Where to get an AC adaptor?

[Nikojiro]

Hi,


I just got my Pandora, bought second-hand from this forum


I noticed that charging through USB is slow as hell, but my Pandora did not come with an AC adaptor.


What adaptor can I use? Can I buy a generic one with proper voltage? Should I stick to a genuine PSP charger?


Thanks in advance.

 

[EvilDragon]

Hi,


I just got my Pandora, bought second-hand from this forum


I noticed that charging through USB is slow as hell, but my Pandora did not come with an AC adaptor.


What adaptor can I use? Can I buy a generic one with proper voltage? Should I stick to a genuine PSP charger?


Thanks in advance.

Get a PSP one. My genuine one works perfectly, some cheap ones might not work well.


If you get a cheap knockoff, check that it offers 1A, better 2A.

 

[FaeMinx]

It's a pity that usb charging is slow (I've never tried this myself)... but now that I have an HTC Sensation, I was amazed to see the charger they included. it's the most compact charger I've ever seen... aaaand, it has no cable. You simply plug in a usb cable to charge the phone. I'm going to try charging my Pandora off of this when I get it back, because if I can get away with only bringing this tiny 'USB to Mains adapter' with me to charge both my devices... absolute win!


I would recommend going for this design in the Pandora 2... One less port, one less cable... should save some money and make the device even more portable.

 

[Prometheus]

^ You might be interested in one of these.


It's a multi-tip charger, and it has tips compatible with, amongst others, the Pandora (and the 3DS ). I exclusively use that, plus a USB charger, to charge mine, and as far as I can tell, it's no different to using the adapter supplied with the Pandora.


With this one, at least, you can definitely get away with only carrying the one adapter.

 

[FaeMinx]

^ Oooo... yes. That would be the ticket! ...That cable would be the perfect companion for my HTC Charger.


Thanks for the link!


Obviously more bulky than a standard cable with all those tips... but I could just take that and leave the other two cables behind.


I'm assuming it works just fine as a standard USB cable for data transfer as well?

 

[Prometheus]

I have no idea about data transfer, as I've only used it for charging (that's all I needed it for). Sorry about that!

 

[Link]

^


That does look pretty sweet, and for that price, inviting.

 

[Mr_Loon]

... I'm going to try charging my Pandora off of this when I get it back, because if I can get away with only bringing this tiny 'USB to Mains adapter' with me to charge both my devices... absolute win!...

Should be fine as it works for me using an identical sounding charger for my HTC desire, doesn't seem to take much longer to deliver a full charge than the official charger.

 

[WizardStan]

The Pandora can theoretically be charged off the USB as quickly as off the wall charger IF the amps are there. It's currently restricted in software to 500ma because trying to draw more than that is outside the bounds of the USB standard and if you plug into your PC to charge it could (probably won't, but could) cause major damage. If you use one of those USB wall chargers there's no reason you couldn't change the driver to charge upwards of 2 or 3 times faster. The trick is figuring out how to tell the difference between a USB wall charger and plugged into a PC.


There's also one other key thing to remember: Windows restricts the output to 100ma unless the driver requests more. So charging from a Windows PC is 1/5th that of charging on a Linux PC and 1/10th what it would be charging from the wall.


This is universally true as well. Your phone that charges off USB (unless it comes with custom drivers which boost the amps on the port) will do the exact same thing.

 

[Prometheus]

I should point out that I use the PSP/sat-nav tip on the cable that I linked to. I don't know if Stan's explanation above also applies to that or not, though.

 

[WizardStan]

Yeah, if you use the PSP end the driver will say "oh, I'm being PSP charged, let me just crank this up to 1 amp". If you plug it into one of those USB wall outlets you won't have a problem. Plugged into your PC, however, the Pandora suddenly tries drawing 1000ma where the hardware is only (supposed to be) capable of supplying 500ma. More than likely your PC can handle it, maybe even supplying the full amount, or at worst will limit the charge to either 100 or 500ma so it will still charge albeit slowle, but probably not a good idea to risk it anyway. I'm sure it would be fine, but I'm not going to recommend it just in case.


We could get the driver to do the same thing with USB charging, but it's only a good idea if it's being wall charged and I don't know an easy way of telling the difference between wall charging and PC charging with the hardware we've got.

