What is an electric charger (car, phone, etc.) doing to make it a “fast charger”?

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I understand that an electric supply can be a higher voltage (120v, or 240v, etc.) and within those voltages be a different Amperage (15A, 20A, 50A, etc.).

But none of this is “smart” or doing anything special besides supplying an amount of power or amperage that is available by the connection.

I also understand that a battery needs line voltage (AC current) to be changed to DC to work. So I get that there is a converter (rectifier?) to do this.

So where/what is the “smart” part?

Can a charger really make my phone or car charge faster than the available electrical supply?

Can a charger really make my phone or car charge faster than a different charger in the same electrical supply?

In: 7

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Modern portable device (laptop, phone, pad) chargers have a chip running code on them that lets the charger and device/phone talk to each other. When you connect the charger to the device, the device notices someone at the door and requests its capabilities, say:

– i can accept 30 Watts by way of 20 V @ 1.5 A
– or I can accept 10 Watts by way of 10 V @ 1 A
– or I can accept the standard “slow” charge rate of 2.5 W by way of 5 V @ 0.5 A

Then the charger says one of the following:
– cool I can give you 30 W at your requested voltage. you’re “fast charging”
– sucks, I can give 30 W but at a different voltage, so here is 2.5 W. you’re slow charging.
– cool I can only give 10 W at your requested voltage and you’re “medium” charging
– sucks, I can’t do any of that…here’s 2.5 W

I’m simplifying of course and I may have the sequence incorrectly

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