatever is on the 12V input including load dump spikes in the worst case), doing so may compound the problems with an exploding battery. Also, leaving lithium batteries inside a car where temperatures may exceed 50C during summer is not recommended since it will cause accelerated aging.

 

[Brainbent]

Thanks for this. Makes me really think about the "free" adapter I got for my Verizon branded phone. Seems like free may only be the case for as long as it doesn't fry something. Makes me wish I had some of the equipment (and someplace to put it) to do a little testing myself.

 

[Isaiah4110]

No Anker in the review is a bummer, still, thanks for doing this!

but now i wonder and almost feel like taking one apart just to see what's inside.

At least one of Anker's Amazon listings has a 3D render showing the internals. At a glance, it seems quite similar to the LDNIO.

If I do another one of these roundups, I'll try to get my hands on one.

Well, throw adapter models/brands at me and I'll look around to see which ones I can grab for a reasonable price for Round 2.

Yes please! This was an incredibly informative and intriguing write-up, one that I feel opens up a whole new can of worms. There is no way TH could possibly test/review even half of the "car charge ports" on the market, but I would love to see more of this.

Also, what's a realistic, real-world source for EMI in a car? I.E. As you are driving down the road minding your own business with your smart phones/tablets charging, what will cause enough EMI to interfere with the functionality of the more poorly shielded options (and what will/could happen to your devices at that time)?

 

[Onus]

Yes, with all the attention paid to clean power (e.g. from PSUs), perhaps this article should not have been as much of an eye-opener as it was, but indeed it was. More please! Being able to recommend a few specific adapters would be an excellent goal. My only concern might be that the powers that be would decide this belongs on TG rather than TH, so I hope it either remains here, or notice is posted when more reviews are done on TG.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Also, what's a realistic, real-world source for EMI in a car? I.E. As you are driving down the road minding your own business with your smart phones/tablets charging, what will cause enough EMI to interfere with the functionality of the more poorly shielded options (and what will/could happen to your devices at that time)?

When I did my unscientific EMI measurement, I was mainly thinking about how the EMI from the adapter might interfere with things like AM radio stations. Switching power supplies generate more EMI locally than they are ever going to receive from external sources short of an EMP or being run inside a microwave oven. That's why switching supplies need to be shielded to contain their EMI or at the very least be built in a way that minimizes radiated EMI. Abnormal levels of EMI within reason are unlikely to affect them since they have to deal with far worse from within.

Yes, with all the attention paid to clean power (e.g. from PSUs), perhaps this article should not have been as much of an eye-opener as it was, but indeed it was. More please! Being able to recommend a few specific adapters would be an excellent goal.

Short of knowing how many more i'll be getting and how soon, at least one manufacturer has read my story and reached out to provide samples. Depending on how many of what I receive, I may end up doing a "manufacturer special" mixed accessories round-up.

 

[Math Geek]

did you have any idea the can of worms you were opening with this article?? clearly this struck a nerve with people since most everyone has multiple adapters like this in their cars and elsewhere.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I love all the articles you do on lesser-thought-of electronics.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

did you have any idea the can of worms you were opening with this article??

If you have been reading my stories for a little while, you should already know that opening and kicking cans of worms when I can afford them is one of my hobbies

Expect more can-of-worms-kicking in the future. I have one little experiment in the near-future which I hope will surprise even myself by turning out either much worse or much better than I imagined.

 

[Onus]

Laptop power bricks or USB chargers?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Laptop power bricks or USB chargers?

Laptop power bricks would be really cool. We already have reviews on desktop power supplies so I see no reason why that shouldn't be expanded to laptop power supplies, too.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Laptop power bricks or USB chargers?

Laptop chargers would be no fun and of very limited usefulness: most have proprietary form factors, semi-custom plugs, laptop/brand/range-specific voltage and current ratings, and the brick itself is often epoxy-filled, which makes tear-down extremely tedious if not impossible.

By USB chargers, I'm guessing you meant AC ones. I meant to do one but have only three aftermarket adapters in my collection at the moment if we exclude my UPS' built-in ones.

 

[Onus]

Yes, AC USB chargers, from the OEM ones that come with phones, to the cheap aftermarket versions (some of which are similar weight, others feel like empty eggshells).

 

[Avro Arrow]

I got pretty lucky as up here in Canada, we have a store called "Princess Auto" which has a massive surplus department. One can always find great tech bargains there because so few people think of looking in a store that has the word "Auto" in its name. I got six Monster brand chargers for $20CAD incl. tax. Monster is a great name and these things are amazingly fast.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Since there was more interest in USB adapters than I was expecting, I went shopping and bought 10 different AC adapters priced under $5 CAN each including shipping, 12-13 total including the two or three I already had.

Here are a few polls while we wait since my last few orders from China took the better part of three months to arrive:
- how many will be DOA?
- how many will have catastrophic/spectacular failure?
- how many will die under test?
- how many will fail to meet their specs?
- how many will be too noisy or have too much ripple to be usable?
- how many will have a short or low impedance from AC input to DC output?
- out of those that survive long enough to produce some numbers, what will be the lowest, highest and average efficiency?
- should I build a small blast-resistant chamber just in case?

As you may be able to tell, my expectations are set to 'low' but who knows, maybe there will be another LDNIO to surprise me in a mostly positive way.

 

[Onus]

My guesses, based on past tear downs and cheap Chinese products I've ordered, is that:
Since you bought cheap ones, rather than OEM devices (although I'm sure you have some, and will test them too), among the new (not OEM) ones:
10% will be DOA (or otherwise obviously too defective out of the box to use).
Of the remainder:
Only one or two will experience a near immediate failure of a sort that produces a >BANG< and/or smoke, which may turn out to be a QC issue;
Next is the hardest to predict, depending on the tests. Please be SURE to include an overnighter on a 2A (e.g. tablet-sized) load, to check for meltdowns;
90% will not meet their amperage specs. Half of those will come in around 50% of them;
80%-90% of them will have enough ripple/noise to raise an eyebrow, half of those would be best tossed into the garbage rather than risk using them.
Less than 10% will have AC in to DC out "proximity" issues, all of which may be due to poor QC, such as solder blobs.
Of the survivors, average efficiency may be a pleasant surprise, at 80% or higher.
Not necessarily a blast chamber, but a melt-chamber should be used for any overnight load testing.
Fwiw, I will be optimistic and say I believe if you buy $15-$25 adapters, most of these problems will go away.