09-05-2020, 11:45 AM
No need to feel stupid for asking about USB charging - it's a jungle of different standards! Wikipedia has some good information for the curious mind. As long as a USB charger is used though (any kind) I don't think it's possible to destroy anything - but it might be very slow to charge!
If I understand the AXP803 datasheet correctly, the Pinephone supports the USB Battery Charging (BC) 1.2 specification. I wonder how this would work with a USB Power Delivery (PD) 2.0/3.0 charger? Are those chargers smart enough to emulate the older BC standard with devices (like the Pinephone?) that doesn't support USB PD?
On Mobian (and maybe other distros?) there is a "Powersupply" app which displays detailed USB and battery info. At the moment all I have is an old 1 A USB charger (which probably doesn't even support USB BC), and with this the app shows that the phone limits charging to the old USB standard's 0.5 A (i.e. 2.5 W). It's SLOW: the phone draws >2 W (or 0.4 A) when idle with the screen on, so there's almost no power left for charging the battery.
I have an 18 W PD3.0 USB-C charger on order. It will be interesting to see what the Pinephone does when hooked up to that charger.
If I understand the AXP803 datasheet correctly, the Pinephone supports the USB Battery Charging (BC) 1.2 specification. I wonder how this would work with a USB Power Delivery (PD) 2.0/3.0 charger? Are those chargers smart enough to emulate the older BC standard with devices (like the Pinephone?) that doesn't support USB PD?
On Mobian (and maybe other distros?) there is a "Powersupply" app which displays detailed USB and battery info. At the moment all I have is an old 1 A USB charger (which probably doesn't even support USB BC), and with this the app shows that the phone limits charging to the old USB standard's 0.5 A (i.e. 2.5 W). It's SLOW: the phone draws >2 W (or 0.4 A) when idle with the screen on, so there's almost no power left for charging the battery.
I have an 18 W PD3.0 USB-C charger on order. It will be interesting to see what the Pinephone does when hooked up to that charger.