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USB help, I'm not a nerd. I don't think.


bizzard

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I need one of the those plug into the mains USB chargers to charge my 3 Wi-Fi dongle's battery as my old laptops  double USB port is now faulty. It has three but I don't want to use the third one because I use it for downloadung from my camera and what not. The laptop is working fine wirelessly from the dongle but of course its not charging it at the same time and I have to use my windows 10 notebook to charge it.  The question is are all the plug in USB chargers the same and won't bugger up or blow up my 3 wi-fi dongle.  :)

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Do you have a mains land line on your boat?
We have fitted these and are most useful when hooked up. Not had any issues with any attachment being "Buggered up."

 

We also use the USB sockets from the inverter when cruising.

 

822U3 - 13A Switched Double Socket with USB Charging Ports

 

Edited by Ray T
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2 minutes ago, Ray T said:

Do you have a mains land line on your boat?
We have fitted these and are most useful when hooked up. Not had any issues with any attachment being "Buggered up."

 

We also use the USB sockets from the inverter when cruising.

 

822U3 - 13A Switched Double Socket with USB Charging Ports

 

Thaks Ray.  On mains while in the yard here, and have a small inverter when out, but I don't tend to bother much with laptops when out sailing about.

7 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

I charge mine from any of my fone chargers for various fones so I reckon they are similar.

Not on my old Nokia £12 phone from Tesco's they're not. 

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There are now a huge variety of USB chargers able to deliver different amounts of current. If you get one that is not powerful enough then stuff just won't charge but its very very unlikely that you will damage anything.

A few companies, especially Apple and other phone people, do a sort of cheat with the USB standard so that their stuff will only charge from their own chargers or chargers that replicate the cheat.

 

In the near future the USB C "Power Delivery" standard is going to become very common to allow very fast charging of laptops etc but thats maybe a step too far for you :).  Maybe get a charger that says it can deliver at least 2.1 amps on at least one of its sockets and that should do you for the next couple of years.

 

The Three WiFi appears to charge of just about anything that a USB plug will fit into.

 

.................Dave

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26 minutes ago, bizzard said:

I need one of the those plug into the mains USB chargers to charge my 3 Wi-Fi dongle's battery as my old laptops  double USB port is now faulty. It has three but I don't want to use the third one because I use it for downloadung from my camera and what not. The laptop is working fine wirelessly from the dongle but of course its not charging it at the same time and I have to use my windows 10 notebook to charge it.  The question is are all the plug in USB chargers the same and won't bugger up or blow up my 3 wi-fi dongle.  :)

No they are not all the same.  In simple terms, if you go to Argos, Tesco, Currys etc and get a branded charger it will cost you upwards of £10 and should be fine.  If you go on ebay (or to a car boot) and buy an unbranded charger for about £1.50, it's likely to be junk and may well damage your gear.

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The only thing that varies is the current the charger delivers and USB is smart enough to tone it down if the charger can deliver more than the device needs. 

 

That said, Bizzard, home built ones might not be a good idea.... go to the shop rather than using a tin can, spaghetti and gravy......

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4 minutes ago, dmr said:

There are now a huge variety of USB chargers able to deliver different amounts of current. If you get one that is not powerful enough then stuff just won't charge but its very very unlikely that you will damage anything.

A few companies, especially Apple and other phone people, do a sort of cheat with the USB standard so that their stuff will only charge from their own chargers or chargers that replicate the cheat.

 

In the near future the USB C "Power Delivery" standard is going to become very common to allow very fast charging of laptops etc but thats maybe a step too far for you :).  Maybe get a charger that says it can deliver at least 2.1 amps on at least one of its sockets and that should do you for the next couple of years.

 

The Three WiFi appears to charge of just about anything that a USB plug will fit into.

 

.................Dave

Thanks. I've seen em all in the shops. I go to ''Range'' a lot.

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Thanks folks.  This old laptop is a Toshiba on Vista and is is not supported anynore by microsoft or the Firefox browser but it still works fine. I do regular maintenance and it works twice as fast as the windows 10 thing.  Its tough as old boots.  I did think of dismantling it and soldering in a new USB port, its a twin one and both are now faulty and keep cutting out causing black screen start up trouble. I then have to go wireless. I ts a brilliant old machine with mic sockets, web-cam, volume control, the lot.

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6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

You can get USB splitters so that you can use your one working USB socket for more than one USB accessory at once.

Ok, thanks.  Screwfix are nearby andhave what I want it says 2.1 amp, is that ok. 

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1 hour ago, dmr said:

A few companies, especially Apple and other phone people, do a sort of cheat with the USB standard so that their stuff will only charge from their own chargers...

That’s certainly untrue for Apple. I charge two phones and two tablets from any USB source that’s available.
 

Any piece of kit that’s designed to charge from USB will charge from any USB source assuming that it has sufficient power for the item in question. USB is a standard. 
 

You may be thinking of Dell 12V chargers which cannot be replaced with any old 12V source. 

