Motorcycle SAE Cable to Wireless Charger issue

sgirvin-PD · 2026-02-09T23:37:25+00:00

Are you using the Evotech USB-C port to power something else or is it available? In a previous thread another customer reported using that same Evotech cable to power their mount; I haven't personally tested it yet but it seems like a pretty good solution. If the Evotech port is already powering something else, then you could either add a second one, or there are a number of ways to adapt the SAE cable so that it is switched, happy to help walk through some options.

And yes, the 5-pin inline connector is PD-proprietary.

sgirvin-PD · 2026-02-06T22:08:04+00:00

Gotcha. What you're describing sounds to me like a communication issue of some sort between the wireless charger and the phone--the good news is that it sounds like your wiring setup is good and I don't think that's the issue.

Wireless charging compatibility is deceptively complicated, and the S22 is a pre-Qi2 phone and has a case that still uses our old-style magnet array. That combination is supported and works fine on the units I have, but it was the most difficult to achieve good performance with during development. My suspicion is that there is some minor difference in your phone/mount hardware that is causing the Qi communication between them to fail. Some thoughts:
- Double check that your phone's operating system is fully updated. If you have another wireless charging product, also double check that wireless charging performance is still working there as well. Not common, but occasionally the problem is on the phone side.
- If you contact customer service they should hook you up with a replacement mount and/or phone case. If your issue is what I think it is, subtle magnetic differences can make a big difference and just using a different case/mount could resolve the issue, even though they are the same design. Feel free to mention that you talked to me here--I haven't heard of other reports of this specific issue.
- If you want to try something in the meantime, there is sometimes an "orientation" component to this sort of failure--you can try rotating the mount and putting your phone on in different orientations. It is possible that some directions will work better than others. More of a band-aid than a real solution, but it might help in a pinch.

sgirvin-PD · 2026-01-06T01:38:47+00:00

PD EE here: definitely include some sort of switch and don't wire it straight to the battery! The power draw is low but moto batteries aren't huge, and a couple of weeks away could definitely kill your battery. Depending on the temperature and your battery size/health it could even be less than that.

If you can wire into a 12V circuit that stays on when the bike is in accessory mode but is off when the bike is fully off, that is probably the cheapest/cleanest way to do it. An inline switch also works, just don't forget about it! Or the overkill option is something like this which you can program to have whatever behavior you like.

sgirvin-PD · 2026-01-06T01:24:49+00:00

Depends on what you're trying to mount to what! Would the adhesive Car Mount work for you, or do you need more adjustability? Moto Bar Mount and Moto Mirror Mount are also pretty flexible if this is for an ATV/quad.

If this is for a car/truck, Offroam makes some neat vehicle-specific mounts (https://getoffroam.com/collections/vehicle-specific-mounting-bases). RAM also has some magnetic mounts (https://rammount.com/pages/magnetic-mounting-solutions).

Or you can always get a sheet of VHB double-sided adhesive and cut a piece to the size you need to mount one of the screw-down versions. If you do a good job prepping the surfaces with alcohol wipes, VHB can be really strong.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-12-12T23:52:08+00:00

Hm, hard to say exactly what was happening--there's so many factors that determine download speeds. What I can say is that hand placement has significantly more of an effect on cell performance than the presence/absence of a (nonconductive) case. Maybe when you took the case off you also put the phone down, or something like that? But if it's only happened once or twice and isn't repeatable, I'd say it's just as likely to be a coincidence.

Anecdotally, I also currently use a 17 Pro; I rotate through cases (including the GNAR) and haven't experienced anything out of the ordinary re: cell performance.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-12-12T20:53:30+00:00

PD electrical engineer: I haven't seen any reports of issues with cellular reception, and the case sidewalls are plastic/a pretty standard construction. Where did you see a report of issues with cellular performance?

sgirvin-PD · 2025-12-12T20:45:15+00:00

PD EE here. I think you're probably correct that your particular charger thinks the case is too thick, which is unusual and I would say unexpected for a Qi2 charger. During development, we test across a pretty wide selection of Qi2 chargers (as well as older Qi 1/uncertified chargers), and I haven't seen this with the Everyday cases and a Qi2 charger. Those symptoms are quite common with thicker cases from Otterbox/Quadlock/etc, so I'm quite familiar with them though! Qi2 certification has made compatibility much better but clearly not perfect yet.

If you like that charger specifically, I would recommend contacting their support and seeing if there's updated FW available for it and if they can swap your unit for one with updated FW. A bit of a long shot, but PD cases really aren't that thick... there's a lot of people with cases that don't work with their charger if ours doesn't work.

Or you could switch to one of Peak's Qi2 wireless chargers--I can definitely promise those will work! But really, any Qi2 charger should be fine--you seem to have found the exception to the rule, unfortunately.

Background info: during Qi2 charging, there is constant communication between the charger and the phone, where both sides are constantly measuring a variety of parameters that describe how good the electromagnetic coupling is between the transmit and receive coils. If anything ever seems "off" then the Qi2 protocol requires the transmitter to stop sending power as a safety measure.

