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Rover 416 - Phone not charging through lighter socket

146 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  Rover 416 Si Automatic, 
R
Hello everyone.

This weekend we're going to visit my parents and i'm planning on taking the Rover, it takes about 1 hour to get there.
My wife's phone battery is quite old, so she often likes to charge it during a drive. In her car (2014 Mitsubishi Colt), she can do this no problem. In my car, even though I have a lighter socket - USB adapter, our phones won't charge when plugged in. What I've noticed is that the phone will occasionally start charging after I get onto a motorway, but it doesn't always do this.

Does anyone else have this problem or know how to remedy it? Could it be that I just need to get a new adapter?
Maybe it's better to just buy a power bank and take that with us.

I look forward to any answers, and hope that I don't have to drive 1 hour in the Mitsubishi :rolleyes: It's economical, but has literally no sound-deadening material and incredibly hard suspension... I know, first world problems! :LOL:

Best regards,
Dan
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Roverlike
Since you say that at some times you get charging going, I would first check if you have good connection of wires to your lighter socket.

Second, if wires are ok, then it might be that your USB adapter will not start charging below some voltage treshold (if you are on motorway, your voltage can raise a little).

These are two things that came to my mind when reading your post.

However, instead on investing to possibly another USB adapter, powerbank would be better choice.
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R
Hi Roverlike,

Thanks for your reply. I also thought that there may be some type of minimum voltage requirement setting on the adapter… I will try my wife‘s one tomorrow as her one is literally a plus with some wires soldered to a USB port.

I will also check to see that the socket has a good connection. I think I‘ll get a powerbank anyway as they‘re pretty useful.

Thanks again!
Regards,
Dan
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R
Hi everyone.

An (rather belated) update to the phone charging situation.
I ended up swapping the USB charger I had with the one in my wife's car. Her one didn't seem to have any voltage regulation or controlling equipment and subsequently charged her phone during the journey.

As I expected, the phone charged more whilst we were on the motorway. On an iPhone you can look at the charging history and it shows you the time and percentage of the battery.

And so the problem has been solved. The 416 has a rather small non-conventional battery size, so maybe it just doesn't have enough juice to provide full charging voltage to a phone (such as the 8-Watt charger from Apple) as well as an engine.

That's it! Thanks for reading and @Roverlike for your reply.

Regards,
Dan
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