Related
hi there.
shortly-i have this phone with no orig. usb cable and with no wall charger. it was friend of mine phone actualy. given to me with dead battery (i am not sure but i have trouwn it away long time ago)
first I did was to wait until friends of mine from china had sent to me 2 batteries compitable with the phone. what i discovered is that a normal ordinar usb cable cant charge the phone's battery it only can connect to the pc.
second what i did is this: i found my old charger from a very old panasonic cell phone and had a try to make the charging process with the simply contacting corresponding pinouts of the battery to the +&- of this same charger (somehow i dissasembled the plug of that charger and it became more "comfortable" to get in touch to the pinouts of the specific cingular's battery)
that unordinar way i did discovered that i can charge these batteries even not sure how much appropriate that other brand wall charger is. It seems its pretty much the same as a power characteristics.
Meanwhile (as i dont use this phone) i had some free time to search the net and to have better idea about that strange unordinar power charging matter with that model of a phone. The situation is that i cant find a place nearby me to buy a cheap usb and wall charger and become using this nice device finaly.
And also i dont want to buy these cable things before clearly understand why this happens ..
I did try also to charge this phone with a HTC brand wall charger but no sucsess again cause it seems this wall charger is for other htc phone (even same mini usb plug and same characteristics)
What i need is to have answers by someone very informed about that matter and let me know what exactly is the specific power charging matter (need explanations i mean) with this phone. If sharing some good ideas about how to remake others usb cable or wall charger for geting it work along for me in such a case , i will appreciate this very much
thanks
charge
hi ! please forgive me for my bad english! in this case you can charge your phone in 1 way! you need to procure a motorola or any charger with same socket but attention the charger must have 6 volts and no less than 500 mAh(milli amps)! you cut the wires and one wire put on the + of the battery you will see the signs on the battery an one wire at the - no matter which one. and you need stay with the wires 3 - 4 minutes on the battery ! then you put the battery on the phone it will start and then you cand fully charge it with the usb cable ! good luckk ! i hope my inf will help you!
no
no it doesnt work that way.
what i need is the simple answer : what is so special into the pinouts of htc cingular 8125 wall charger?
thats what i need only. Then I might figure out how to proceed
Thanks anyway
I don't know if anyone else has had trouble doing what I have done, but I've got the Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard 100), which is also known as the HTC 8125.
1. I bought a car charger at a convenience store for $6 that had the mini-USB plug. It worked like a charm. Never any problem there.
2. I also bought a standard USB to mini-USB cable from the local computer store, because I had lost mine, and it also worked fine for both synchronization and for charging.
3. I bought a second wall charger, buying a standard mini-USB wall charger sold pretty much everywhere cellular phone chargers are sold. It's a common charging port, and this generic worked for me as well.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had problems with these types of devices not properly charging the unit.
Even my USB cable for my portable USB hard drive will power my unit.
EDIT: About your problem with it not charging. I had that problem about a year ago, when my battery got extremely old. It wouldn't charge even with the original charger. I just needed a new battery. The batteries get old and stop taking a charge after a certain amount of use. How long this takes depends on how heavily the batteries are used. They, like car batteries, do not last forever.
I had this problem when I had my wiz too. The battery died and drained, and my phone refused to charge it. I took it to an AT&T service center, and they had no clue what the problem was, and they wanted to issue me a replacement (it was a G4, I had a G3, I wasn't about to fiddle with that at the time.) So I asked to borrow a demo device they had there to fix it. I charged my battery on their demo device no problem, got it up to 3%, and finished charging it through my USB cable in the car socket.
It appears to be a sort of one-in-every-few-or-so type condition, but I got hit with it.
seems like noone can tell me if something special inside the mini-USB plug.
i realy cant charge. Very nice device, but i cant make it charging up whit cables.
guys, from up there, say that nothing special about the charging cables, but i trust what i see not what i read.
Perhaps there is a problem with your USB port on the device? USB charging has standards, and all devices that need power from a USB port have the same power pin configuration. Otherwise, they can't call it a USB connection. It would have to be called a proprietary connection, and they would have to change the plug size/dimensions and pins.
If there isn't a problem with your battery (which is the most likely source of your problem), then it may be a loose connection on your USB connector. This happens with a number of devices.
If a sync cable connects to the PC but will not charge the battery, then you definitely have an unusual pin detachment of some sort, or a bad battery.
thanks again..
for pity i was writing a lot to make my recent post and finaly it desapeared cause my session was left.. its funny in some case, but now i just dont want to repeat all what was intended to be posted
i give only the link where you might see why i was assuming that this is a kind of a special matter here with that htc 8125 charging
//pinouts.ru/CellularPhones-A-N/razrv3_charger_pinout.shtml
so, any more help will be appreciated a lot
thanks
SOLVED: HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125) Dead Battery Wont Charge
Dozzen said:
hi ! please forgive me for my bad english! in this case you can charge your phone in 1 way! you need to procure a motorola or any charger with same socket but attention the charger must have 6 volts and no less than 500 mAh(milli amps)! you cut the wires and one wire put on the + of the battery you will see the signs on the battery an one wire at the - no matter which one. and you need stay with the wires 3 - 4 minutes on the battery ! then you put the battery on the phone it will start and then you cand fully charge it with the usb cable ! good luckk ! i hope my inf will help you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi - Too bad for the OP that asked questions but did not listen to this brilliant post.
