What to do if the charger overheats. The smartphone heats up when charging: what to do? The principle of operation of the device adapter, the main cause of overheating

  • 02.07.2020

Often, novice drivers have a question about why the battery heats up when charging and how normal it is. When inside the car's battery case, or bubbling begins, and it begins to heat up, for beginners, this may suggest that something is wrong with the battery. Also, mobile phone owners are worried that the mobile phone "heats up a lot" when it is connected to the network. In fact, not always the heating of the battery during charging means its malfunction.

In order to dispel fears about the heating of car and phone batteries, consider some of the reasons why this can occur (by the way, it would be strange, on the contrary, if the batteries did not heat up at all during charging).

Reinsurance: we charge the car battery efficiently and correctly

You need to be aware that if the battery heats up during charging, this is a completely natural phenomenon, especially when the process comes to an end. To avoid overheating, it is important to monitor the battery at all stages of its charging - in much the same way as we watch a pot put on fire or any electrical appliance.

Toward the end of charging, do not leave the battery unattended for a long time. If it starts to heat up too much, it is better to reduce the current. Of course, the charging time may increase, but this is what will allow you to minimize possible risks.

Also, if your battery is old, it's important to keep in mind that older car batteries heat up faster and more often to avoid short circuits. Handle the old battery as carefully and carefully as possible.

Possible factory defect of a new battery

For novice drivers, it will not be superfluous to find out that the battery boiling process itself can tell you why it gets very hot and for what reasons its total voltage indicator does not meet the required norm.

For example, when one of the cans closes due to a factory defect, boiling as a normal and natural process occurs in all serviceable battery compartments . There is no boiling process in a closed jar. When measuring the electrolyte density, its value in the "dead" compartment does not exceed 1.10 g/cm 3 . A battery with such a defect will produce a voltage of about 10.5 volts, and not the prescribed 12-13 at rest. It is better not to try it, but to return it back to the store, or exchange it for a serviceable one.

Possible problems if the battery is very "heated" when charging

In the event that you removed the battery from the car and put it in, and later found that it heats up more than necessary, the reasons can be quite understandable and sometimes fixable:

  • The charger used is defective, or the currents are too high. Just try to reduce them.
  • Something happened inside the battery itself. This may be damage to the plates, shedding or short circuit. The ability to fix the problem depends on the level of damage to the plates.

Why does the phone battery get hot when charging?

Most often, the concern of phone owners about this has no serious grounds:

  • If the phone is charging, and there are no obvious signs of overheating, then charging can be safely continued: All mobile phones “heat up” when connected to the network .
  • If you call, play games or text while charging your phone , its temperature will naturally be an order of magnitude higher than normal. In this case, you can wait for the device to finish charging so as not to worry again.
  • If the body of your gadget is made of metal , it will heat up more, but there is no danger in this.
  • When connected to a smartphone Wi-Fi or any kind of mobile internet downloading data will affect the temperature level while charging.
  • The phone may get warm because of firmware errors (program code). In this case, try to find an updated firmware version on the Web.
  • Checking the heating level of the smartphone during charging can be done using a utility like CPU-Z.

Thus, any battery heats up when charging. In the case of a car battery, it is important to carry out timely control of the process in order to avoid possible irreversible damage to it. If the phone heats up, most often the user's concern is in vain. But if there is any doubt, the level of battery heating during charging can always be checked using special programs.

In any business, there are problems that many consider worthy of attention, but in fact are the norm. And there are moments that make you think that it's time to really pay attention to the problem that has arisen. So it is with a laptop. In principle, the laptop charger at the time of connecting it to the network, and the entire charging process should heat up, but up to a certain temperature. But if it heats up very much, and even does not cool down after turning it off, you should think about the reasons for such an action in order to eliminate them in time in order to avoid damage to the laptop itself.

The principle of operation of the device adapter, the main cause of overheating

The laptop power supply is nothing more than a separate important element of the device, which has great functional significance. Without the correct operation of this part of the entire structure, the operation of the entire device will not be ensured. Without receiving charging, the laptop battery will simply sit down, and the gadget itself will be useless. The adapter consists of a transformer and a rectifier, which convert the incoming alternating current from the 220 W mains voltage into the direct current needed to operate the laptop.

