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How to fast charge your Samsung Galaxy phone using any USB charger

Simple solution, albeit not for the faint of heart
By
March 21, 2012
Best Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra chargers
Robert Triggs / Android Authority

If you’re like us, you probably check the battery status on your Samsung phone a dozen times a day, and breathe a sigh of relief when you see a green indicator instead of a red one. Consider it a quirk of living the modern life, where one depends on gadgets and gizmos that still run on, unfortunately, on non-nuclear batteries.

Things are even worse when your device comes with a proprietary charger. While you can still use some cheap, no-name charger, in many cases, devices are designed to only work optimally with original accessories. Thus, what usually takes 2-3 hours with a proprietary charger can easily extend to many hours of frustrating wait, if you, for some reason, don’t have the original accessory.

Let’s stop dwelling on the problem and start focusing on the solution, shall we? If you don’t want to invest in a pricey Samsung charger to use as a spare, a developer at XDA has come up with a workaround that requires just a little bit of DIY. Getting those generic USB wall chargers to work on Samsung Galaxy phones won’t be a problem anymore. A solution has been found to trick your device into accepting no-name chargers. Here’s what Trusselo, the developer behind the workaround, has to say, in his own words:

“The theory behind it is with samsung galaxy phones and “official chargers”: if the middle 2 data pins on the usb, while getting 5v to the outer 2 pins it tells the phone that it is an *official samsung* charger and enables full speed charging.”

Basically, when you use a non-Samsung charger, the phone will only get around 350mA of power instead of the full rate. By bending the two middle pins, this will trick your Samsung phone into believing that you’re using an official charger, thus, kicking into fast-charge mode, which happens at about 800 – 1000mA.

Do note that there are risks involved in following the procedure. One, you may end up with a damaged charger. Two, you’ll risk frying your Samsung device. Of course, it’s highly recommended to go to the original thread at XDA to get the full low down of the method, as well as some nice pictures. Remember that it’s better to be safe than sorry, so don’t do anything that you are not really comfortable with.

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