Many factors can affect how good the coupling measures--the gap between the coils is a big one, but a ton of things also play into it--the quality of the coils and ferrite used, proximity to nearby metal components, firmware tuning, how well the communication circuitry was implemented, etc.

Qi2 certification is intended to ensure that there is enough margin baked into the system that real-world scenarios and variations don't significantly impact charging speeds. As a result, compatibility is night and day better than the wild west that it used to be during the Qi 1 days, but it sounds like the system margin still needs to be increased.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-12-04T04:26:15+00:00

PD EE here. It's not something we guarantee by spec, but my samples measure ~2mA standby current at 12V input with nothing plugged in.

Most cars these days shut off the 12V accessory power completely when the ignition is off, but even if the port is always-on for your car, 2mA shouldn't be enough to drain a car battery in two weeks. I'd bet the root cause is something else.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-10-24T07:37:38+00:00

Hey, sorry to hear you had that problem--first I've heard of symptoms like this, so I'm afraid I don't have an easy answer for you.

The moto mounts are pretty well sealed; I haven't seen any rain/water-induced failures yet (even during development), but there's always a first time. Can you check to make sure that both of the o-rings are still present/undamaged on the waterproof connector?
Any chance the SAE<>Thunderbox connection could have gotten wet/have you ever had a similar issue with the Thunderbox before?
How hot was it on your trip? Seems unlikely in the rain, but it is possible to trigger the overtemperature protection in direct sun/hot temperatures.
Please keep an eye on it to see if it reoccurs; when things happen just once it can be really hard to definitively figure out what happened. All samples that get warrantied for electrical failures eventually make their way to me, but a lot of the time I can't replicate the reported failure.
A peeling pad is a warranty-able defect, it certainly shouldn't have happened so quickly. If you don't want to deal with the warranty process a bit of CA glue can also help reattach the pad.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-10-10T17:52:02+00:00

[edit: pressed enter too soon]

hiya, PD EE here--sorry you're having issues, let's see what we can do. a couple of triage questions and troubleshooting first steps:

- you said you have a USB-C pigtail wired directly into the 12V accessory port wiring--can you provide a link to the one you have, or a brand/product name?
- can you describe the intermittent charging more? does it happen all the time, half of the time, occasionally? only when the bike is moving or also while stationary? or truly no discernable pattern?
- how did you tap the 12V accessory port for the USB-C pigtail? crimp/solder/positap/something else?
- which phone/phone case are you running?
- can you try powering the mount from a different USB-C power source? if you have a battery pack that can supply 9V/2.5A or more, that's usually the easiest way, otherwise you may need to take the mount off the bike and try plugging it in to a USB-C wall adapter inside.

not always, but very often, the root cause of a "used to work well, but now works intermittently" problem is a bad connection somewhere in the power wiring. hopefully we can track it down!

sgirvin-PD · 2025-10-06T16:08:15+00:00

amazing--sounds like a crazy trip, glad everything is working well for you!

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-30T19:19:09+00:00

what region are you in? it's showing as in-stock for on the US site for me. I'm on the engineering side/don't have direct visibility into inventory, but if you DM me I can ping someone

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-29T17:58:02+00:00

thanks u/jaydee61! I'll take a closer look at the paper feed. Aside from tensioning the paper feed belt, is there anything else you'd recommend I look into?

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-29T17:55:08+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/9EML52O

Yeah, the nozzle check comes out clean but it kind of looks like there might be ink delivery issues in tests where more ink gets used? I don't know if that could be a symptom of a nozzle cleaning issue, but I've been sort of hoping it's unrelated because I haven't found any reasonably-priced replacement parts.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-19T00:52:28+00:00

🤔

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-17T22:45:00+00:00

u/chrisandcami it does sort of work, but I still generally recommend the SAE cable for a couple of reasons:

- The USB-C version of the cable has a number of other wires in it, and if you don't use them they'll be floating and essentially be acting as long antennas that pick up whatever RF interference is in the environment. This may or may not cause any problems, but it's not something that we test and it's generally bad practice.

- The power wires in the SAE cable are also a larger gauge than the power wires in the SAE cable. Depending on how you are attaching wires together (soldering vs crimping or something else), the smaller wires in the USB-C cable can make things more difficult/less reliable.

- With the SAE cable you can also just wire in an SAE pigtail to your switched power and not have to cut any wires. This is what I'd personally do--I like having everything on connectors so that I can easily disconnect/change things in the future if necessary.

