PV Gap

Randall Said:

Can a NDS take more volts then it says?

We Answered:

I'd say your dad is a bit off, depending on what exactly he was trying to say. Case in point: The NDSL says it takes 5.2v, yet can be charged over USB which is 5v, yet the internally battery is only rated for 3.7v.

So, with the NDSL, it says it needs 5.2v going in, but it can use 5v (to be fair, charge time will be a little longer), which means you can give less to something saying it needs more. This goes against the logic of unable to charge a "laptop that needs 20v but you give it 15v."

However, the NDSL supports the statement "if you have a charger that gives 20v, and your laptop only needs 15, then that's fine." The charger is 5.2v, yet the battery is 3.7v, a disparity of 75% and 71.2%, respectively. As a side-note, laptops I've seen use batteries in the 10-12v range.

I'm not an electronics expert, but you don't need one to tell you that you should keep any ingoing power as close to the specs as possible. With the 5v instead of 5.2v, it charges just fine, but a little slower. If you go .8 higher to 6v, it might charge too fast, causing it to heat up more than normal and cause damage.

I'd say do what you can to get it close to the spec voltage, and read the following to get more tips:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/05/10/how-t…

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/need-vi…