How risky is it to use an underspecified charger?

1

I forgot my 5V/2.1A charger at work and I only have a 5V/1A charger at home. I tried plugging in the device and it seems to work (battery is loading).

  1. Theoretically speaking, what bad things could happen? (E.g. could the charger start to burn because more current is being drawn than it can handle?)

  2. Practially speaking, what problems should I expect and what can I do to avoid them? (e.g. check if charger is getting hot?)

(In case it matters, the device is a Galaxy Tab 2, the 2.1A charger is the original charger and the 1A charger is my iPhone charger. Both convert 220V AC to 5V DC (USB).)

Heinzi

Posted 2012-06-29T17:26:39.143

Reputation: 2 729

Answers

2

Chances are 1A will be sufficient for your device. USB ports only provide .5A. But you may still want to be careful, an under supplied charger can become very hot and even melt(I've seen this!) it could also cause similar damage to the device if it is not able to manage it's intake.

Jeff F.

Posted 2012-06-29T17:26:39.143

Reputation: 4 293

Thanks, that was helpful. Charging worked, but since the charger got quite hot, I interrupted the experiment. – Heinzi – 2012-07-02T06:34:27.577

Asked: 2012-06-29T17:26:39.143

Viewed: 611 times

Active: 2012-06-29T17:50:28.127