Cell Phone Charger - Life Expectancy

My opinion is, it doesn't matter. There's not much to fail in modern chargers and the phone will probably be obsolete long before the charger dies.

I've had my current phone for 5 years and leave the charger plugged in all the time.

I plug my phone into the charger every night, with phone still on, and leave it on there until the next morning when I unplug and go.

Have mine plugged in for over 5 years. No problems.

oilcan13

I sincerely doubt that you will find any definitive test data to support the theory that a charger's life expectancy will change due to unplugging it.

The only life expectancy of an electronic device that you are likely to get from a manufacturer is the duration of the warranty. Some electronic devices will fail about a month after the warranty expires while others will pretty much last forever regardless of whether they are used once a month or ten times a day.

My basic rule is that with electronics, heat x time = failure. The unknown in this situation is the extra heat created by transformer inrush when you power it up. In other words yes, leaving it powered up, even unused, is still creating some very mild thermal stress due to low amounts of ciurrent over a long time, but how that compares to the thermal stress created from extremely high amounts of current for very short times is unknowable. Probably a wash. If anything, MAYBE leaving it plugged in will hurt more, but you have to put it in perspective: it might last only 22 years instead of 25. Are you going to notice the difference? No.

The point about the cell phone going obsolete first is 100% true. I have NEVER seen a "wall wart" die before the phone it is used for ceases to function in whatever changing network environment exists with a carrier, and whenever I change carriers they have ALWAYS told me that whatever phone I currently have will no longer be supported. I used to keep the wall warts, just in case, I fionally gave up because I had a dozen or so, just taking up space.

Unplugging and re-plugging greatly impacts the lifetime of the charging connector. That is the weak spot.

The care and feeding of the battery depends on the battery chemistry and how well the charger is designed. A Lithium charger HAS to be designed somewhat, otherwise the battery may explode while a NiCad or lead acid charger can be designed poorly and cheaply.

If all the chargers and TVs on standby were all switched off completely, we would need a great many less generating stations around the world.

Leaving it plugged in (or a TV on standby) opens up the possibility of it going wrong and starting a fire.

Check your insurance premium to see if you are still covered with full fire insurance in such cases. Fit smoke detectors.

The questions are:

1. Does the life expediency of a charger diminish if left plugged in after a battery / device is sufficiently charged?

Correctly answered already in many replies:

"No bad effect" in genral.

In my view it is not recommended in under developed countries and areas where power interuptions are frequent.

2. I have been told the powering up / down of the charger (unplugging and replugging) significantly reduces its life.

By plugging in and out may have different effects like:

a. It is an intruption and life of all the electrical components/ gadgets have life in limited number of operations [no matter in thousands operation].

It is my experience in PCs and other Gadgets that failure is mostly on switching off or on.

Any how most of the charger/ adopters failures I have come across are due to wires broken at the entry point of output plug which due to sharp bends given to by users.

In my opinion in would decrease their lifetime. That's because it is energizing and de-energigizing the transformer coils. In other words heating and cooling them.

Did you ever notice how incandesant light bulbs rarely seem to burn out when left on, it always seems to be when turning them on again.

As already posted, modern small chargers have no mains transformer as they are SMPSs. No inrush current.

Also often as high as 90% efficient....

Incandescent lamps fail for another reason. Their cold resistance is about 10-15x less than the hot resistance.

A cell phone USB charger would charge at 100 mA at 5V or 0.5 W. At 1 AMP 5 Watts and at iPad levels, a little over 2 amps. The flexing of the cables and the charging connector itself are the weak points.

You may be waiting a long time for that retailer's question, it has been my experience that every time I replace my device, it requires a different charger plug.