I have a 160GB iPod classic, which came with a USB to iPod cord.
I also have a Kindle 3, which came with a USB to mini-USB cord, and a 2 prong to USB adapter to allow charging by plugging into the 120VAC wall supply.
Can I safely use the 2 prong adapter that came with my Kindle with my iPod’s cable to charge it by plugging it into the wall?
Yes.
ETA: Now that I think about it, some early iPods didn’t allow charging by USB, so the answer should be: If you can charge it via USB from your computer, you can use the Kindle adapter.
This is a funny coincidence as I was just checking to see if I could tell my wife to charge her kindle with her phone charger since she didn’t have the kindle charger with her.
USB puts out 5 volts. The kindle charger claims to put out 5 volts. You should be fine.
Note that Apple does some “sanity checking” to see if a charger is designed to work with a particular device. So, you can’t just plug your iPhone into any old USB port and expect it to charge, even though all USB ports output 5v. The data line need to be biased in a particular way to get the iPhone to charge. The same goes with iPads. I don’t think iPods do this, however.
I thought that was only with iPads, and only for drawing more than the 500mA normally allowed by a USB port. If you connect an iPad to just any old USB port or power adapter, it’ll only draw 500mA, because that’s what the standards for USB ports allow for. But if you connect it to a high-power USB adapter made by Apple, the iPad detects it and draws 2 amps.
No, I had to make a special cable to get my iPhone 3GS to charge from a generic USB car adapter. If I used the standard cable, it would bring up the “charging not supported” icon. So, I had to modify the cable to add the biasing resistors.
Just to reassure you here, the first iPod model with a 160 GB was the sixth-generation model, which came out in 2007. So you should be in the clear.
Thank you for posting this. I have an iPod charger/FM transmitter in my car. If I put my iPhone in it, it will transmit to the radio, but refuses to charge it (gives me the “charging not supported” message). Very annoying and I still don’t understand why.
As described about, there are other things going on in an iPod connector than just the power. Apple do not provide publicly available information, but this site is the go to reference for what is going on. Using this it is possible to create most connector and adaptor cables you might want.
The actual dock connector is actually available too, although it takes some finding.
Thanks all for the replies…one question, doesn’t converting 120V AC to 5V DC usually require a relatively large transformer (hence “wall wart” power supplies)? How is the Kindle adapter able to manage it in such a small package (picture here)?
They use a “switching” power supply. This uses much smaller magnetics, so the package can be quite tiny. Apple’s iPhone charger is around .75" on a side.
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