Question: will an ac to usb adapter fry my brand new mp3 player?

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General Hardware Forum Discuss, will an ac to usb adapter fry my brand new mp3 player? at Computer Hardware forum; I recently bought myself the new creative zen xfi. So far its great (knock on wood). The downside is that nowadays, mp3 players don't come with an outlet charger, and then you have to spend another 30$ if you want to be able to do that. My friend suggested that

Posted: 31-12-2008

kickinit188: Posts: n/a

I recently bought myself the new creative zen xfi. So far its great (knock on wood). The downside is that nowadays, mp3 players don't come with an outlet charger, and then you have to spend another 30$ if you want to be able to do that. My friend suggested that I just use an ac to usb adapter, but I've been trying to do some research before I risk frying my fairly new player. The adapter I purchased has an output of 5VDC and 750mA. I'm fairly certain that the voltage is correct, but being somewhat ignorant in regards to electricity, wanted to find out if the amps mattered at all. Whatever I've read while trying to learn more about this seems to indicate that the amps is only the speed the electricity is moving at, but I wasn't totally clear on it? If anyone could please help me out and shed some light on this for me that would be awesome. Thanks!

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Today (MyCE Staff): Posts: 15,596

Posted: 31-12-2008

qwakrz (CDFreaks Resident): Posts: 925

Voltage is the key fact, current is drawn by the device but only as much as needed. USB has an upper limit of 500mA per port (or 0.5 Amps).

The AC to USB device should work, but if your MP3 player is like an apple iPod then it may not be enough to start the device charging, ipods have to see some signals on the other pins in the USB plug for them to charge. One quick test is to shut down your PC but dont unplug it and then plug the USB cable to charge your MP3 player into the PC, if it starts charging with the PC off (most PC's still provide 5v to the USB ports even when they are not running) then the AC to USB will work.

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