mr_ian84 | # 1 | 2012-02-15, 15:21 | Report

Anybody can suggest a good micro usb car charger ?

jschan | # 2 | 2012-02-15, 17:46 | Report

I got 3 of the Motorola Vehicle Power Adapter micro-USB Rapid Rate Charger from Amazon when they were under $4/piece. They all worked fine with my n900 before it died, and they are all working fine with an n8 now. With anything that cheap though, you should be careful about overcharging as not all chargers are created equal in terms of maintaining the quality of your battery.

I don't know what it'll be yet, but but Amazon lightning deals also has something involving charging micro usb devices today at 3pm est (though it doesn't sound like a car charger):

lancewex | # 3 | 2012-02-15, 18:40 | Report

I Tried many USB chargers and none worked. The N900 is really annoying in this regard. Do yourself a favor and skip all the trying and just buy one of those Power inverters that allow use of the normal charger.

gazza_d | # 4 | 2012-02-15, 19:14 | Report

Nokia DC-6 for low rate, or DC-10 for fast rate charging.

seriously though, just about any blackberry or Nokia compatible charger should work. I have BB chargers and cables which work great. Especially the £1 usb-microusb BB charging cable I bought in a pound shop.

woody14619 | # 5 | 2012-02-15, 19:17 | Report

The real problem is that the N900 really wants 500mA to do any significant charging, preferably up to 1A if possible. Most car converters are cheep and only supply 200-300mA, which is what most devices want.

I did find that the "generic" Sprint micro USB car charger (available at most sprint stored) puts out ~750mA if pushed, but it will whine and get warm doing so. If you can find a charger with specs, make sure it can put out a sustained 5V@500mA and it should work. If you can find one that does up to 1A, even better.

You'd think with most cars providing 12V@5A-15A, converters would be able to hit 5V@1A without thinking twice. But the circuitry to regulate 12V to 5V is often low amperage in nature.

rfeese | # 6 | 2012-02-15, 19:18 | Report

This has been covered before.

http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_Accessories#Car_Chargers

Any standards-compatible microusb charger should work. The N900 follows the standards that require the data pins to be shorted in "dumb" chargers. I purchased a no-name brand car charger online and it works fine.

@jschan: The n900 hardware and software manages the battery charging, the charger just supplies constant power.

woody14619 | # 7 | 2012-02-15, 19:25 | Report

While some may make the N900 wake up and attempt to charge, if it doesn't put out the right amount of amperage (my experience is ~350mA) the N900 will eventually note that it's using more power than it's getting and stop attempting to charge. You'll see this issue when trying to charge from a computer that's off, but leaves minimal power on to it's USB ports (which is typically at it's start value of 200mA), if negotiation fails for some reason, or if something is actively using lots of juice (overclocked/trackerd, etc).

Mind you, if you're doing anything at all on the N900 while in the car (nav, streaming media, mp3 playback, etc) it's going to want more power, not less. So even a charger that works when the device is idle may fail to charge when you're using the device.

Roger-1 | # 8 | 2012-02-15, 19:27 | Report

I have a brodit active car holder and it works very well .
http://www.brodit.com/product.html?i...kia&model=N900

stlpaul | # 9 | 2012-02-15, 19:27 | Report

I use the same one, it works great, charges really fast, and supplies enough power that I can charge while using N900 for music/GPS/etc.

jschan | # 10 | 2012-02-16, 01:49 | Report

yeah, if you look at the comments in the Motorola Vehicle Rapid Charger from Amazon I mentioned earlier, the most helpful review notes "rated output is 4.75-5.25V and 950mA".

get it and like it.