For each laptop model, the manufacturer has taken care of having its own charger with certain characteristics. Why is charging not working on an Asus laptop or any other? The main reason may be that the user uses a charger for his gadget that does not suit him according to his parameters, originally laid down by the manufacturer. It is the discrepancy between the native characteristics and the subsequently purchased adapter that is the main reason why the equipment overheats, or even worse, the device may simply fail.

Additional causes of charging overheating, situations that may arise

If you look at the back of the charger, there are certain numbers that the manufacturer indicates specifically in order to avoid problems with this element. For example: 20 V-4.5 A. The first digit is the allowable voltage, and the second is the current strength at which the charging process takes place. The adapter will heat up quite strongly in the first half hour of operation, maybe even up to 60 °, but the human hand tolerates this temperature well, so there is no need to worry too much about this. But if the temperature rises to 80 °, then you should be worried, then the device is not working correctly, and there may be a problem with the laptop. Perhaps the charger is not suitable, and it is worth changing it to a more powerful one, but the voltage must be acceptable by the manufacturer, but the second digit, the current strength, can be purchased more powerfully, for example: 5.5 A, which will reduce the load, and the problem can be fixed.

This can happen even at a party if the wrong charger is used, and it is better not to allow this. You should also pay attention to the following details:

  • the adapter is not being used properly: covered with a blanket, placed on a carpet, or exposed to direct sunlight.
  • What can be done to eliminate the overheating of the power supply

    The first method has already been described above. Change the power supply by buying a more powerful one, reducing the load on the device during the charging process in this way.

    What does a heavy load on a laptop mean? For example, during the charging process, you are working with programs that require a lot of resources: graphic or multimedia programs. Or banal games, especially modern, “heavy” ones. In these cases, the best way to reduce the load is to simply let the power supply work on its own, without additional effort, until the device is fully charged.

    To use the power supply correctly means to allow it to cool naturally. Remove all the reasons that interfere with this process: do not cover, remove from direct sunlight, put on a stand where good ventilation occurs.

    Of course, any charger in the process of its work, at least a little, but must necessarily warm up, here it is enough to recall the Joule-Lenz law, which indicates to us that if current flows through a conductor, then heating of this conductor will also be observed, unless of course we are talking about a real conductor, for example, about the same copper, or about a semiconductor from which diodes and transistors are made.

    Even the most ordinary wires, one way or another, always get a little warm from the current. But some chargers, it happens, are heated beyond measure. Let's try to figure out why this is happening.

    In the case of today's chargers, it's not just Joule heat that causes them to get hot or overheated. Any modern mains charger is first of all. And in a step-down pulse converter there is, firstly, a pulse transformer on a ferrite, or at least a ferrite choke.

    Iron transformers in chargers today, perhaps, you will not find. Secondly, in pulse converters there are field-effect transistors and, thirdly, rectifier diodes. Thus, there are as many as three sources of heating.

    ferrite core

    At the input of a typical charger is , which turns the mains alternating voltage into a constant one. This constant voltage of about 300-310 volts is applied with short pulses to a pulse transformer or to a choke (depending on the charger circuitry), which contains a ferrite core.

    So, pulses with a frequency of several tens of kilohertz are applied to this inductive element. The core of an inductive element is real, which means that when it is magnetized and demagnetized, eddy currents arise in it one way or another, not to mention saturation. So, during the operation of the charger, this ferrite core heats up.

    And if the developer of the charger tried to make it as compact as possible, then the core probably picked up and installed the smallest possible size for a given power, while overestimating the frequency of the converter. As a result, the core, of course, overheats.

    If, for example, the normal frequency for the core is 50 kHz, and all 250 kHz were applied to it. The size turned out to be smaller, but more heat will be released in return, because ferrites that can remagnetize at a high frequency without overheating cost more, and the size, again, will turn out to be larger, which is not beneficial for marketing.