I have confirmed that a variation of this method works perfectly! I have an old Cingular 8125 that I have been trying to charge for over a year using various USB chargers and NONE would charge the device.
The reason that this may happen is that the original charger has an output of 1 full amp which is much higher than most chargers. The voltage is the same but you need a charger that can handle such a strong current draw.
Nearly all USB chargers can only handle around 250milliamps - 500milliamps which is about half the power needed to breathe life into a fully discharged battery.
The best solution is to NEVER let the battery fully discharge.
Here are the details of what I did:
1. Find the best match charger of 5-6 DC Volts and ability to put out as close to one amp (1000mA) as possible. I chose an old Sanyo SCP-07ADT that is rated at DC 5.4V at 800mA. The plug can be any type, no need to be USB.
2. Cut the connector off the end of the cable and strip the outer black part up about an inch and then strip the positive and negative (red / black respectively) wires up about a millimeter, just enough to have bare metal ends to touch to a small area.
3. Take your battery out of the phone, look at the back of battery for the + and - marks which correlate to one of the metal connection points on your battery, this is where you will "touch" or "attach" the bare ends of the wires.
4. Plug the charger in making sure not to short your bare leads. Before you do this double check that the OUTPUT of your charger is indeed DC voltage so that you don't hurt yourself. You do not want AC output and it can be dangerous.
Then touch the bare end of the red wire to positive of battery, and black wire to negative terminal of your battery. I held them with my fingers while surfing the web for about five or ten minutes. I had no idea if anything was happening or not but it "felt" like the battery might have gotten just a bit warmer.
5. Unplug the home-made bare wire charger and put battery in your phone. Quickly attach a USB charger or just plug into a USB cable of your computer. I pushed it in and nothing happened at first but finally I heard the standard "bleep" when you plug a USB device in. I knew that I made progress because it never beeped before it took about 30 seconds and several "bleeps" of connecting/disconnecting from USB but eventually the charge light stayed on!
It's been about 30 minutes and I'm up to about 50% charge and been using the phone heavily while charging.
So, in summary... never let your battery discharge below 5% or you can only charge it with an OEM cable rated at 1amp (rare). IF you let it discharge to "dead" then charge for 5-10 minutes with the "wire" method and then charge normally!
Thanks to Dozzen for the original idea!!
Wizard that won't charge
When my Wizard/HTC 8125 goes dead my cure for the battery is to use a 9 volt charger with the wires stripped back also. But, my method is a bit different. I place a standard Christmas Tree light bulb (the newer small ones)in series with the charger wires. Observe the correct polarity. The battery is labeled + and - so that part is easy. By using the small light bulb you are doing 2 things. 1.You can see the slight glow from the bulb and know that proper connection is made. 2. You are limiting the charging current to the battery.
If you get really creative like I did you can solder a couple of small nails or in my case a set of red and black probes to the setup and the points on these nails/probes make for much easier connections. Note.... This method may take a few minutes longer but, is much easier on the battery.
In my experience once the battery is below a certain level NO charger that I plug in will work. I just purchased a used 8125 from eBay and brought it back to life most successfully with this method.
hy there my htc wizard battery whos dead so i charched with a cable with + and - the phone starts but when i try to connect to a usb or a adaptor it doesnt charge anymore it show me the charge icon on the baterry but it doesnt charge the usb works fine it's sync to my pc but it doesnt charge anymore... what sould i do?
So it seems no one touched on what really matters here.
A design flaw, in my opinion. The HTC Wizard cannot recharge via USB unless there is enough power to turn on. The reason is because it requires the OS to charge.
So, what many people already posted are very creative ways to charge your 8125. The easiest and cheapest way, in my opinion, is to use AA batteries.
1) Take two AA batteries and tape together so they are in series. Imagine it like this... [- AA battery #1 +][- AA battery #2 +]
2) Use two wires and tape one to each side of the AA's (one on the + side and another on the other battery's - side since the - of the first battery is connected to the + of the second).
--w-i-r-e--[- AA battery #1 +][- AA battery #2 +]--w-i-r-e--
3) Connect the positive (+) wire to the positive (+) side of the phone. By this I mean the 6 metal pieces that stick out to contact the phone battery. I did it by wrapping the wire around the top most one (or second top most, it's been over a year since I've done this.).
4) Connect the negative (-) wire to the negative (-) side of the phone. Again, bottom most or second bottom most (see #3).
5) Insert phone battery while the wires are still in and connected to the two AAs.
6) Let the power flow for 30 seconds or so and then try turning your phone on. This part is the important part because you cannot use a USB to mini-USB connected to your computer to charge the phone unless the operating system can function. Meaning, it needs to be turned on first.
7) Once the phone is on, plug in the mini-USB part and connect it to a computer. I'd recommend getting at least 5% battery before disconnecting the AAs, seeing as you need to be able to start up your phone long enough for the OS to boot. Once the OS boots, you can fully charge it through a normal USB to mini-USB connection on any computer.
old post but just wanted to say thanks. Used the wire to battery method and got phone turned on after 2 mins of holding wires to battery.
Just got a new motheboard which has high output USB charging for iPhones, pads etc.
Can this work on N1 ?
http://gigabyte.com/MicroSite/185/on-off-charge.htm
edit: driver link is at the bottom for all the hackers. Hopefully its just changing string from apple to android hehe
kazprotos said:
Just got a new motheboard which has high output USB charging for iPhones, pads etc.
