Question about Xbox One play and charge system

[Sycologist]

Didn't know where to post this question so please move this thread if wrong forum.

Has anyone here had their controller burn out while charging using external USB power?

Recently both of my Design Labs controllers burned out while using the play and charge system with an external USB battery power supply. Basically if the controller goes to sleep while charging using an external USB battery, it's going to burnup the internal charging circuit. My controllers disconnect from the console when there's no game activity and turns off automatically to save power but this unfortunately seems to turn off the charging monitoring system. When the controller is one there doesn't seem to be a problem because the orange LED on the cable eventually turns white when charging is complete. This stops the charging process. However if the controller is off there's no smart charging? I'm guessing the play and charge system is only designed to plug directly into the console? When charging is being monitored the battery charge indicator icon in the dashboard animates. When charging is complete it stops animating.

Anyone know how this exactly works or have a similar problem?

 

[BRiT]

Never had issues while using play and charge, but then again I have the wire plugged into the console even when the console is off in stand-by.

 

[orangpelupa]

Could be similar issues with QC chargers burning PS4 gamepad.

It seems only 5v chargers and usb PD chargers that are safe for everything.

 

[AzBat]

Are you using the official Microsoft Play & Charge battery pack & cable like this?

Or are you using the Xbox Design Lab Pro Charging Stand officially licensed by Controller Gear that matches the controller?

If the former, I never had problems charging with the cable the console on or off. I always had my console in stand-by mode anyway. So it still charged the controller while the unit was "off".

Other than that, I was never really happy with the official Microsoft Play & Charge Kit because they used the micro USB connector for charging. Plus, they never made an official charging dock or stand that allowed you to charge the battery other than the USB cable. On the 360 I loved the official dual charging stand they made. If you look on eBay or Amazon I'm sure you could find a no-name device that worked with the micro USB, but none of them were good designs & looked cheap. The better designs all used proprietary battery packs and battery doors & I wasn't having that. I ended up going with rechargeable or throw away AAs. :/

I think I'm going to go with the Controller Gear stand, but going to wait until after the Series X ships since supposedly the battery doors are smaller?

Tommy McClain

 

[Sycologist]

Are you using the official Microsoft Play & Charge battery pack & cable like this?

Or are you using the Xbox Design Lab Pro Charging Stand officially licensed by Controller Gear that matches the controller?

If the former, I never had problems charging with the cable the console on or off. I always had my console in stand-by mode anyway. So it still charged the controller while the unit was "off".

Other than that, I was never really happy with the official Microsoft Play & Charge Kit because they used the micro USB connector for charging. Plus, they never made an official charging dock or stand that allowed you to charge the battery other than the USB cable. On the 360 I loved the official dual charging stand they made. If you look on eBay or Amazon I'm sure you could find a no-name device that worked with the micro USB, but none of them were good designs & looked cheap. The better designs all used proprietary battery packs and battery doors & I wasn't having that. I ended up going with rechargeable or throw away AAs. :/

I think I'm going to go with the Controller Gear stand, but going to wait until after the Series X ships since supposedly the battery doors are smaller?

Tommy McClain

Hi sorry for late reply. No I'm using a 3rd part Play & Charge pack. It uses a lithium ion battery. It works the same way the official P&C works. My two burned controllers are the special "design your own controller" models for Xbox Design Lab with custom colors, buttons etc. It's not the charging stand which uses NiMH batteries. Anyway my custom controllers are pretty expensive about $75 each and now both are dead. Externally they are in very good condition. The PCB replacements aren't that cheap either about $30. I could get a brand new vanilla controller for $40 and then just swap the guts into my custom ones.

 

[AzBat]

Hi sorry for late reply. No I'm using a 3rd part Play & Charge pack. It uses a lithium ion battery. It works the same way the official P&C works. My two burned controllers are the special "design your own controller" models for Xbox Design Lab with custom colors, buttons etc. It's not the charging stand which uses NiMH batteries. Anyway my custom controllers are pretty expensive about $75 each and now both are dead. Externally they are in very good condition. The PCB replacements aren't that cheap either about $30. I could get a brand new vanilla controller for $40 and then just swap the guts into my custom ones.

No prob Bob. I've seen 3rd party Lithium batteries made 2 different ways. Do they charge via the micro USB connector built into the controller like the official ones? Or do they use a separate USB connector on the battery? If the latter then it's not using the internal charging like the official Play and Charge kit. So I could understand if the controller went off while charging. Still sucks all the way around though. I would get a new cheap controller & just swap out the guts. That way you know the controller works. Let us know how it works for you.

Tommy McClain

 

[Sycologist]

It uses the stock USB port on the controller. The system looks exactly like the official P&C kit. Anyway thanks for the insight. I have a total of 3 burned controllers now. The bundled X1X controller is now also dead. I have only two controllers left, the original Xbox One and One S. I'm thinking of trading in the One S console to upgrade to a Series X so I can't gut that controller. After trading it in I don't think I need any current gen controllers since Series X already comes with a controller.

 

[AzBat]

Really sounds like you got a bad batch of 3rd party batteries. The official MS ones would never do that. Anyway, seems a waste to not salvage the 3 Design Lab controllers. There are only 2 major differences with the newer ones. The new share button & the different Dpad. Electronic wise they should be almost the same. In fact, the current-gen controllers will get a firmware update to take advantage of the lower latency refinements. So don't think that your existing controller all need replacing. They will still be good for quite a while.

Tommy McClain

 

[Sycologist]

Well my last controller also burned out so I purchased one of the new Series X/S controllers. I put one of the li-ion batteries into the new controller and it's able to charge via the USB C port with a standard cable. No special cable with LED light needed. I hope this one doesn't burn up because it's getting expensive. I'm using a wall plug for charging instead of an external battery this time.