8 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Ok, thanks.  Screwfix are nearby andhave what I want it says 2.1 amp, is that ok. 

Yep, absolutely. :)

47 minutes ago, bizzard said:

 I did think of dismantling it and soldering in a new USB port

Probably a worthwhile exercise. 

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48 minutes ago, bizzard said:

This old laptop is a Toshiba on Vista and is is not supported anynore by microsoft or the Firefox browser but it still works fine.

I have two very expensive workstations that run on Win7 and MS keeps telling me that it’ll be unsupported next year. That’s just tough on them - I have software and hardware tied to both that I use daily so I ain’t upgrading. 

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2 minutes ago, WotEver said:

That’s certainly untrue for Apple. I charge two phones and two tablets from any USB source that’s available.
 

Any piece of kit that’s designed to charge from USB will charge from any USB source assuming that it has sufficient power for the item in question. USB is a standard. 
 

You may be thinking of Dell 12V chargers which cannot be replaced with any old 12V source. 

Yep, absolutely. :)

Probably a worthwhile exercise. 

Thanks Wotever, I'll nip up there and get it. :) I have my oxy-acetylene gear out to remove someones rudder bearing I could have soldered a new port in at the same time.

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2 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I have two very expensive workstations that run on Win7 and MS keeps telling me that it’ll be unsupported next year. That’s just tough on them - I have software and hardware tied to both that I use daily so I ain’t upgrading. 

 

I was running a Windows XP system for donkey's years after MS ended support for that. I wouldn't worry so long as my antivirus software (Avast!) was up to date.

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Just now, Machpoint005 said:

 

I was running a Windows XP system for donkey's years after MS ended support for that. I wouldn't worry so long as my antivirus software (Avast!) was up to date.

Yup. Another Avast user here. 

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3 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I have two very expensive workstations that run on Win7 and MS keeps telling me that it’ll be unsupported next year. That’s just tough on them - I have software and hardware tied to both that I use daily so I ain’t upgrading. 

I don't blame you. I keep mine running doing regular cache removal, AVG maintenance and Malwarebites free and all works fine.

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25 minutes ago, WotEver said:

That’s certainly untrue for Apple. I charge two phones and two tablets from any USB source that’s available.
 

Any piece of kit that’s designed to charge from USB will charge from any USB source assuming that it has sufficient power for the item in question. USB is a standard. 
 

You may be thinking of Dell 12V chargers which cannot be replaced with any old 12V source. 

Yep, absolutely. :)

Probably a worthwhile exercise. 

 

We had issues getting some things to charge from a car type USB adapter that plugs into a car 12volt socket. I think both Apple and Samsung phones were troublesome, but it was a while ago. I noted that some of these USB things are sold as "Apple Compatible" and/or "Samsung Compatible".  A bit of Googling suggests this:

 

The scumbags put a resistor divider rather than just a pull up resistor on the data lines in their own USB chargers. When the phone is plugged in and before it tries any USB handshake stuff it looks at the DC voltage on the USB data lines to decide if its a "suitable" charger and then decides if it will refuse to charge or charge really slowly etc. Its possible that Apple have removed this stuff in more recent phones or software updates.

 

It all gets much more complicated with USB C as at least some USB cables have a chip in them, so before charging (especially with PD) I suspect devices can talk to both the charger and the cable to decide what sort of charging to do.

 

...............Dave

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3 hours ago, Ray T said:

Do you have a mains land line on your boat?
We have fitted these and are most useful when hooked up. Not had any issues with any attachment being "Buggered up."

 

We also use the USB sockets from the inverter when cruising.

 

822U3 - 13A Switched Double Socket with USB Charging Ports

 

I've mentioned this before, but I fitted one of those and found that, even with nothing plugged in to either 240v or USB, the USB element kept my Victron inverter from going into "eco" mode which it does automatically if there's no load. I removed them and either charge from USB sockets I've fitted in the 12v circuit or use a plug in charger as required. The inverter modes now work as expected. Just a point to consider for anyone with a clever inverter. :)

 

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5 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

I was running a Windows XP system for donkey's years after MS ended support for that. I wouldn't worry so long as my antivirus software (Avast!) was up to date.

I still am.

 

Had to change browser to Firefox , but otherwise no problems.

Edited by Iain_S
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1 hour ago, Iain_S said:

I still am.

 

Had to change browser to Firefox , but otherwise no problems.

Same here. But support for Firefox on XP has ended, so we are both flying by the seat of our pants now.

 

I was vaguely wondering if I could upgrade my XP machine to Windows 7 (although that hasn't long to go either). Not sure where I could get a free/cheap copy of W7 now.

 

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17 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Same here. But support for Firefox on XP has ended, so we are both flying by the seat of our pants now.

 

I was vaguely wondering if I could upgrade my XP machine to Windows 7 (although that hasn't long to go either). Not sure where I could get a free/cheap copy of W7 now.

 

W8 is a lot better and doesn't need loadsa' memory if you can find a copy / licence key (wndows 8.1 is better)

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