Database Users

Power requirements of Universal

When I plug my MDA Pro into my PC it draws 460mA of current at 4.75V and the orange charging light always comes on.
I have bought a car charger - when the MDA Pro is plugged into that it also draws 460mA at 5.04V but the Pro doesn't always seem to realise it is being charged - the orange charging light doesn't come on and the backlight switches off so I cant see the SatNav! (when the light goes off the current goes down to 430mA)
The charger was bought of eBay from shop4hardware/PCglobe for £9.99 and it looks well made.
Any ideas what is going wrong? Has anyone got a 12V charger they are happy with - if so where did it come from and how much??
ceemjay the tight fisted

I bought a car charger off eBay, and while the orange light does come on and stay on, it doesn't seem to charge very effectively. If i'm using something like TomTom the charger manages to keep the battery charge level just about constant, rather than building up charge.
Is this a problem with the Universal? I had a Blue Angel before the Universal, and the car charger I had for that was very effective.
Cheers
Rowan

I had this problem too and solved it by purchasing an "orange" (UK mobile phone operator) branded charger for 10 quid from one of their shops. I have no issues now.
What i did notice when I had the problem was by ensuring the xda was off prior to plugging in the old charger, it would continue to stay orange when turned on. I think this problem is a common one with the usb cable & car charger adaptors combo.

i bought one from expansys, what i noticed:
1. It takes a lot of jiggling, pushing, pulling and twisting to get it recognised by the device (organge light on)
2. When it charges, it does so slowly, i think about 1% per 10 minutes or so, or about 10% per hour.
My two bobs worth anyway.

Many of the mini USB car chargers are simply not powerful enough to charge these devices. They all have the same voltage but the amps are different. I read somewhere that good M5000 car chargers should be rated at 1amp, I'm not sure about this but I've certainly had trouble with ones at around 600mah.
With the under powered chargers you often have to plug them in while the device is switched off. Even then it's not going to charge as well or as quickly. Getting them to start charging without turning you device off is just down to luck and patience.
My advice is to look for chargers that are specific for the M5000 etc. If it also mentions Motorola phones etc, then it's not going to have the required power output.
I hope this helps...
I bought an ORA one from a service station (phone bitz type shop), it was a bit expensive but I needed one in a hurry and you can test them in the store.

as per my earlier post - m5000 is orange branded htc universal, aka o2 xda exec. I believe mine stated it was for the spv500 and it still worked fine...

The universal wants a 2 amp charger really. the 0.5 amp from most chargers including USB ports just is not enough to do much more than stop your battery draining whilst your universal is in use !! other useful alternatives include the charger meant for the newish blackberry

Thanks for all the comments.
The charger that comes with the Pro is rated at 1A however I believe the USB spec only allows up to 500mA to be drawn (as I orginally posted it draws just below that) and I have never had a problem with charging via USB. Hence my confusion!
Is the charging software controlled and might there may be a bug which manifests itself under circumstances?
Clive

The Brodit active holder charges the universal first time everytime, and is a very good place to store the phone on the move. I've got a 3.5mm input on my car stereo and use my phone as my in car music source. If I could get a 3.5mm 4 pole to 3.5mm stereo plug and breakout mic it would be perfect since I could use it as decent handsfree solution, voice command can still use the built in mic when the stereo connection is inserted but the phone app doesn't.

The Brodit holders are nice. I prefer the unpowered version, so I use a separate charger cable. But I agree good holders.

USB charging

My new M3100 is great, apart from one thing. I seem unable to charge it using any of the three in-car adapters I have that worked a treat with my Prophet.
Anyone know if this is an issue, or just specific to my M3100 (which appears to not be charging properly even when on USB or mains adapter)?
Cheers,
Sam

i have tried 2 different USB car chargers and neither have worked. Last one was 1A but still no joy.