    Transistor

    A transistor (field or bipolar) converts the rectified mains voltage into high-frequency pulses that are supplied. This is how most chargers work. In rare cases, there may be two transistors. If the charger is relatively powerful, then the transistor needs a radiator to remove heat, because the transistor heats up just according to the Joule-Lenz law.

    If the manufacturer of the power supply decided to save on the size of the radiator, or did not install it at all, or even installed cheap transistors with a high channel resistance, then the device, of course, will overheat. In non-original chargers, this happens all the time.

    Rectifier Diodes

    Rectifiers, which convert the reduced pulse voltage to a constant low voltage for charging, are at the output, and also heat up. They have a voltage drop of 0.2 (at best) to 0.5 volts, and with an output current of, say, 1 amp, some appreciable amount of heat will already be generated only on these diodes. And if the output current is greater, and if the voltage is less, this greatly affects the efficiency.

    Conclusion

    Thus, if you want your charger to heat up as little as possible and not overheat, buy original (from the manufacturer of the device being charged) chargers in which high-quality components are installed, where the developer did not try to save on everything, but focused on the quality of his product.

    Many mobile phone users are concerned that their charger gets hot and hot when charging their phone/iPhone or tablet.

    Of course, the question arises: should the charger of an android smartphone, iphone or tablet be heated.

    Typically, it takes power from a wall outlet (usually 220 volts) and converts it into a voltage that can be safely used with a mobile phone (about 5 volts).

    Only the conversion process is not 100% efficient, and always part of the food remains is converted into heat.

    This is what causes the charger to heat up. This can be seen primarily when using the fast charging feature.

    For the phone, it is better to avoid the fast charging function, as the generation of a higher voltage also causes the battery to heat up. I recently wrote about how to properly charge your phone so that the battery lasts you as long as possible.

    The fact that cell phone chargers get hot is a natural result of voltage conversion. So he shouldn't bother us. The fact that the device heats up when charging is absolutely normal applies to all chargers.

    The fact that the indicator does not flicker can cause concern - if after a few hours of charging the battery is not charged (stops in the same place as it was), it is worth trying to charge with another one.

    When does the charger get hot?

    Sometimes excessive heat can mean a serious electrical problem inside the phone or charger - for example, the diode bridge is heating up - especially if it's China.

    If it gets so hot you can't touch it, or if the plastic case starts to melt, unplug your phone as soon as possible.

    Does your phone charger charge fast?

    How do you rate the performance of the charger for your smartphone/iPhone or tablet?

    If you suspect that it is not charging your smartphone as it should, or you are just curious, there are ways to check it.

    This applies to owners of phones equipped with Android. The first step, to find out what is the reason, download the application from Google Play - Ampere.

    Once installed, run it and you can start testing right away. To do this, connect the charger to the device and to a power outlet or computer via USB (possibly to a powerbank).

    In any case, it must be connected to the place of power consumption. After about 10 seconds, you will see the measurement results on the left side of the smartphone screen.

    You'll also see two different text colors in the app - orange if the device is charging and blue when it's not. In the latter case, you will see how much power is currently being consumed.

    The app is very intuitive to use and you should be able to get the hang of it quickly, I'll just prompt you that moving the icon to the left will show you all the battery stats (negative numbers means the battery is running low).

    Keep in mind that if your phone is working really hard at the moment (you have a lot of apps open), you may see worse battery stats, but it won't be a battery fault.

    Therefore, it is best to disable all applications in addition to Ampere when testing.

    On each USB device adapter label, you will find the "output" and technical information next to it.

    Pay attention to the mA level and subtract from this number the amount that you see on the phone display in the Ampere app.

    For example, if you have 1000mA on your charger then you should expect that charging power minus what is currently loaded by our smartphone (depending on screen brightness) like 1000mA - 240mA = 760mA.

    Not to bore you, I'll be back in a week with tips on what to do if the USB adapter isn't charging your phone properly. Good luck.

