Charge your Nokia via USB with CA-100

[Rafe]

A new accessory has appeared on the Nokia site. The CA-100 allows you to charge your Nokia phone from a USB port. This will be a boon for frequent travellers who carry a laptop or have access to a computer and want to leave their main charger behind. Similar accessories are available on eBay, but are not always reliable.

Read on in the full article.

[mjlaris]

This is very cool and I'd love to buy it. The idea of having to carry one less charger when I travel is very attractive. However, even though Nokia have information about it on their web site, there seems to be no way to buy it yet. Please correct me if I'm wrong and direct me to where I can buy it.

Mark Laris

[md27514]

Interesting, I just realized I already have very similar connector that came with d-link travel router. I'm going to check the its polarity and voltage, whether it's the same as the phone requires.

[Rafe]

I haven't seen anywhere to buy this yet. Will try and remember to come back here if I do. I think the other Nokia charge via USB cable (the CA-70 is available from a few places. However that also has a pop port connector making it bigger than necessary. There comes a point when you might as well take the full charger since it generally charges about twice as fast.

[Ronald NL]

My experience with charging cell phones over a USB cable is that it takes ages.
While travelling this only makes sense if you leave your laptop on during the night.

The 3110C has a mini USB port, but its only functional for USB connectivity, not charging. Given the mains charger is 5V DC, it would make sense to use the same interface for USB charging. But they did not, so this cable looks to be the way I'll have to do it.....:(

[Unplugged]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The 3110C has a mini USB port, but its only functional for USB connectivity, not charging. Given the mains charger is 5V DC, it would make sense to use the same interface for USB charging. But they did not, so this cable looks to be the way I'll have to do it.....:(

Because that would be sensible and would mean you couldn't use a standard Nokia charger to charge a Nokia phone.

They could make it chargeable from either but that would involve cost in having a wasted charging port and some way to stop the user plugging in a charger and USB and overloading the charge.

[bartmanekul]

Is there anything to stop the idea of charging and data transfer from the same port (mini/micro USB) at the same time?

Otherwise, surely this would be a better solution? I remember a motorola had a plug where the USB data cable slotted in, in case you needed to charge via the mains.

[Unplugged]

There are plenty of phones which charge via the Micro / Mini USB.

The wattage on Nokias Chargers is slightly more than the average USB though I suspect that nokia wernt likng the idea of 1) Faster Recharge Time and 2) Non standard chargers.

There's no reason you cant hack the power out of a USB cable to run the charge and in fact that's what many docking stations do but the sync uses a LOT of power ( sync your phone without charge and it will be dead in an hour or two ) and a lot of USB chargers get highly pissy with charging while synced.

While Nokia cant allow either is beyond me but like I said that would involve extra electronics in stopping people plugging in a charger and sync with power.

Hey lads,

I bought this usb charger for my nokia 6120Classic before I travelled to Canada because I didn't mean to buy a new 110V charger. My laptop charger works with the 110V network so that was alright. However when I wanted to charge my phone it said "Not charging" and did nothing else. OK I said and switched off the phone and tried again. Kinda same thing happened. It switched on and off and on and so on but didn't charge. I mean what a fecking useless piece of shit. At the end of the day I had to buy a 110V charger in Canada.

[Micky!]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hey lads,

I bought this usb charger for my nokia 6120Classic before I travelled to Canada because I didn't mean to buy a new 110V charger. My laptop charger works with the 110V network so that was alright. However when I wanted to charge my phone it said "Not charging" and did nothing else. OK I said and switched off the phone and tried again. Kinda same thing happened. It switched on and off and on and so on but didn't charge. I mean what a fecking useless piece of shit. At the end of the day I had to buy a 110V charger in Canada.

Sounds like you may of purchased a fake CA-100 in that case.