I'm not an electrical engineer by any means. I now have an array of USB chargers for various devices and am wondering if I can consolidate.
No 1 is a plug that takes a USB lead, labelled as 5VDC, 750ma
No 2 is also a plug that takes a USB lead, labelled as 5V, 1.8a
No 3 is a plug with a lead built in and a red/green light to indicate charging status. It's labelled 5.2V, 580ma
From my meagre knowledge, I can swap 1 and 2, but 1 will take longer to charge a given device. Is that right? How does 3 fit into this equation? Will it blow things up?
FWIW, 1 comes from a charger for 18650 batteries for my torch, 2 from my new tablet, 3 was left at work and I use it to charge a smartphone that someone gave me without a charger as the USB port on the phone seems dodgy and the light tells me when I've got the connection right and it's actually drawing power
They should all charge most devices. Some tablets are a bit fussy with lower current chargers. My old Samsung would just say no, my current LG pops a warning to say it is charging slowly. 5.2v should be fine, within tolerance of most cheap 5v chargers. 580mA is a little low for a smartphone and will take ages in a tablet
Yes, 5.2V should be ok to charge a 5V device. The current output is just the max it can delivery. As you say, if a device can take 1.8A, and the charger can only deliver 0.75A, it will just take longer.
I bought something called easyacc from a well known online retailer. It has 4 USB outputs. 2 amo x 2 and 1 amp and 0.5 i think. Long lead to the charger then you stick in your usb leads into it. I bought it after buying dodgy chargers claiming to be it originals but they ran hot and failed.