Can this work on N1 ?
http://gigabyte.com/MicroSite/185/on-off-charge.htm
edit: driver link is at the bottom for all the hackers. Hopefully its just changing string from apple to android hehe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hopefully not, I dont want my nexus one to be iphone.
But as you know nexus one is using qualcomm motherboard.
But aslong cyanogen and fm transmitter is working there is no problem wiith your phone.
Dear lord what a crappy reply. Stick to disney mate.
It should, it basically just converts the USB port from .5 amps to 1 amp, like a wall charger.
elkyur said:
Hopefully not, I dont want my nexus one to be iphone.
But as you know nexus one is using qualcomm motherboard.
But aslong cyanogen and fm transmitter is working there is no problem wiith your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WTF??? May want to lay off the halucinogenics
elkyur said:
Hopefully not, I dont want my nexus one to be iphone.
But as you know nexus one is using qualcomm motherboard.
But aslong cyanogen and fm transmitter is working there is no problem wiith your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol I seriously hope this is a joke!
I agree with JCopernicus, it should definitely work.
I installed the software in the first post but it still charges very slow compared to wall outlet
Slightly OT, but I've got a USB adapter that plugs into the wall that came with my iphone and when I plug the N1 USB cable into this to charge the N1, it still charges very slowly compared to using the proper wall adapter, why is this? Does this iphone adapter restrict the voltage or something?
Generally, "charger detected" is a circuit that has USB data pins shorted together. So when the phone's USB device probes the lines and detects them shorted, it knows it's connected to a power supply.
But since USB max current spec is 500mA, the current draw is restricted - either by the phone or by the supply.
There might be some other connectivity trick that allows the phone to know it can draw x2 current from the socket and won't damage anything. Most phones probably don't limit the current draw and count on the board to do it. Some boards don't limit the current output, or limit it higher. And the fast chargers provide pulsing voltage - which isn't like USB.
So for the board to be able to charge the device, it needs to detect a device that can use pulsing voltage, and enable such voltage on the socket. It doesn't detect Nexus as such a device, I believe, and that's why the charging is slow.
Faster charging with USB
Building on Jack_R1's response, I believe that the phone is limiting the charge rate. You can make the phone "realize" it is connected to a charger rather than a data connection by shorting the 2 middle USB pins together. I have done this in several car chargers, and the N1 About/Status shows charging (AC), which is the faster charge mode. While you can short the pins in the larger end of a dedicated USB cable, if you can disassemble the connector, I found it much easier to open the charger itself to short the pins.
i also have a gigabyte mobo that has this feature but i havent gotten around to test it out yet. I dont think it would work because the feature is software based and will only bump up the voltage if the program detects an iphone connecting to your computer. Gigabyte doesnt want to be liable if they bump up voltage on every device you plug in and fry something.
btw I have tried charging my n1 from my computer and its extremely slow. started charging at around 5pm on sunday and at 11pm it went from about 23%-97% lol.
Yes, USB charging is very slow. It's actually good for the battery, though.
Maybe someone with some know how can look at the driver files for this 3x tech and see how it checks if its an Apple device. Then fool the check and presto!
Shame I don't know how to do any of this
There is a simple hardware (don't worry, it's on the cable) mod for faster charging; however, make sure the phone has good air vent (it means NO CASE when charging).
1. modify your microUSB cable, disconnect the data connector the A (host) plug, then shorten the data connector to the B plug. (This can charge N900 properly, and speed up n1 charging).
2. modify your powered (with AC adapter plugged) USB hub. Simply shorten the #2 and 3 connectors on USB jack. Make sure you cut the copper strip going to the chip or malfunction may occur.
These modification can greatly speed up the charging, but phone will produce a lot of heat (that's why you must have the phone "naked").
I don't understand this. If the phone + battery are capable of being charged at 1000 mAh from the wall charger then why need extra cooling when asking for 1000 mAh from a PC USB socket?
Mine's still defo getting only 500 mAh from the PC USB despite it being able to give up to 2700 mAh for iPad!!! All I want is my 100 mAh charge.
Because what he suggests isn't a proper charging but rather removal of slot power control, and will damage the battery / phone, if succeeds.
Proper charging at 1000mAh requires pulsing voltage - his hack doesn't provide that. Your MB does, but it requires SW intervention to turn it on.
So can someone brew the intervention ?
martinl1030 said:
i also have a gigabyte mobo that has this feature but i havent gotten around to test it out yet. I dont think it would work because the feature is software based and will only bump up the voltage if the program detects an iphone connecting to your computer. Gigabyte doesnt want to be liable if they bump up voltage on every device you plug in and fry something.
btw I have tried charging my n1 from my computer and its extremely slow. started charging at around 5pm on sunday and at 11pm it went from about 23%-97% lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are not doing anything to the voltage, simply allowing more current to pass.
