In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Jul 2015 12:40:47 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

"yyy378" wrote in message
...

On 25/07/2015 19:46, Robert Green wrote:
"yyy378" wrote in message

stuff snipped

The cell phone shows a battery with a green bar, a typical sign of
charging. However, after charging overnight, the battery still shows 0%
and when I unplug the phone, it quickly goes dead.

When I use the same charger on the same strip B, same spot, to charge
another phone, the percentage does go up, meaning it is actually
charging.

Sounds like a dead battery in phone B. The indicators are often based
on
voltage and batteries can show good voltage under very light loads (like
a
metering circuit) but not have any real power to deliver when put under
a
real load.

--
Bobby G.


I thought so too until I plugged the charger to strip A and it started
to charge the phone B which I had thought having a dead battery.

Did it fully charge that battery, i.e. did it stay on for long after it was
charged in strip A? Are you sure you're getting full power out of strip B?
Did you measure it with a voltmeter?

Plugging in an unpowered charger into a device like a cell phone can give
some squirrely results, at least based on what happens when the power fails
in my house when the phone, laptop and a bunch of other gear is being
charged.

One last question - are the plug blades on the charger polarized? I can't
remember what allegedly unpolarized device I had that would not work
correctly if it was plugged in upside-down (relatively speaking).

Other than that, I'm officially out of ideas. Sorry I couldn't help. I
bought a USB charge monitor (and lots of adapters) so I could monitor the
current flow into the device being charged. Helpful in situations like this
and only cost $6. To diagnose this problem correctly I'd use those along
with a DVM to measure the voltage at strip B. But remote diagnostics on a
text-based system where you can't even draw a sketch easily - yes, I give
up. (-:

I would recommend getting another power strip and seeing if it exhibits the
same characteristics as the one you have now.

Or if you're really dedicated to knowing the answer, and I gather that
is the point of the thread, reversing strips a and b can be done right
now.