I was traveling to my hometown last week. I saw a middle-aged man trying to operate his smartphone while charging it on the train. Obviously, he couldn’t. But why mobile hangs while charging in Train?
The answer might get slightly technical so I need your complete attention while reading this post.
After all, won’t it be nice when you will be flaunting your knowledge in front of your friends or people when you will be traveling next time? 😉
Importantly, P2 always makes Tech simple.
Reason Why Mobile Hangs While Charging in Train
If you are not aware then let me tell you that the power which we get at our home is different from what we get in the Indian Railways.
Power Supply at House = 220 Volts, 50 Hz
Power Supply in Trains = 110 Volts, 50 Hz
Mobile Chargers Mostly Operate on = 85-265 Volts, 50-60 Hz
Now you will ask why mobile hangs when the train is supplying sufficient power that we need?
Well, the answer is that a train’s power supply is very unstable.
Unlike your household power supply, there is a fluctuation in train’s power supply with an average amount of 5-10%
But how does this matter?
For that, you need to understand how touchscreens work!
How Capacitive Touchscreen Works?
The screen has an electrostatic field below it. It means that there is a plate full of positive and negative charges.
(Check the rectangular plate in the image with rectangular grids)
Also, your fingers have some positive and negative charges.
So, whenever you put your finger on the screen then the attraction process happens.
It means that the positive charges on your finger attract the negative charges on that plate and vice versa.
In this way, your touchscreen display comes to know about your touches and it informs the software on your mobile phone.
Now see the above diagram once again and read the explanation.
However, the power supply is fluctuating inside the train.
Due to the fluctuating power supply, there’s a change in charge at some points on the screen which the software detects as a touch.
This is also known as Ghost touch.
Doesn’t it make any difference in the mobile when different power supplies are given?
No. It doesn’t matter if a mobile charger gets 220V of supply or 110V of supply. In the end, it will still give your smartphone a very specific amount of charge.
In a mobile charger, there is a circuit that I really don’t want to attach here. I don’t want you to fall asleep like I used to do in my Engineering classes.
Merely understanding the concept is necessary here.
Understand that it doesn’t matter how much AC power supply your charger gets, it will still emit standard DC power supply for your mobile phone.
Your phone charger is really smart, duh!
This is the reason why we say that your charger is a 5 Watt charger or a 10 Watt charger.
What does this exactly mean?
For those who don’t know, I will tell you a simple equation in electronics.
Power (Watts) = Voltage (Volts) x Current (Ampere)
Hence, if you have a 10 Watt charger then it means 5 Volts and 2 Ampere charger.
Similarly, a fast charger of 40 Watts consists of 10 Volts and 4 Amperes. This is a super-fast charger that charges your smartphone in 49 minutes.
Interesting Fact
Vivo’s Super Flash Charger is currently the fastest charger in the world as per January 2020 with a power supply of 120W!
Super Flash Charger charges a 4000 mAh smartphone within a span of 13 minutes.
Prior to Vivo’s Super Flash Charger, Xiaomi’s 100W Super Charge Turbo technology was the faster charger.
Magnificent, isn’t it?
This was just a fact that I mentioned making sure that you didn’t sleep while reading this piece of content.
I hope you understood why your mobile behaves in a weird manner when you try to use it while charging on the train.
This was slightly a technical post that I tried my level best to explain in layman’s terms.
Let me know if you understood this explanation. I’d really appreciate it if you give feedback.
If you didn’t understand any part, let me know. I’ll try making some changes.
P2
[Don’t miss: How should we protect our phones from water damage?]
Really amazing
Thank you 🙂