And as said in this thread, any typical data USB cable will charge very slowly. And most standard USB ports charge well less than the max specced 500mAh, in fact my subnote at work I found charged my old phone at around 150mah one time when I was dead and needed to top off and it's all I had available.
i'm not sure of the pinout on the micro USB port but i'm pretty sure that that the Mini USB-B port that was used on phones like the G1 used shorting the -Data pin to the unused 5th pin (actually pin 4 on the connector pinout) to activate AC charge mode. some devices actually require a resister of a certain value to be placed across them to work(i know older motorola phones did like IDEN's)
one thing people often forget but should not forget is that current is drawn from the device using power. its not forced on the device. voltage is forced on a device and while a variance is usually ok for devices depending on how they were designed generally its not a good idea to exceed +1.5v on any low power DC device. 120V AC devices are designed to actually work in a much wider range like 100-130V but thats because of the power supply/nature of AC power. it always varies and in japan they use 100v 60hz AC so many electronics power supplies are designed to work in the full range to save costs and only have to make 1 unit for all (same deal with 220-240 switches on PC power supplies)
the reason why you don't want to do this mod is you could damage you PC's motherboard by pulling too much current from its circuits. USB spec is 500ma. performing this type of mod on a power adapter (car or AC) that does not get recognized as an AC charger by the phone is a safer way to go. worst case senario is you break the charger (unless you mess up on the pinout then you could damage you phone too though)
Is there a special usb cable where I can connect one mobile phone to another device to charge it?
For example, charge the HTC Touch HD using a HTC Touch2?
I also have mp3 players with same port, so it could be very useful when on the road.
Many thanks.
providing the source device has output power from the usb, you would just need a mini-b to mini-b use cable, in theory it should work
Tested
I have tried this before with my touch HD and Kaiser and it didn't work. Though a device that gives out the same power output as say a laptop would work.
Good luck
BJ
You need power source with 5V to charge your device, if voltage is less than 5V (when you're connecting other phone to yours) curent won't flow into your device so basicly you can't charge. Voltage of Blackstone battery is between 4.2V and 3.7V and imagine situation when other device isn't charged and you connect them together. Week phone will suck power from stronger one because he thinks that phone is a charger So one phone is charging and other is getting weak. It doesn't make sense to me...
I guess it works that way...
Thank you for the input, was worth a try.
This thread can be closed.
I have two options for you: first, google product find an "ENERGIZER XP4001 Power pack". There are other similar portable power packs available but I like the Energizer one the best. It comes with different power tips that should match up to your phone or other portable devices. You can see it here:
http://www.frys.com/product/6103309?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
I bought mine for $20 on sale at Fry's several months ago. You should be able to find one on eBay for about the same price if you watch their auctions.
The other option if you have a removable battery is to google product a "universal lithium charger". I have an old cell phone that I keep in my truck for emergency 9-1-1 calls. I lost the ac adapter but found a company in China that sells those lithium universal battery chargers for $2.80 (postage included). Basically, the charger has two poles or posts that you mate up to the charging points on your battery. The chargers run off ac or USB. Because I have two of these phones that has a flashlight which I keep in case of power or brown outs, I got the charger. There's one that looks like a penguin whose eyes light up when you've made contact between the posts and charging points. I chuckle when I see the penguin do its thing.
Ok guys, so nuclear war stroke the planet, your brand new tv and pc got busted in the initial attack and you're left with your precious HD2 running some custom rom and about 16-32gb of storage. Hope you don't get borred, there won't be many apps on marketplace, or even a marketplace (servers got busted by the nuke )
Now to get more seriously i can't figure out why i would need a phone able to be powered on 24/24. But i guess at least it could be useful on camping trips or stuff like this.
This is the start of a project, are goals are something like this:
1. reverse engineer the charge algorithm used by HD2 (in involves at least 2 charging modes each with 2 stages, as i know so far)
2. assemble or buy a 5-10W solar panel (only the panel and a Schottky type fast diode)
3. get myself some old laptop batteries and strip them down for cells and controllers.
4. design and assemble a cell pack as a buffer between the solar panel and phone
5. design a switching mode voltage stabilizer and make a custom usb hub in order to also have usb host functionality if i feel geeky and need linux
6. design a charge controller for the cell pack when using solar power.
7. put all things together and test
The goal is simple. Although there are solar batteries that provide some extra juice to laptops or pda's they function somewhat like 2-3 hours discharge, about one day in full sun to recharge.
I want a system that can power a full load working hd2 (worst scenario) non stop (day and night) including cloudy days, nuclear winter or whatever. The system must also be able to power about 3-4 usb devices and sustain a full 500mA drain on each port while still being able to power the hd2 non stop. Aaah, yes, the thing must be portable, plug&play, reliable and maintenance free. At most, it should have the size of a regular 15 inch laptop and about 2kg weight (all things included).
Stage 1 completed
So i figured out how hd2 charges it's battery. It's pretty simple actually.
Charging is made in the same way for either wall charger or usb charging. Same pins are used. However, when the wall charger is used, charging current can be as high as 800-900mA. This will decrease to some 20-30mA when the battery will be almost 100% charged.
If you however connect the usb data pins to hd2 and to something (computer, hub etc) hd2 will change the charging mode to usb. This feature ensures that when connected to a pc, the phone will never try to get 8-900mA from a 500mA usb port pretty neat. Instead, maximum charge current is limited to about 400mA.
If you get access to the usb wires inside the cable you can trigger either mode by simply disconnecting or reconnecting the data pins (green+white on standard usb cables). This is useful because i can devise some means of redirecting the charge current to either external battery (let's say after a night of use for the hd2) or to the hd2 if .. for some reason it's internal battery is discharged.
