Phone charging slow? Mobile phone charging slow and how to make charging quicker.

We found charging an old Samsung S5 much slower than you'd expect. When I investigated the result was what I expected, but there were also some very unexpected results.

The first issue is the Samsung S5 was using an old mobile charger from an older mobile phone. Testing the charger showed it only charged at 0.53A, the reason the mobile phone was charging slowly. Plug a micro USB cable into another USB charger and the mobile charged significantly faster.

As this point I decided to check out a range of cables, chargers and powerbanks. This is where some of the results I obtained weren't quite what I'd expected. For example I have a nice thick micro USB cable and use it as my go to cable for charging. This cable did not provide the best result. Surprisingly, but when you think about it, not quite so surprising, the cable that delivered the highest amperage was a short cable provided with a powerbank.

To perform the tests I used the following USB charge tester. I have to say at around $5 on eBay it is a great way to check your cables and adaptors to find which cables and adaptors give you your best charging times.

In these tests I had four cables.
1. Short cable 25cm, which came with an Aldi powerbank.
2. Medium thinner cable 60cm.
3. Medium thin cable 65cm (W)
4. Long thicker cable 1m. My go to cable.

For charging I used the following four devices
1. An Aldi travel powerboard with 4 USB ports.
2. A Huawei power adaptor rated at 5V, 1A
3. A 10,000mAh powerbank purchased from Aldi. Cocoon. Two USB ports rated at 5V, 2A.
4. A 10,000mAh powerbank purchased from Miniso. Two USB ports rated at 5V, 2A

I used my Samsung S7 mobile phone as the device being tested. The mobile phone was less than half charged. Keep in mind a mobile that is near fully charged won't consume as much power at it reduces the charging rate as it nears being fully charged. Being half charged or less meant I should see the maximum amount of power being used.

Result of testing

Aldi Travel Powerboard
Cable 25cm - 1.69A
Cable 60cm - 0.63A (slightly thinner feeling cable)
Cable 65cm - 0.82A
Cable 1m - 1.21A

Huawei Adaptor
Cable 25cm -  0.92A
Cable 60cm - 0.63A
Cable 65cm - 0.72A
Cable 1m - 0.91A

Aldi Cocoon Powerbank
Cable 25cm - Port 1: 1.21A, Port 2: 1.60A
Cable 60cm - Port 1: 0.53A, Port 2: 0.63A
Cable 65cm - Port 1: 0.63A, Port 2: 0.72A
Cable 1m - Port 1: 0.24A, Port 2: 0.43A

Miniso Powerbank
Cable 25cm - Port 1: 1.70A, Port 2: 1.70A
Cable 60cm - Port 1: 0.73A, Port 2: 0.72A
Cable 65cm - Port 1: 0.92A, Port 2: 0.92A
Cable 1m - Port 1: 1.40A, Port 2: 1.40A

Conclusion

The main finding from these test is, to get the highest amperage and thus the shortest charging time, using the short cable with either the Miniso Powerbank or the Aldi travel powerboard, produced the best result.

Whilst the thicker 1m cable, which is my usual go to cable, often produced the second best result, however if combined with the Aldi Cocoon Powerbank, this would produce the worst result.

The amperage ranged from 0.24A on port 1 on the Aldi Cocoon Powerbank using the thick 1m cable to 1.70A on port 1 or port 2 on the Miniso Powerbank using the short 25cm cable.

In general using the shortest cable is best, but if you do use a longer cable a thicker cable is best. But if using a powerbank, the thicker longer cable doesn't guarantee a good result, as in this case it was the worst result with one of the powerbanks. There's really no way to know without some form of testing how the powerbanks will perform.

Overall, short of using the testing device I used above, using a short cable with a higher output rated amperage should produce the quickest charging times.

For those wondering why the length of cable matters, this is because voltage drops over the length of wire and drops with the square of the current. Increase the length of the cable and the voltage will drop. Increase the current being used to charge and the voltage will drop by the square of the current. The reason the old charger wasn't a problem with the old phone, is the old phone didn't need much current to charge. The Samsung S5 required more current so the charger no longer performed as desired. Hence the need for a charger that supplied more current, but couple the higher current with a shorter cable to give the best charging performance.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support.

Nearest train station site reorganised to show nearest first when reaching the site, then all if selected.

The Nearest Train Station web app is a series of pages to show the nearest train stations, tram stops and Vline train stations. However, when I first created this site the first map people saw was to show all train stations. Since the name of the site is Nearest Train Station, showing all train stations first didn't quite sit right.

With a bit of time available I restructured the site so the first page people now see is the five nearest train stations. If people wish to see all the train stations they can now select the all option in the menu, or the Train, Tram or Vline options in the menus. The nearest five train stations, tram stops, or Vline stations can be shown by selecting the nearest five once you've selected Train, Tram or Vline.

I hope this change makes it faster for people to find the nearest train station to their current location.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.NearestTrainStation.com.au
Nearest Train Station

Can't play 0xc00d36c4 The file isn't playable - Windows 10 Photos app

On opening a video created from a dashcam I received the message: "Can't play. This file isn't playable. That might be because the file type is unsupported, the file extension is incorrect, or the file is corrupt. 0xc00d36c4".

What was unusual is I'd already used over a hundred dashcam videos created in exactly the same way for my site Speed Camera Locations.

Whilst not ideal, I was able to get around the problem by opening the video using the VLC Media Player. I then created a new video from the VLC Media Player when I could then open and view in the Windows 10 Photos app. The next problem is even though I could view and edit the video, I wasn't able to save the edited video.

Since the end result I wanted was an edited video on YouTube that is trimmed at the start and end I decided to upload the saved video to YouTube and perform the editing on YouTube instead. It took a bit of time working out how to edit a video on YouTube but I got there and the problem was solved. The section of the video I wanted was now showing on YouTube.

I suspect there was a glitch in the video Windows 10 Photos couldn't handle, and whilst not ideal, using VLC Media Player and YouTube's editing features I was able to obtain the outcome desired.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au