 

[Nikojiro]

Problem is, the Pandora needs to be started to charge on USB, even if I connect the USB cord to a wall adapter. Now it is fully discharged, and I can't charge it... unless I find a compatible charger. I have a 3.5mm jack to USB power cord at home that should do with the USB wall adapter, I'll try this way when I get back home, hope it does the trick.

 

[fanoush]

Problem is, the Pandora needs to be started to charge on USB, even if I connect the USB cord to a wall adapter. Now it is fully discharged, and I can't charge it...

This should be same with AC adapter. For _any_ charging pandora must be started no matter whether over usb or ac because charging is done via software.


What does it mean " I can't charge it". What happens when you plug in usb now? Does it boot to UI and then shut down? In that case perhaps the trick is to switch it to low power mode (via sliding power switch) before it manages to shut down.


As for speed of (USB) charging - it does charge more slowly with screen and wi-fi turned on, in low power mode it charges quicker.

 

[Tam Toucan]

A Pandora with a FULLY discharged battery won't charge from USB. At least mine won't (24hrs and nothing). Maybe it's related to the fact that my battery discharges with the Pandora shutdown (not low power mode, shutdown) within 48hrs, so I can get the battery *really* flat

 

[double7]

Problem is, the Pandora needs to be started to charge on USB, even if I connect the USB cord to a wall adapter.

This should be same with AC adapter. For _any_ charging pandora must be started no matter whether over usb or ac because charging is done via software.

According to wiki: http://pandorawiki.o...manual#Charging

Note that if your battery shipped really discharged, you may have to way a few minutes before the Pandora power on.

there is an empty battery charging logic for very very empty batteries. As far as i remember ED said this logic is build in hardware, because it works before the system starts up. The boot design of the Pandora was meant to be unbrickable, thus the empty battery shouldn't lead to a brick. Charging via USB is software controlled thats why you need an A/C adaptor if the low battery power level prevents booting. Via AC there is a safe slow low current loading logic which will load the battery until the system is capable to boot and then the normal charging logic will take over.


The sad thing is that a forum member sold a pandora without it's normally included a/c adaptor.

 

[Nikojiro]

So I tested with a power jack to USB cable and a USB wall adapter, works fine but charging is veeery slow, as my adapter outputs 5V/500mA only, I'll have to find one that outputs 1A or 2A as ED suggested. I had a look for 2A ones and usually they are iPad chargers and (Apple-related oblige) costly.

 

[fanoush]

A Pandora with a FULLY discharged battery won't charge from USB. At least mine won't (24hrs and nothing).

there is an empty battery charging logic for very very empty batteries. As far as i remember ED said this logic is build in hardware, because it works before the system starts up. The boot design of the Pandora was meant to be unbrickable, thus the empty battery shouldn't lead to a brick. Charging via USB is software controlled thats why you need an A/C adaptor if the low battery power level prevents booting. Via AC there is a safe slow low current loading logic which will load the battery until the system is capable to boot and then the normal charging logic will take over.

OK, I stand corrected. I was using usb charging only for all the time I had a pandora (3/4 year) and this never happened to me so obviously I never managed to discharge the battery so much to trigger this state. For me even if Pandora shut itself down due to low battery I could always wake it up by just attaching usb cable. Then it booted and charging worked. Only sometimes the shutdown logic interfered and shut the device down again few seconds after login and showing the desktop. Not sure what triggered it and I think switching to low power mode just after login was a good workaround.

The sad thing is that a forum member sold a pandora without it's normally included a/c adaptor.

It is me who sold it to Nikojiro. The reason is simple, the adapter died the first day I opened pandora box. Just attached it to AC socket and it made strange noise and was dead before I could even plug it into pandora.

 

[Tam Toucan]

the adapter died the first day I opened pandora box. Just attached it to AC socket and it made strange noise and was dead before I could even plug it into pandora.

So did mine and I've heard of others. They really seem to be low quality.

 

[milkshake]

or you plugged it in the wrong way lol as it was only supposed to go into the secket a certain way either with the plastic block pointing right or left I cant remember

 

[Prometheus]

^ I'm pretty sure that that only applied to the old adapter type. They moved to one with a standard figure-of-eight connector for the plug after supplying the earlier ones with the Europlug-plus-adapter setup.