I know there’s been an old thread or two about this but I didn’t see anything recent. Has the situation improved with charging L5 without the charger it comes with? (Just regular USB charging.) Is this something that will become safe/possible (or has) with software updates?
I got L5 a few days ago but I made the mistake of not ordering an extra charger at the same time to get free shipping.
And then I made the mistake of not getting a spare charger again when I ordered the Lapdock Kit a few days ago (without free shipping).
(Kind of annoyed at having to place another order and paying stupid shipping again for a spare charger.)
I use third party chargers and they work well with it. The specs on the Purism charger are 5V 3A output, so I imagine anything with that capacity should be fine. I’m no expert though, just speaking from my own experience.
I guess any PD compliant charger should work - and there are enough diagnostics available on the Librem 5 to see what, if anything, got negotiated - when things don’t seem to be working.
Reportedly you can charge through the lapdock that is in the Lapdock Kit. So that is at least one other option for you.
I bought a random car charger and that seemed to be happy working with the Librem 5.
Based on some old threads I was under the impression that we’ve been advised not to use anything other than the official L5 charger. If that’s incorrect and we’re free to use ‘normal’ USB chargers, hopefully someone from Purism will clarify that here! Is there anything to be worried about with a 3rd party charger?
Sounds good, maybe I’m just be overly cautious after waiting a few years.
Edit - Actually I missed the lapdock charging bit - good.
Well I guess if something other than the official charger is used and it doesn’t work and you contact support, they could ask you to use the official charger.
The one thing that I will say is that a vanilla USB port on a computer will not work - in the sense that it will provide current but it will not provide enough current to make reasonable headway charging a running Librem 5. So you either need a USB-C port on a computer that specifically says that it supports USB-C PD protocol or you need a dedicated charger that supports same.
Earlier this week I bought a dirt cheap (4 euro) 20 watt USB-c charger to stick in the lighter connector of my car.
Works fine, charges at a good rate, phone did not get very warm, and nothing got damaged.
It depends! Some ports will - if they support USB BC1.2 and are CDP ports, Librem 5 should have no troubles charging from those. Otherwise you’ll get the regular USB limit of 500mA, which can still charge the phone, but slowly and pretty much only when idle with screen off (or suspended, or completely turned off).
