Something as everyday and mundane as charging your cell phone should be the easiest task of the day. And yes, but there are important details that we must take into account to maximize the health of the battery, the cables and the charging port itself.
And no, I am not referring to the controversy over the health of the battery if we use fast charging more or less, but to the physical health of the elements which directly allow charging: the pins of the cable and the port of our phone . And that’s it, It’s likely that many of us charge our phones incorrectly because we don’t consider the “correct” command. to connect the elements.
The right way to recharge your mobile
Currently, cell phones have several security systems to protect both its integrity and maximum battery life. The effects of fast charging are still being studied (although some companies claim that after 1,600 cycles at 150W, 80% of battery life is retained), but on our cell phones we have generally of options to ensure efficient charging.
On certain models, such as Samsung for exampleyou can choose whether or not we want to enable fast charging, but there are also options such as the possibility of setting a charge limit so that it does not reach 100% or if we want that, with the cable plugged in, no charge and discharge cycle occurs. On the other hand, other phones do it automatically.
But hey, here we are not going to talk about software, but about hardware and our actions. A few months ago, my colleague Eva shared her experience with an iPhone Lightning cable that was behaving strangely. If I placed it in one orientation it didn’t load, but it did load if I rotated it
Eventually he discovered that one of the pins on the charging cable was corroded, and that’s something that also happened to me, although more seriously: both sides of my Lightning cable have corroded pins. Why does this happen?
The first thing I can tell you is that I have several USB ports on my nightstand, but since I don’t like cables in the house, I always have the cable in the drawer. When I take it out to charge my phone, I plug it into my phone first, then plug the cable into the USB port.. And it’s the right thing to do.
What happens is that Due to the pins with positive and negative voltages, when we insert the cable into the phone, a spark may appear
Yet, The correct order for this spark not to occur would be:
- Plug the charger into the mains.
- Connect the cable to the mobile.
- Connect the cable to the charger.
If the cable breaks, you can replace it with another one, but if it happens at the charging port, that’s a different story. So knowing that one way to minimize this current jump between the pins of the charging cable is to first connect the cable to the phone and later to the charger, this is something that needs to be taken into account.
Cover photo | Alejandro Alcolea for Xataka Android
By | TOGETHER
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