Did you drain up the batt? I mean, was it full discharged when you attemped to recharge it? I have the same problem, no way to recharge it, at least the orange light doesn't show up.
If i try it at home, no prob. But what with a usb? no way

There are issues with some car charger USB connections.
I do not suffer this problem because I find it very useful to have an "inverter" permanently in the car. For those that have not seen these, it is a device that converts the battery voltage to mains supply voltage. This allows you to plug in as if you were at home. Handy for your hermes, laptop, phone etc etc without the hassle of special in car setups - just plug in with your normal mains plug. Most of these devices just plug into your cigarette lighter socket, although I have mine permanently wired in - so I also have the socket still available.
here is a UK example but I imagine they are available for all countries:
http://www.caravantechnology.com/pr...&selection=1&gclid=CMn-1fXq1YoCFR2UEAodLSvYLw
There is a known issue on car charging where the device will only charge when switched off. If this is your problem see the wiki here or my link below.
http://michael channon
Mike

I've had that problem too. Strangely enough, restarting my 8525 gets the car charger to start working

try powering off your unit, it will get the orange light. Turn it back on after 5 mins and the charging will hold. not sure why.

I was having the same problem as mentioned above with a usb car charger that came with my GPS, however I just received my car charger from HTC FINALLY! With the HTC car charger and home charger, I have no issues charging the Hermes where I sometimes run into problems with say a generic motorola or igo power adapter - these sometimes require me to restart my device before charging begins.
By the way, I am going on a trip where I'll be away from power for 4 days ... can anyone recommed a portable cell phone charger that runs either off of AA batteries or solar power?

I think there is another thread about this somewhere, but I don't have time to look it up. I've had this same problem with several chargers that worked fine on my Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard). History is that there is a firmware issue on the TyTN that checks for a data pin in the USB interface coming from the charger, and if it doesn't have the right voltage on it, the phone doesn't charge. When you totally power down the device (holding down power button for a while and then hitting yes to the power down question), then the charger works. It's when the device is in standby that it doesn't work right, because the firmware checks for the pin to be correct, doesn't find it, and disables the charging circuitry.

Battery will not charge using Brodit active car holder

Since I upgraded my Trinity using the official HTC rom update I have found that my device will not charge when it's in the brodit active holder in my car. The orange light comes on as if it is charging but when i check the power status i note the power drop over a period of time.
The device will charge without any problem when it is connected to my PC via the usb cable, it also charges without any problem when i use the mains power adaptor.
Initially I thought perhaps my brodit was faulty so i bought a new one, still i have the same problem.
Any suggestions from anyone?
Thanks,
Robert

I recognized very slow charging with my device over USB in comparison to my older PDAs. The reason must be something with the available current over USB (max. 500 mA). Maybe this is also the reason for your problem with the Brodit holder.
Try a separate car charger. They are available quite cheap with a standard USB plug.

Wookie said:
I recognized very slow charging with my device over USB in comparison to my older PDAs. The reason must be something with the available current over USB (max. 500 mA). Maybe this is also the reason for your problem with the Brodit holder.
Try a separate car charger. They are available quite cheap with a standard USB plug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, this is a question that needs answering. On my Prophet I could plug it into my car 12v cig with an 850mah usb adapter and it would power the device for navigation and also charge it at the same time. Now with my Trinity, it seems to have a hard time keeping up, so I bought a new high powered adapter (2,000mah). It still doesn't seem to be charging very fast although it seems to be able to keep up with the device power usage. Is there a charging problem with the Trinity with some roms?

After trying multiple car chargers, most of which wouldn't even power the charge light on my Trin let alone charge the battery I opted to spend a few quid and bought the Carcomm CMPC-96. It works a treat and charges the battery very quickly even when i'm running tomtom and making and taking calls at the same time. I can't figure out why my brodit holders wouldn't produce enough power to charge the battery but this Carcomm product is the Dogs !