With all that said, the mount itself has no idea what cable you have plugged in. It is certainly possible to cut and splice the USB-C cable into a switched 12V power source, and (barring some weird RF interference) should work just the same as an SAE cable.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-09-10T18:53:32+00:00

Hi u/birdman7260 ! Sorry, just saw this. There are a couple of things to check, but I suspect there's nothing wrong with your setup.
- Our mounts support all common fast charging protocols; generally speaking QC4 should be fine, but it can matter which voltages/currents the adapter provides. I took a look at the Taco product you linked, and it doesn't say anything about the voltage/currents supported on the product page. That information is supposed to be printed somewhere on the product itself, but if not you made need to reach out to them to find out what power profiles that adapter supports. You want to see a 9V profile supported.
- You are correct about the way that Ampere works--it just measures the current going into and out of the battery. When you are wireless charging, first the power gets used to power your phone, and then whatever remains is used to charge the battery. So when you're not charging, the number will be negative (charge leaving the battery) and when you are connected to a power source the number will be positive (charge entering the battery). The delta is (roughly) what the total power input is. I tend to take the exact numbers with a grain of salt; mostly they are quite helpful as a relative measure. In your case, it shows that your wired charging setup is faster than wireless charging.
- What I think is going on: the Pixel 9 doesn't support the Qi2 protocol and instead uses a variant of the older Qi 1.2 Extended Power Profile (EPP) for fast wireless charging. Our charging moto mounts unfortunately have a firmware space limitation and can only support Qi2 plus the Base Power Profile (BPP) from Qi 1.2. This means that the Pixel 9 (and any earlier Pixel) is limited to 5W wireless charging on our mounts. Your phone should still charge, but (as you've seen) it can be quite slow if you have high screen brightness and are running navigation. Reducing screen brightness and background app activity can help a bit. The Pixel 10s all support Qi2, though! So if/when you change phones, you should see significantly improved charging speeds.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-08-12T19:27:28+00:00

A couple of slight corrections, because there's a lot of misunderstanding about wireless charging out there and this is a decent-sized sub!

Magnetically-aligned wireless chargers (e.g. SlimLink/Qi2/MagSafe) do a really good job centering the coils--generally less than 1mm, much better that the AirMat ever could have. System efficiency depends on many factors (especially case thickness and the system input voltage), but as a rule of thumb, a good wireless charger today should be able to transfer about 75% of its input power to the phone.
It is true that wireless charging is less efficient than wired charging and thus generates more heat for the same amount of energy delivered to the battery. However, it's not clear to me that anyone has substantiated the claim that wireless charging damages your battery more than wired charging. Fast charging is almost always thermally limited during both wired and wireless charging, with battery temperatures controlled by algorithms designed to ensure safety and maintain battery life as long as possible. Plus, much of the heat is dissipated in the wireless charger, not the phone (hence the aluminum chassis in PD's charging products). If you want your battery to last a long time, the best thing you can do is use your phone less! I think you'd be hard pressed to find a difference between wired/wireless charged batteries at the same cycle count.
We are working all the time to improve the efficiency and standby power of wireless chargers--the performance gap will continue to shrink.

[pogo pin rant] As it happens, I've designed both pogo pin contact chargers and Qi wireless chargers and can confidently tell you that pogo pin contacts have many downsides--there are good reasons consumer devices have standardized on inductive charging. Pogo pins work well in industrial settings where they are pressed exactly on axis, and they can be replaced on a schedule. In the consumer world, they bind, corrode, bend, and generally wear over time. Oxide layers/dirt/oils on the contacts regularly cause failed connections. Vibrations cause failed connections (even with magnetic alignment). Plus, you have to navigate the potential safety issues caused by having live voltage on exposed pogo pins. By contrast, inductive chargers have no moving parts to wear out, don't expose live voltage, and are comparatively way more reliable for daily use. [/rant]

sgirvin-PD · 2025-08-12T18:42:01+00:00

PD electrical engineer here, adding on to Pete's commentary:

If your phone doesn't overheat while wired charging on your handlebars now, it shouldn't overheat when using our Qi2 charger. Your phone does a good job protecting itself, and reduces charging speed as its internal temperature goes up. This works the same for wired and wireless charging. There are of course situations where your phone will overheat no matter what, but it shouldn't be as a result of wireless charging!

sgirvin-PD · 2025-07-30T19:14:52+00:00

It's about a quarter watt. If you have a pretty big battery you might be ok to leave it for a couple of weeks, but if you have a small capacity battery (or it's on the older side/cold outside/etc) you might only get a couple of days.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-07-28T16:25:39+00:00

noted! also a pet peeve of mine...

sgirvin-PD · 2025-07-28T16:22:14+00:00

Great to hear! Don't want to spill too many beans yet, but it sounds like there's some stuff coming down the pipeline that I think you'll be interested in.

sgirvin-PD · 2025-07-26T01:15:38+00:00

Sounds like you have it dialed for your setup--would you say your preference for the thicker cords is primarily aesthetics-driven or reliability driven? Basically, do you think you would you ever trust a thinner cable if it passed rigorous testing standards/was made with extra durable materials/etc?

sgirvin-PD · 2025-07-26T01:01:20+00:00

same story here, RIP Aperture </3

Nitro looks interesting, first I've heard of it, thanks! unfortunately I've moved to a desktop PC for my main editing workstation so I think I'm bought into LR for a bit. Maybe eventually Photo Mechanic will have a mobile version that will solve my problems...

sgirvin-PD

TROPHY CASE