A usb enabled pic microcontroller (say 18f2550) can be used to control the charging process of either internal or external battery by simulating a pc connection, thus enabling hd2 to switch to low current charge. However if i'm guessing right, a simple usb hub could also do the job as it also contains a microcontoller that "knows" the usb protocol. So because i will use an external powered hub for linux, I'll try to use it also for switching between charging modes. Besides is more easier this way and i (or others) will be spared the time needed to program a microcontroller, or fabricate a pcb for it and it's corresponding components. And.. in case of nuclear attack there won't be any radio shack or electronics store where you could buy microcontrollers
Stage 2 completed:
Well i got myself some time ago a cheap 10watt polycrystaline solar panel for use with a robot i'm building. It was about $50 here in Romania. I guess i'll be using this one, even if it's quite big (something like a 16 inch laptop). Anyway i could also power other things with it. Will do some tests, and if it's suited for the job, it will be used. It arrived completely assembled so it also spares me the trouble and time of connecting individual cells into to form a solar panel.
Update : completed, will use the spare 10watt panel, until a new one arrives.
Stage 3 completed:
Got some 5-6 old laptop batteries. Stripped them down and got some ~30 cells. I'll test them out and sort about 4-6 of them.
Stage 4 completed: I'm currently sorting out some cells. As far as design goes, the capacity of the "extended battery" will be 14400mAh (single charge, using no solar power). That could easily power a full 15 inch laptop for about 4 hours, so i guess hd2 will have no problems staying alive for one night until next day and the sunrise to kick in for the solar charging to take place
Stage 5+6 completed:
There won't be any linear voltage stabilizer design for the buffer between the battery and hd2. They are quite inefficient with 30-40% power lost in the form of heat. Switching mode stabilizers+converters will be the way for this design. Found a ready made voltage stabilizer (converter) that's suited for the job , Saved some good hours that would otherwise have been spent on designing one from available parts.
Stage 7: yep, i'm now building the damn thing. I've simplified the design as much as i could, while keeping it safe for the phone, i guess the project will be possible to make by anyone with basic soldering skills.
apr. 13 - update: construction delayed due to one cell failure (the difference in internal resistance between the cells was greater then i expected). Will now search for a replacement, recalibrate the battery pack and recharge. However I expect that the battery module should be ready by the end of this day or tomorrow.
ok then.. it was built, it was tested and i'm already using it or at least.. trying to figure out a use for it
Anyway, if you're the camping type, if you feel geeky or wanna make a eco-friendly charger for the hd2 (or other usb charging enabled things) here's how to build one
You'll need the following materials:
- patience, this is a long post, try not to get bored while reading it
- some basic electronics skills, basic understanding of components, measurements and circuit troubleshooting (this is not a beginner project i guess, as hard as i tried to make it, if done improperly... well of course, you risk killing the poor phone in the process).
- some second hand laptop batteries, 3-4 would be ideal, they can be kind of old, but must be functional to some degree.
- a cheap usb charger used for cars, the one that plugs into the cigarette jack OR some good electronics skills to design a switching power supply. Guess most of people will go with the first option, in order to be more helpful i also designed this circuit using this option. You should buy the cheapest adapter, the cheaper the better. That's because the expensive ones have a feature that enables them to stop working if the voltage of the car battery drops to a certain point. That's supposed to be some sort of protection not to allow the car battery to discharge and thus preventing you to start your car. We don't want this protection, we want to be cheap asses, we want dirt cheap. However the adapter you want to buy must deliver 5V at around 1-1.5Amps minimum. 5Volts at 500mA is to little, it will simply kill itself when you start the thing once it's completed.
- a standard usb hub, any will do. This is if you want usb host functionality or use linux.
- a 5-10W solar panel. The bigger the better - it will allow to recharge the buffer battery (the one you'll be building) at a faster rate. This is the single most expensive part of this build. If you simply want an external battery for the hd2 you can skip the panel, if you want solar charging.. this is .. of course, a must.
- one fast rectifier diode or a schottky diode, you should buy it if you use a solar panel, the supplier of solar panel could also recommend one to use with that specific panel. We have to use one, this will make sure the current goes from the panel to the battery, not the other way around.
- bunch of wires, a multimeter and a soldering tool witch you're not afraid to use.
- a variable power supply, either it be a wall charger with variable output voltage, a laboratory power supply, or some charger that can output anywhere from 3.6 to 4.5 volts at anywhere from 300mA to 1A. Any combination will do. This is required only once in order to precharge the cells to a specific voltage.
- one switch or something similar in order to ... switch the thing on and off.
- spare time/understanding wife/coffee etc
1. Ok, first of all you need to get those laptop batteries open. Use some sharp tool, your karate skills or whatever necessary to crack those batteries open and expose the individual cells inside. Be careful not to damage the cells in the process, at least if you use some sharp tools. Once exposed, the cells will be linked to each other, you need to separate them by cutting the wires or metal bands that links them. Once done sort them out, if you have multiple batteries, sort the cells from each battery in a different case or basket or whatever you want, the idea is not to mix them.
Here's mine:
2. You now need to measure up individual cells with a multimeter. You're looking for the voltage rating of each cell. If you find cells with 0 volts, they're dead. If you place the multimeter in continuity testing mode and the 0 volts cells are showing continuity across their leads, yep.. they're really dead. Never use these. Good cells have anywhere from 1volt to 3-4volts.
