I bought this from Conrad for 8,99€ - the still current price - last week. It is certainly not of great build quality, but in my tests it did the job so far
What I have tested:
NiMH 1.2V rechargable AA cells
the Fairbuds XL LiIon battery pack
The AA cells were charged to 100%, the Fairbuds XL battery to about 80%.
The charger uses a Micro-USB connector for power. One thing I noticed was the the charger certainly got pretty warm when charging the AA cells, but not as much with the LiIon pack. So I guess it serves as a working backup, but the build quality does not suggest regular use to me.
Hello!
I have a rain problem with my FP3+ (already took it apart and cleaned and dried it) and the primary suspect, the bottom module, is out of stock.
The universal chargers above seemed a bit hard to come by at such short notice, so I went to a few mobile repair shops and I found a 10Euro universal charger “HE-316 cargador universal” from “Guson Aptor Electro Store S.L.” in Madrid. It is non-existent on the internet, so I´ll attach pictures.
With this charger I got about 70% charge in around 8h.
So until I can get my hands on a new bottom module or it spontaneously recovers, I have to deal with this setup and a second battery I guess.
Important the contacts of the charger are too wide to fit into the slits of the FP3 battery, so I had to twist them with pliers. A little piece broke off of the contact because its so flimsy, but it still works fine for me.
The charger is properly connected to the battery if you can see the percentage indicator constantly changing while pluged into the socket. If it´s not moving, it´s not charging!
If you connect the battery to the charger while it is not plugged in, the blue LED will turn on, so you know you have a good connection, but the indicator (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) is probably not showing the actual state of the battery. I didn´t test this but it doesn´t seem that important to me.
I just left this here so that, if you are desperate and in search of a universal charger, you have another makeshift option that might be available in a mobile shop nearby as a last resort.
Hi! Since we all love more-fairtrade-made tec, it be amazing to find a nice external charger for the FP4 battery, so a kind of powerbank is also possible with a fairtrade battery! I am looking for one with:
fast charging, just like inside a FP4.
As small as possible to make it as portable as possible
with a usbc cable to actually charge it.
How can we find such a thing?
Or, a power bank case without battery, that fits a FP4 battery?
I have slightly edited the first post to include four quick links to feedback here in this topic as well as the regrettable update that the Fairphone 5 battery is too wide to fit into the Ansmann Powerline Vario X (it does not fit into the Dörr Travel Charger TC-2 either).
I have actually thought about cutting out a little bit of the “holder” side of the plastic case to make the FP5 battery fit. As far as I remember it already almost fits. The missing space is maybe 3mm or so. Will see when the time comes…
My memory is a bit more pessimistic there (mde and I tried the FP5 battery in the Ansmann and the Dörr during monday night’s Aachen meetup), I think it was a bigger “space deficit”. Perhaps if the springs were out of the device, but I guess we both wouldn’t want to go that far.
So I just measured and indeed: I was a little too optimistic. It will likely not be possible without seriously messing with the charger casing.
Details: The battery width is 60.45mm according to the shop information, but the TC-2 has a maximum width of 52mm if I really go to the limit. So this is a 8mm gap at best.
I think the Vario X opens a little further, though (but certainly not far enough).
Just in case anyone wonders …
The Bilora 593-L (with LCD display) can fit about 54 mm width, so this wouldn’t suffice either, it seems.
And I guess it’s the same for the Bilora 593-A (without LCD display), which I don’t have, but which should be identical apart from the display.
Neither of those seem to be available to buy currently, anyway.
Recently bought Ansmann Powerline Vario (without the X) for £16 on that horror shop Amazon (next day delivery meaning my Fairphone is back in use asap despite a broken bottom module and no bottom module spares available, I swallowed my pride and gave Mr Bezos’ destruction machine some money ). It works as good folk above say to charge to about 80% which is enough to get by. It feels cheap, it is cheap, but it has my otherwise dead FP3+ back in use. I could not get a reliable connection on a FP3 battery unless it was mounted vertically, YMMV.
Hello, as many FF3 users I’m facing the same issue. So thank you all for the info on the external chargers. Very useful! Still, the reason why I bought the FF3 was because of the fact that the charging port of my Samsung wore out, there was no way to get it fixed and now I’m facing the same problem again. The bottom part is currently not available. I’ll get notified when available. Or I hope I will. But does anyone have more and please reliable information on if the bottom part is still going to be produced. And when? Or shall I proceede with buying an external charger?
Yes, this is really frustrating.
The shop currently says: “Coming soon - We hope to have this product in stock by the end of September.”
But in contrast to your Samsung, there should be a spare part available again - hopefully soon.
If you need an external charger depends on your exact circumstances.
The official communication underlines it should be available soon. Unfortunately the deadlines change, August changed into the mid September, now we are looking at the end of September.
People who don’t fear an electrical short can use alligator clips and metal plates to connect a charger like the Ansmann Powerline Vario X with the FP5 battery.
As a last resort workaround it´s also possible to cut and bend a paper clip to connect the contacts. But overdoing it may break some of the plastics on the battery, as I recently discovered. Yay…
Cutting up an old USB cable is also an option, but you have to be careful about the very fine wires that may stray and touch neighbouring contacts or other things.
As fairphones and their spare parts are all rather expensive, I think it´s best not to skimp on chargers and wires. Buying real wires and alligator clips is probably best.
up to what battery size is fitting into the C2+? (I might get one).
why do you think the wattgeizer is a successor and what is improved?
(seems only to support up to 55mm)
My USB-C port broke a few weeks agao and I can’t charge my phone anymore. Although the very good service from Fairphone said they will send me one back, UPS is having super long delay so needed to find a way and I have a few of these adafruit LiPo charger: Adafruit Micro Lipo - USB LiIon/LiPoly charger [v2] : ID 1304 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits that I use to charge some small LiPo batteries.
It works very well, it fails at charging it at more than 85% but that more than enough while waiting for the proper. It’s just a bit of a tricky set up and probably to handle with care… can’t take a good photo as I have to take the battery out for charging, did a bad quality one with my laptop camera:
(mde and I tried the FP5 battery in the Ansmann and the Dörr during 
). It works as good folk above say to charge to about 80% which is enough to get by. It feels cheap, it is cheap, but it has my otherwise dead FP3+ back in use. I could not get a reliable connection on a FP3 battery unless it was mounted vertically, YMMV.