Joggler as a USB Charger ?

General discussion relating to the O2 Joggler, from the default O2 setup, to alternative operating systems and applications.
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hawsey
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Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by hawsey »

I just by chance decided to try charge my Nook HD tablet via the Jogglers USB side port and it worked great charging the tablet up quite quickly .
It gave me an idea to do this all the time as my kitchen joggler is on always ; anyone know what the current output is on the USB port at the side ? It might even do a phone as well :-)
Any thoughts if this is a good or bad idea ?
I had been thinking of one of those multi USB charger blocks to reduce clutter but this could work and save some pennies .. ..
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cbredfred
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by cbredfred »

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hawsey
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by hawsey »

Ahaa cheers cbredfred I forgot all about this good work you did on the above thread , I even posted on it !! I did look on the wiki but didn't find much :
I will post back on your thread now as that is where this belongs .
Thanks .
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Juggler
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by Juggler »

I've been looking at one of these, as it would make something quite important quite straight-forward, and for the price, could be left in-situ :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-Volt ... 0.html?s=p
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Digital- ... 08725.html

I thought about breaking a USB extender, but started to get concerned about the prospect of interfering with the data lines, causing errors, losses etc, and also to measure the current (Amps), it would be necessary to have your meter in the circuit. So when you want to stop testing, it would be necessary to break the circuit and power going to the USB device. But I may be wrong.

Just seen that there is a sale on so for $2.55, it is quite reasonable. Just wondering how much current this device draws and more importantly, if it affects the data lines much/at all.

Actually, it would be good to have one between the Joggler and the hub and then have another so you can test an individual device attached to the hub. Of course this is useful where just the Joggler is providing the power. If you have a powered hub, then there may be less issues and concern, but more power usage.
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hawsey
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by hawsey »

They look v cool Juggler :-) for my usb charging needs i got a one of these for £ 9.99 tho i see its gone up a bit since I got mine
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00EKDV ... 1_TE_dp_i1
uploadfromtaptalk1405713650991.jpg
uploadfromtaptalk1405713650991.jpg (3.46 KiB) Viewed 7316 times

it seems to work well
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dwl99
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by dwl99 »

I got one of these too - it's good but a little noisy. I posted a review on Amazon and the seller offered to send a replacement. So now I have two ☺
Juggler
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by Juggler »

I went for some of these in the end :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Hot- ... 71989.html

now on sale for $1.74 - so just over £1 at the moment, delivered to the UK.

Crossing my fingers that they have a pass-through on the data lines, but in the description, it does say for testing the power usage of drives etc, so it would be pointless to just provide power to a drive and nothing else and it wouldn't really give a true indication of power usage. Just my negative imagination going wild, I hope. Will report back when I receive them as I think for Joggler people who want to see what they can get out of their Jogglers this sort of thing could be very useful. It certainly will be for me as I would like to connect several low power usage devices to a hub and I will like to know what sort of draw they are making individually and cumulatively.

There is actually some quite fancy ones too :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mini-OLE ... 08107.html

Don't know if they are the cheapest or what they are like. But for that price, you could probably get a nice digital multimeter and some sort of USB breakout kit, that would allow for current and voltage measurement. But of course it wouldn't be as nice for the purpose.
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hawsey
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by hawsey »

Those look cool @Juggler I might even get some myself :-) let us know what they are like .
@ dwl99 i was sure I already replied to you on here but somehow my post went awol ! , I put my ear up to the charger and can hear a very slight hum on mine too , you are lucky with two now :-)
If I plug my nook in to either port marked ipad it will not charge for some reason can you try yours out . The other ports work fine .Maybe mine is faulty or you can't use those ports unless it is Apple but I can't think why not ....
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dwl99
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by dwl99 »

@hawsey - all my ports work OK with non-apple devices. If you post a negative review on amazon they will contact you!
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hawsey
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by hawsey »

Cheers dave I think mine is faulty then :-( will report back
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Juggler
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by Juggler »

The devices I bought came through a few days ago and I have been using them quite a bit since then. This is the vendor and product :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Hot- ... 71989.html

So far I have found them to be incredible. They are extremely useful and enable you to discover what is really going on. Some examples are :

* How much current can be pulled out of a laptopn USB port. I had no idea that my laptop could provide nearly 1 Amp to charge a tablet. Nor did I know my tablet would pull that amount of current.
* How much current can be pulled from USB chargers. Chargers will state what they are rated at, but with these you can see what is actually going on, and how much of a voltage drop there is for devices trying to pull higher currents.
* How much current a USB hub only (without any devices attached) pulls.
* With the Joggler, how much current drawn can fluctuate for devices, I thought, would pull pretty much the same current most of the time. I don't know why this happens. Also, when adding additional USB devices, why the current drawn increases initially, then returns to the amount prior to being added. I don't understand this yet, but have some theories.
* How much current, various devices actually pull. I'm please to see that some webcams, I have tried, only draw 0.07A.
* When your device is lying to you about being fully charged. When a device is fully charged it should only draw a negligible current, if any. A motorola phone I use, states it is fully charged, but is still drawing 0.11A. So, I leave it till the current drawn drops to a negligible amount, and then I know it is really fully charged. I think that the charge status may be determined by the voltage of the battery or some other point.

So overall, to me now, this device is invaluable, and I have only just started to use it. However, I think that the device may draw more than a negligible amount of current to operate. When I put 2 devices together, the first device reported that the current drawn was 0.04A and the second reported 0.00A. So now I'm in the situation that I need to test the device and consequently need to have some sort of a USB breakout cable and a multimeter. This would be useful to do, as I'd like to know. But I still think that these devices are extremely useful in many ways. I need to test how much, if any, they affect data throughput. Gut feeling, is not that much, as they look well made. And so far, I have not noticed any detrimental side-effects of using them with devices that data would be passing through them - flash drives, sound cards etc.

I have yet to use them for the purpose I discussed here. But I am confident, that to see how much current is being drawn by USB devices attached to a Joggler, they will perform admirably. In addition, they fit quite nicely on the side of the Joggler.

The price of them is now $1.70 from the vendor above, and if you search aliexpress, there is another vendor offering them for $1.69, postage included. Peanuts for an extremely useful device.
jim_lewis1
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Re: Joggler as a USB Charger ?

Post by jim_lewis1 »

Cool, on eay for similar money:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161303474426
One on its way to me now.
Can see for eg RPi to know whether the drop is too large with connected devices for given power supply this could be useful
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