Once you selected your good cells start forming a pack. The idea is simple. The more cells you put, the longer the thing will last. Standard laptop cells are rated to a minimum of 3.7Volts and 2400mAh. Each of them is almost double the capacity of the standard battery that comes with the HD2. However since you're going to use second-hand ones, they will have sign of usage, a smaller capacity then that of a new one. Still they will perform at least the same as hd2 battery in terms of battery life. Minimum configuration starts with 2 cells, i recommend 4 cells as a decent start but you can go and add more cells if you like. The more cells the longer battery life but at the expense of added weight. My choice was 6 cells. If you had 2 laptop batteries and each of them had 6 cells, you can make your pack on anywhere from 2 to 12 cells.
Let's say you choose 6 cells (always an even number). If 6 is you choice, you will need to divide that number by 2. So you get 3. You need 3 working cells from the same laptop battery to form a pair. Go back to the place you kept the cells and select 3 cells, NEVER mix cells from different batteries. These 3 cells you have (first pair) will need to be linked in parallel connection. The negative ( - ) of each cell is linked to the negative of the other and the positive to the other 2 cell's positive. We'll get there, but at a future step. Now we need the second pair of 3 cells. Again look in your cell basket and try to find 3 more cells from the same battery. This battery may be different then that first one you selected cells for the first pair. Yet again, the 3 cells must come from a single battery, no mixes. And.... again, these 3 cells must be placed in parallel. So if we already imagine them connected, we would have 2 pairs, each of them with 3 cells linked in parallel. The 2 pairs must be linked in series, so the minus of one pair will go to the plus (positive pins) of the other. The unconnected pins of each pairs (one minus one plus) will be used for voltage supply - you'll get the combined voltage of the cell pack here. If i were to draw this things for you to better understand.. it would look something like this.
green is one cell pair, orange the other. The black things are wires. This are the connections for a 6 cell pack. If you have 8 cells, you will make pairs from 4 cells (2 pairs). If you have 4 cells - the pairs will have 2 cells. A charged cell will have something like 4 volts. A pair made up of several cells in parallel will still have 4 volts across it's leads, but the overall current capacity of the pair is increased by the number of cells it contains. So if you have 3 cells each with 4v and 2200mAh, the pair will have 4 volts but with 6600mAh. If you place 2 pairs in series like on that drawing, you increase the voltage of the group by the number of pairs you add while still having the same current capacity. So if you get 2 pairs of 4 volts and 6600mAh, you will have 1 group, 8 volts and still 6600mAh. That's the total output of your pack. Because hd2 needs 5V (not 8 !!) we need something to decrease the voltage from 8 to 5 volts. That's why we need that car usb charger. It normally uses the 12V available at the cigarette jack to output 5v your phone can use. Cheaper ones, can use 8 volts, or 7 volts (lower voltages) because they don't have a circuit to prevent deep discharging the car battery like expensive one have. We need one without this circuit, because our battery pack only outputs 8V. So the car usb charger will take the 8 volts at it's input and give us 5volts at output.
3. before linking cells to each other, you need to charge them to the same voltage. Use a charger/power supply etc. I used a lab. variable power supply, if i had none, my weapon of choice would be a nokia standard wall charger (or another brand), older ones, i would cut off it's jack, expose the wires and connect them to my cells, it outputs 3.7 volts, enough to charge each cell. So charge each cell to about 3.7 volts. You will need to connect the multimeter in parallel to the cell and monitor the charging process. When a cell reaches 3.7 V disconnect it and charge another one, until all of them have 3.7 V. After this, leave the cells for one day. Next day you will be measuring each cell again. If one of them drops charge by it's own and you find.. let's say 3 V, you got a defective one, back to step 1&2 and select other cell pairs. If all cells still have the same aprox. level (somewhere around 3.5 to 3.7 volts) you're good to go.
Here's one cell linked to my voltage supply.
4. start thinking of either a case of something to contain your build. I used copper plated pcb (from electronics stores, radio shack etc). I will be connecting my cells to this thing, kind of like a pcb assembly. You may use some plastic housing and connect the cells with wires and secure them with some glue. If you have experience working with pcb, etching the copper layer and such things, feel free to try using pcb.
Here's my blank pcb for this job - i've already cut it to required dimensions. It's the orange metallic thing in the center. Beside it you can see my hub and the usb car adapter i will use.
5. disassemble (i repeat disassemble.. no more karate skills) your hub (if you're going to use one) and your car usb adapter. My usb adapter looks something like this.
The hub interior will look different, we'll get on that on a later step. Anyway, speaking of the usb car adapter, i'll be needing that small pcb with the components, so i'll remove it from there. The board contains the switching mode voltage converter, yummy yummy, i want that. It basically has 1 chip that generates a pulse signal that is feed to the input of a power transistor which pulses the input voltage across a coil. By autoinduction the coil produces another current, other components rectify and filter it so the second smaller current, produced by the coil, it's basically what powers on the devices connected at the output. In simple terms .. that's how it works. Again.. we need this, don't break it
Mine has a funny oval shaped form, so i'll be cutting my pcb in order to insert it inside.
There are 2 wires coming out of the small board inside. That's were the cigarette jack was connected. We will connect our cell pack to that, so you might wanna remember their position. The red one will be the positive one, black being negative. In a cigarette jack, the center pin is always positive, so if your wires have other colors, the one that's linked to the center pin will be the positive one.
