Charging your Ego on your computer vs wall socket (Warning)

[LoveVanilla]

My computer has 2.2 amp USB so I was charging from there. Then had a RAID failure. Moved to a different computer with 2.2 amp USBs and... had a RAID failure. Both recovered fine after removing eGo and rebuilding/resyn'ing drives (i.e. the drives were fine).

As power supplies are more than adequate, my belief is the drain on the MB was more than could be provided. Sure glad I had these running with RAID 1 configurations.

I certainly won't charge ecig's from my computer again. It's not worth the risk.

 

[ch2468]

My computer has 2.2 amp USB so I was charging from there. Then had a RAID failure. Moved to a different computer with 2.2 amp USBs and... had a RAID failure. Both recovered fine after removing eGo and rebuilding/resyn'ing drives (i.e. the drives were fine).

As power supplies are more than adequate, my belief is the drain on the MB was more than could be provided. Sure glad I had these running with RAID 1 configurations.

I certainly won't charge ecig's from my computer again. It's not worth the risk.

USB ports tend to be grouped in sets of 2 or 4. I'm guessing you had all three plugged into the same group (stupidly referred to as hubs, not to be confused with the hubs you can buy in stores). The 500mA spec I mentioned applies to all the ports in the same group, and USB hard drives consume a lot of power, adding to that the consumption from the ego charger, and I could see why you had an issue. That's why most of these external drives come with (optional) power adapters.

edit: Plus, if you're using these things in RAID, then why not just buy a NAS, or install these drives into a PC?

 

[K_Tech]

That's one of the things I like about my Efest LUC charger. It has a USB charging port on it.

 

[Halcyon2501]

My ASUS G75VW has 1 of it's 4 USB ports marked as a special "charger" port for devices with a USB charger. I've used this quite frequently to charge my 1100mah eGo-C Twists and never had an issue.

 

[irwink]

I've been charging Joye eGo and eGo twist batteries since the eGo batteries first became available. I have for the most part charged them via usb ports on the same desktop computer throughout that time. I have never had a failure of charger, battery or computer component while charging. The only battery failures I've experienced were due to age and use. The computer in question has a 7 year old motherboard and a good quality power supply. It's used mostly as a file and media server.

I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 

[hazarada]

While the USB charger does technically follow USB standards for voltage and amperage draw, not all integrated USB ports follow the specification exactly.

bull...., standard is 0.5A for a regular usb2 and ive yet to see one thats not capable of it. If the charger is dumb enough not to limit the draw below that then it should specify charging usb which is a different standard.

 

[AttyPops]

Look on the charger. It will state the amp draw.

Most USB ports should handle it just fine. Cell phones...IDK. But real computers are usually OK.
That said, I can't recommend overriding the vendor's directions. I'm just stating that I don't understand why they said that unless there's some really weird less than 500 mA ports out there. The USB 1.0 standard was 500 mA. It has gotten higher since. But who knows about flaky implementations.

How USB charging works, or how to avoid blowing up your smartphone | ExtremeTech

Anyone know of a reason?

I know that this is NOT applicable to USB PT's that are not trickle charging types....AKA "direct PT". That's a different animal. Always use a wall wart (A/C to USB of at least 2.0 amps...2000 mA) for them.

Even for the trickle-charge PT's...Still a good idea to use a wall wart.

Every time I hear a story about a 510/808/Ego battery blowing up on the charger, everybody starts flinging the blame at the device people plug their chargers into. Has anyone though to think about defects in the chargers or batteries themselves? A USB 2.0 port will only output 5V@500mA max.

If there was something wrong with USB ports, people would be constantly blowing up their keyboards, mice, printers, external HDDs, etc etc etc. If anything, plugging your charger into one of those wall/car adapters is more dangerous, because it adds another piece of shoddily-designed voltage adjustment circuitry (be it 120VAC->5VDC, or 12VDC->5VDC).

Buy quality electronics, and you should rarely have this problem.

EEVblog #388 - Fake Apple USB Charger Teardown - YouTube
Crappy PSU analysis - YouTube

^^^ that.
Personal opinion....many of the charger circuits are crap. Also, the little USB wires get a lot of workout. I'd use robust cables if I had em....for the ones with the mini-USB connector on the end of the PT.

The dang charger is a 5v 480 ma draw. That's not out of line at all. Try a coffee warmer or fan or.....

What they should have said was "Don't risk your expensive computer ports on crappy e-cig chargers."

 

[LoveVanilla]

What they should have said was "Don't risk your expensive computer ports on crappy e-cig chargers."

Yes, I think that's the bottom line. It was a solid computer but my first ecig foray (i.e. cheap knockoff) outside blu's. BTW, never had issues with the blu chargers.

 

[skoony]

this not rocket science.the usb spec is well known.how to manufacture a charger to work
with one is well known.
charging a battrey via usb port charger should'nt damage the battery,charger or device
containing the port period.
as a matter of fact the battery should be the last thing in the series to fail.
most likely cause of failure would be the charger cricuitry,or the circuitry in the battery.
the actual battery is pretty robust due to its very nature.
of course these stories of batterys blowing up means the battery was damaged or just
plain defective as a direct 5 volts should'nt be enough over voltage to pop them.

regards
mike

 

[ch2468]

of course these stories of batterys blowing up means the battery was damaged or just
plain defective as a direct 5 volts should'nt be enough over voltage to pop them.

Li-ion/Li-po batteries should not be exposed to anything higher than 4.2v, as per their design specifications.