    The fact that the laptop power supply heats up when charging should not confuse you - this is normal. Another question is if the power supply gets very hot and does not cool down after the battery is fully charged. Let's see why this happens and what to do so that the laptop does not suffer from overheating.

    Cause of heating

    The reason that the power supply of the laptop is very hot when charging is the underestimated power of the adapter. The more powerful the adapter, the less it heats up when charging. But with an increase in power, the size of the power supply will become larger, which negatively affects the perception of the laptop by users.

    Therefore, manufacturers select an adapter with the minimum allowable power in the kit for the laptop. You can charge a laptop, but do not be surprised that it gets very hot - the adapter has to work at maximum speed.

    The block turns alternating current 220V into direct current 15-24V. The transformation is carried out by a transformer, and the rectification is carried out by a diode bridge. Depending on the magnitude of the electrical load, both nodes heat up with varying degrees of intensity during operation.

    Usually, the maximum heating occurs in the first 20-30 minutes of a laptop with a connected power supply. This is due to the fact that the adapter operates under maximum load, simultaneously charging the battery and maintaining the computer. As a result, the power supply gets very hot.

    But if the adapter remains hot after charging, then this is a reason to pay attention to its condition. Why is this happening? In addition to low power, there may be several more reasons why the power supply is very hot:

  • There is no natural cooling (the power supply is covered with a cloth, lying on a carpet, in direct sunlight).
  • You should also worry about the condition of the laptop and adapter if, when charging, the power supply heats up so that it cannot be held without discomfort. Human skin can withstand temperatures of 60-70 degrees, but if the adapter is heated to 80 degrees, then you will not be able to pick it up.

    How to lower adapter temperature?

    Now you know why the laptop power supply gets very hot. It remains to understand how to rid the laptop of this shortcoming. You can try the following methods:

    • Place the power supply in a place where it can cool naturally. As noted above, the adapter should not be covered with a blanket or any fabric. It is also contraindicated for him to lie on the carpet and get direct sunlight.
    • Try not to load the laptop heavily when charging. Wait until the battery is charged, and only then run "heavy" games and resource-demanding programs.

    If neither natural cooling nor a temporary cessation of games reduces the temperature of the power supply, then you will have to buy new equipment with more power. But in order for the laptop not to burn out, it is necessary to choose the right power supply, taking into account the voltage. Examine the markings on the laptop case. The parameters of the charger should be indicated there: for example, 19V-2.4A.

    Then look at the current sieve and voltage on the old power supply, which is getting very hot. The voltage on it should match, and the current strength may be slightly more.

    To get rid of overheating, you should buy an adapter with the same voltage (19V) and higher current - for example, 4.7A instead of 2.7A. In this case, the power supply will maintain a low temperature during charging, because the load on the nodes will decrease.

    Laptop temperature monitoring

    You need to monitor not only the state of the adapter, but also the temperature of all laptop components. It is difficult to determine how they heat up by touch, so special utilities are used for monitoring: Speccy, CPU-Z, etc. In addition to the power supply, it is necessary to periodically check the temperature:

    • Storage devices, especially if the laptop has an HDD rather than a solid state drive (SSD).
    • graphics adapter. The video card heats up especially strongly during games and resource-intensive applications: various graphic editors, multimedia programs.
    • system board. The temperature of the motherboard largely determines how other components will heat up.
    • Central processor. If the CPU overheats, then system performance drops dramatically.

    You can see the maximum allowable temperature of the equipment in its specification, but if you use the Speccy utility, when overheating, the indicator next to the device will turn red.

    Another clear sign of excessive temperature rise is the freezing and periodic unauthorized shutdown of the laptop. If you encounter such a problem, it is recommended to disassemble the laptop, clean the cooling system and case from dust, and replace the thermal paste. In some cases, to maintain a normal temperature, you have to install additional coolers built into the cooling pad. Without proper cooling, components can quickly fail, and their replacement will require serious financial costs.

    In this sense, PSU heating is not such a serious problem, because in most cases, users experience unnecessary worry about temperature, when in fact the adapter is fully functional.