6. Look for a way to place the cells inside your casing or on your pcb. Since i will do a pcb with them, i'm trying to find a possible placement for them.
this was one way, but i figured it was easier for me to simply place each pair on a line and form 2 single lines of cells instead of 3. Once done, i begun drawing the pcb with some paint marker. I will then etch the pcb, so only the paint covered areas will remain.
here's the pcb after etching, i'm connecting various wires to complete the cell pack circuit before connecting the cell themselves.
If you're using some sort of case, it's time to begin assembling your cells together. Use the solder gun or whatever you have for soldering to attach some wires to the each cell leads. Li-ion and heat aren't good friends, be as quick as possible when soldering, you don't want to heat up the cell too much. If it starts to make any strange noise, hiss or is venting anything from it... run away, don't touch it, don't throw it.. simply leave it and run away. Of course, this is a very rare scenario.. but take your safety when working with high reactivity materials like li-ion cells.
You want to arrange the cells in that paint draw up in the post. 2 pairs, linked in series. First solder wires to make one pair, then the other, then connect the pairs to each other. If you use a case, use some insulator to cover the solder points and to avoid some accidental short circuits in the future.
Back to my pcb solution, here's my assembly.
7. If you want to use an usb hub, you can try to salvage some usb port from an old pc or laptop's motherboard. This way you could avoid using a permanently attached wire to the device you're building in order to have the hub connected to the phone. I found an old laptop motherboard with an intact usb jack.
i remove the usb port from it and soldered on my board.
8. Next you need to connect the car usb charger's pcb to the battery pack you assembled. Basically the 2 wires from the charger must be linked with the 2 wires from the battery pack. Insert a switch on the cable in order to be able to turn on and off the whole thing. In my case, i'll now connect the car charger's pcb to my pcb, in the portion i've cut.
9. now you need to modify your hub to be able to power on hd2 during usb hosting mode. There's a link in the linux section (ubuntu for hd2) about this, you may want to read that also. I basically soldered a wire across each hub's usb port positive pin (the 4 usb jacks) and the input usb jack. The ground connection is the same for all jacks. So all jacks including the one used for connecting to a usb host device (pc) have the power pins linked together. Those 2 power pins must also be linked to the output of the usb car charger so that when you power up the thing using the switch, the charger also powers up the usb hub. After you solder all the wires, also insulate the soldering points and secure the hub in your casing along with the battery pack and usb car charger's pcb.
Here's mine, it was soldered on my pcb.
as you can see, there are some couple of wires coming out from it. Those need to be connected to the phone for me to have usb host functionality. So i'll connect these wires to the usb port i've mounted at step 7 so i can use a standard usb - microusb cable to link this thing to the phone. If you want to make it simpler, cut out a usb - microusb cable and directly solder the wires onto the hub's pcb as shown in the guide on the ubuntu linux thread for hd2.
In my case, i use that port i salvaged, as i said before.
10. assemble the whole thing and carefull inspect the connections. The order of this will be - battery pack - linked to the car usb charger - that's linked to the hub power pins (for each usb port). You'll then have one usb port for use when requiring usb host functionality, 4 usb ports for connecting all sort of usb slave devices, and one usb port (the one that it's soldered to the car usb charger) for use when you want to simply charge your device normally.
Here's my build. I've also placed a fuse between the battery and the usb charger, so that in case of malfunction it breaks the circuit. The fuse holding pin is the black thing at the opposite side of the usb hub. Near the pcb, you can see the fuse and it's cap.
11. Check again all connections. when ready, press the switch and bring the thing to life. Use the multimeter and check all usb ports voltage. You shoudn't have more then 5.5Volts and no less then 4.5Volts. If you do, then you did something wrong, turn off, disassemble and recheck. If you did it right, you'll get a voltage inside the above interval. Inspect the device once again and make sure all things are safely placed and secured inside. Try plugging some cheap usb devices you may have, a mouse, usb flashlight, another hub etc. If they receive power and all it's ok you may try to connect the phone.
Voila.. usb charging from the ghetto style external battery.
And here's a small video of preliminary testing (i haven't yet tested the usb hosting capability but i have no reason to think it will not work). At this time i didn't placed any switch on the board so i switch on and off the thing by placing the fuse inside the holder or removing it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf6kRpNNqkw
Next step... maybe some of you may think.. well how does this thing recharge when the batteries are depleted. At this stage the battery pack is recharged by connecting a 8.4 voltage supply across the battery pack leads (wires) but the next logical step will be adding the solar panel to the build and securing this pcb to the back of the panel. Then.. further testing. I'll be keeping the panel and that rectifier diode handy. This is still work in progress.
When are we getting it?
i guess it will take about 1-2 weeks to do the job.
i'm also involved in 2 more projects, it could be done as soon as i finish my automatic dog feeder with video-streaming over internet, food sensors and audio feedback. )
facdemol said:
i guess it will take about 1-2 weeks to do the job.
i'm also involved in 2 more projects, it could be done as soon as i finish my automatic dog feeder with video-streaming over internet, food sensors and audio feedback. )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey facdemol I am not as versed in electronics as you are my friend. So my question to you is this is something that someone with a fair level of intelligents can attempt also? Secound is this, is the list you give in your first post all some one needs to try this? I would really like try this myself and maybe correspond my findings with you. Also thank you totally of you ammazing knowledge filled posts here on XDA.
lol.... Im not sure how to respond to this
Cant wait to see how it turns out, best of luck
sounds interesting!
