Charging new XT2 batteries.

[miguel]

According to the fuji users manual you can charge these batteries from the supplied mains charger or from a usb cable plugged into your computer and the camera body itself.

 

Can I use my Apple supplied Iphone ot Ipad charger with the same cable as recommended as above for charging from the computer?

 

Can anyone recommend a charger for in car use?

 

I always worry about car chargers and their effect on expensive fuji batteries.

 

Thanks

Michael

[Mike G]

I suspect the answer will be no. USB voltages may be different from the Apple charger, and delivered via different pins!

[Viramati]

 I would say almost certainly yes. I use various apple plugs, Macbook Pro, Sony, VW (in my car) and double power socket with USB charger ports to charge my phones, Sony cameras, Kindle,  iPad etc and interchange them all the time with no problem at all

[Tom H.]

I charge all my USB micro powered devices with whatever cable is around. Never had any issues.

[BobJ]

USB is an industry standard. The voltage and pinouts are standard.Therefore if your charger and cable really are USB it should work. However I believe that there is a special implementation of USB which allows 20v for charging instead of the normal 5v. I have never seen this but you never know. One thing that may confuse you is that the X-T2 has a connector known as micro-B superspeed. However a normal micro USB connector will plug into the lower section of the socket and work, so no need to buy a new cable. If you have the power booster grip a bonus is that it doubles as a batterycharger for one or two batteries.

[miguel]

I have been checking some specs, the xt2 charger output is 8.4v at 600ma.

 

The output from the ipads usb charger is 5v at 2.1 amps, I think I shall avoid using this device for charging.

 

Regards

Michael

[Aswald]

For in camera charging, yes. Any certified usb supply is ok.

[hari]

Mike, your suspicion is wrong. I wonder why you did post without knowing the answer. And Miguel, that refers to the external battery charger. It's specified to 8,4v as that's two times (as the X series battery consists of two cells) the 4,2 LiPo cell voltage (fully charged). That has *nothing* to do with the USB charing function of the X-T2.

 

LiPo batteries require special charging, hence the X-T2 has a built in charging circuit for the internal battery. That one is fed via USB power supply lines. The initial post is talking about iPhone/iPad "chargers". Which is technically not correct. They're just power supplies that provide power via the USB socket. As Bobj already mentioned, the voltage and the pinout is standardised on USB. All of these USB "chargers" from devices like Android phones/tablets work fine with the X-T2. Same for cigarette plug USB power adapters. They're just linear converters which drop the 12V from the car battery to 5V and provide it via the USB plug. No need to worry about the battery. It also does not matter how many amps the power supply can deliver. If it is too few, charing will just take longer. if the power supply can provide more (e.g. 2A is quite standard on nowadays USB "chargers"), the internal charging circuit of the X-T2 will just draw the current it needs. 

 

So long story short, yes, you can use the iPad/iPhone USB power adapter to charge the X-T2.

Edited October 4, 2016 by hari

[Mike G]

Hari, why did you not answer the query first then?

 

I was concerned that the charging current drawn by the Fuji battery would be too much for an Apple charger?

 

Which is why I said "I suspect".

[miguel]

Hi Hari,

 

Thanks for that excellent technical explanation.

 

I shall not worry about using my iphone charger now, one less charger to carry when on holidays

 

Michael

[tones]

The trick here is the cable itself. not where you plug it into. I've been charging my xt2 almost exclusively with a usb micro cable connected to my xbox (the same i use to connect the controller) and it seems to work fine and just as fast as it charges if i plug it into a computer, any usb-to-wall plug or a little usb battery i have. Using a usb 3 micro cable charges much faster. on the other hand, im sure taking the battery out of the camera and usig the charger is still much faster than thru the usb.

[sacherjj]

USB Charging is actually somewhat of a complex thing.  The issue is with the USB consortium not building power profiles until after they were being used.  And the desire of some hardware designers not wanting to require digital negotiation before power output.

 

Apple's USB interface uses a resistor voltage divider on the D+ and D- data lines to pull them to various voltages.  They have setups for a few currents as iPhones and iPads required different charging currents.  Most USB connections can provide up to 500 mA of current.  The max is around 2.1A of current for proprietary setups, but this is right on the edge of what microUSB plugs will handle without melting.  The USB standard tops out at 1.5A for dedicated power ports.

 

The more common standard was shorting D+ and D- together at the charger.  The device connects one side to ground and the other with a high resistance to 5V.  If the pulled high line is grounded, then they know it is connected to a power port and it charges.

 

If you plug a device into a computer or Xbox, you will get a 500 mA trickle charge.  You might also get less if the device doesn't recognize the power supply's digital line negotiation (although most provide 500mA regardless now, since too many devices don't negotiate due to cost of manufacture).  USB3 moved to 900 mA for the devices like computer's USB port.  However, if you plug USB3 into a USB2 port, you are limited to that 500 mA

 

USB ports are protected with heat based resettable fuses.  PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) fuses will increase resistance dramatically when past a certain current, to block flow and keep from melting power traces to the USB.  So if a device tries to get too much power from a computer port, the power will be cut off.  After the PTC cools, power flow will be possible again.

 

Until USB-C, USB was always 5V and there is no danger (other than slow or no charging) in using chargers with other devices.   USB-C now allows a much higher voltage to get more power into laptops and such (up to 100W instead of the USB 10W).   The worse case of using a different charger is that through incompatibility, you will be limited to a 500mA charge and take 3 times as long.  For certain devices (like iPads and larger tablets) they might refuse to charge altogether with a limited power supply.  This is due to issues with slow charging lithium and plating that occurs to lower capacity.

 

Photography is my part time job.  Designing hardened tablets for missionary work is my full-time job.

Edited October 9, 2016 by sacherjj