Good man, keep us updated however things turn out... you sound like someone who isn't afraid of experimenting with electronics for the thrill!
Sent from my Nexus One
Wow! Pretty interesting
Hey facdemol I thought you might like to check this article in the Portal out if you have not already. Looking forward to hearing back from you here on your project.
good article, was inspiring
stage 2 and 3 are completed. Now working to design a high performance dc-dc (switching mode) converter that would take 8.4V input and give me some 5V @ 2.5A output for hd2's charging and the usb hub. Some work needs to be done here and some careful testing, if for whatever reason this converter fails, hd2 motherboard could get fried Working on a way to implement some safeties, also i'm studying the way older pda's and pna's used switching mode power supply's and converters. I'm thinking i could either salvage one of these modules or build one specifically for hd2.
Update : found a way to make this pretty DIY for anyone with basic electronics skill (so that you can avoid designing switching mode converters, making PCB's, winding coils etc).
I found some dirt cheap car adapters that output 5v (pc usb jack) and can be used for various usb charging enabled devices. I'm testing to see their performance with my custom battery pack and the solar panel. Results are pretty good so far, i managed to run them stable at arout 5.5-6Volts input voltage. 2 of these will be required for this project (2 amp max current) or one if the output transistor inside is changed or a heatsink is mounted on it. I will come back with results and in the end, a guide with the required modifications.
The second post contains the updated progress on this project.
Third post will contain some sort of guide for a DIY assembly of such device.
These are updated daily.
If everything goes smooth, i guess i will posting some pictures and guides to build such things, by the end of this day or tomorrow.
Current features of this design :
- 10watt solar panel module
- 14400mAh battery module - cell pack designed as 3p2s
- 2 charge modes (slow - similar to a pc's usb port and fast - similar to hd's wall charger)
- 4 powered usb ports (usb host capable)
- 1 high-power usb port (it can charge any device requiring 5V at around 500mA - 1500mA)
- uses standard usb-microusb cables, no need for other hacks or special cables
- feels geeky
facdemol said:
The second post contains the updated progress on this project.
Third post will contain some sort of guide for a DIY assembly of such device.
These are updated daily.
If everything goes smooth, i guess i will posting some pictures and guides to build such things, by the end of this day or tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds greet I will bee waiting to see what you have come up with man, this could be something that can change how we can use our HD2s on the go. n
Keep up the good work facdemol, I am also waiting to see if you post any more power consumption results in your other thread.
I would like to ask anyone reading this to help vote this to be published in the XDA portal by clicking the vote bottom at the top right of the first post by facdemol, he deserves recognition for his great work with this project and his others.
Very Interesting ! Good luck with the project! will be following to see what develops!
I love this. Great concept.
it took a while to charge the independent cells to the same level and to form a pack. The charge alignment is a must, otherwise, the battery back will discharge at an uneven rate among each cell. One done properly it should allow the maximum battery life and no future maintenance.
I've done some testing on it, already hooked up the hd2 to this thing, it's working properly, both charging modes, usb host etc. I guess i'll come back today with the guide and pictures to make this, it took the better part of yesterday to manually charge/discharge each of the 6 cells in the pack.
updated post 3, half of the buid is already done and operational. The battery and hub+charger module needs to be linked up to the solar panel and some of case to be built.
There are some pics and one video with the thing working. Just basic testing for now, i just finished it.
Very interesting...great job mate...
I purchased the power bank directly from the Yotaphone uk website for £35
It is a 4000 mAh portable battery with both a USB cable and Qi wireless connection to charge your device. It comes well packaged in the same style packaging as the Yotaphone 2, in the box is the battery, a usb charging lead and an instruction booklet.
To charge the battery connect it to any standard 1 amp+ USB power supply, whilst charging a row of four LEDS on the battery cycle as the charge fills up they eventually stay lit.
Charging the Yotaphone is a matter of touching the touch sensitive power button on the power bank to activate it and then laying the phone on the top of the battery making sure its on the sweet spot. You know when its there as the phone screen indicates the usual charging info and a white LED illuminates on the front corner of the power bank. whilst charging the four LEDS indicate the power remaining in the battery, I'm guessing they show 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% battery power.
Alternatively you can plug the Yotaphone into the standard USB port on the battery with a standard micro USB cable and charge it in that way.
You can charge two devices at once one on the Qi and one by USB. (Of course it will work with any Qi or USB device)
Its a nice bit of kit to look at and handle, it has a rough textured surface so its easy to grip and the white LEDs look nice and are not to big or bright. You can put it in your pocket as it is totally smooth with no projections.
The top surface of the power bank is flat so laying a flat device on it makes a good connection however the Yotaphone 2 EPD screen is very smooth and will easily slide of the power bank if its not on an absolutely flat surface. It could not be used wirelessly anywhere with any vibration i.e. car coach, train, aeroplane etc. as it will slide off. That's the time to use the cable connection!
There are cheaper options out there for a battery but the inclusion of Qi charging, the quality design/finish and a decent 4000mAh size just about make this good value.
Thanks very much for the review dude. Think I'll definitely get one of these. Looks good (I love the current yota device aesthetic) and being able to charge phone and something else is nice touch. The slidy issue isn't a problem for me, I'd probably use the wired connection by default anyway.
And it's pretty, like a pretty but chubby younger yotaphone sibling.