Unsufficient charging

Hi commumity,
was using my Ameo today in my car. BT and phone activated, screen maximum brightness.
I have a 12V / 230V converter installed providing 160W continously. While using phone and contacts throughout the day, battery power dropped more and mmre though my device was connected to power supply. In the afternoon it ran out of power starting with loosing the connection to vodafone.
Who has similar experiences, who has a better way of charging in car?
best regards
dieter

My old car charger which works fine with all my old WM devices does not supply enough power for my Ameo.
My Brodit powered holder does.

Confucious said:
My old car charger which works fine with all my old WM devices does not supply enough power for my Ameo.
My Brodit powered holder does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that. This has been discussed numerous times - you need to check the ampage of your charger. If it's niot supplying enough, turn the screen brightness right down.

Well i guess its time for a little electrical networks lesson.
this phone consumes, under typical use about 300mAh, so if you have the screen on bright and the phone on with bluetooth your going to be using more than that and don't forget you still need to charge the battery and to top it all off your device will start to get hot and nothing kills a battery more than heat.
Solution: you need to make sure that you get a car charger that has an output of at least 1A... remember it will work with less but it won't charge as fast. usually but not always, you can find this information somewhere on the charger.
hope this helped

Output of 1A is one thing, but it seems that HTC devices (the Athena for one) more ways for charging. The orignal car charger from HTC does power the device fast(I have the charger for a few days now and can confirm that). There is also adapter cable available that allows fast charging. See the following post and post. It looks like the original HTC connectors use different pins on the connector for fast/powerfull charging

dpbakker said:
Output of 1A is one thing, but it seems that HTC devices (the Athena for one) more ways for charging. The orignal car charger from HTC does power the device fast(I have the charger for a few days now and can confirm that). There is also adapter cable available that allows fast charging. See the following post and post. It looks like the original HTC connectors use different pins on the connector for fast/powerfull charging
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you're right. The original car charger does charge very well my Dopod with the screen turns to maximum, phone, bluetooth and GPS all are turned on.

Would anyone please care to post a direct link to a fast 1A car charger in the UK? I tried looking at the HTC ones at expansys but wasn't sure which were official and which weren't. Thanks

Yeah, a link for a good charger in The Netherland would be apriciated as well!
Thank in advance.

The official HTC car charger
for NL: http://www.expansys.nl/p.aspx?i=145177
for UK: http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=145177

yaughan said:
Would anyone please care to post a direct link to a fast 1A car charger in the UK? I tried looking at the HTC ones at expansys but wasn't sure which were official and which weren't. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Brodit mount has car charging built in and is also extremely sturdy. Available from Brodit dealers

dieterpapa said:
Hi commumity,
was using my Ameo today in my car. BT and phone activated, screen maximum brightness.
I have a 12V / 230V converter installed providing 160W continously. While using phone and contacts throughout the day, battery power dropped more and mmre though my device was connected to power supply. In the afternoon it ran out of power starting with loosing the connection to vodafone.
Who has similar experiences, who has a better way of charging in car?
best regards
dieter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen the ameo using over 1.2A
Device turning to hot to handle...
But then again mineis back with T-mobile for repairs...
Wich sucks bigtime
had the device 1 week
T-mobile has it 3 weeks
Told me it would take 2-3 weeks, now they say they don't know when it will be ready

Emergency charger and Tytn II

Hello, I've just bought an emergency charger for my Kaiser. It takes the power from an AA battery and gives the USB voltage in the output. It works great with my Mio A 501, but doesn't work at all with the Kaiser. I did a quick search and found this in a discussion about car chargers:
Are you using the HTC charger or an OEM one?
The HTC charger works all the time the OEM ones don't - the reason being that if you use a normal Mini USB cable, the handsets will only take a charge if there is an indication of a data connection (either than gprs or the cable) - otherwise it won't take a charge.
You can apparently solder a couple of wires together on a normal mini USB cable - but I wouldn't know where to start on that!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now I've already heard of that, for example, a Play Station Portable needs the data wires in the USB grounded in order to charge. Is it the same with Kaiser? (putting three wires together isn't a big deal) Or is there an easier way how to make it charge?

So, I gave it a try and soldered the data wires with the ground wire. But when I try to charge the Kaiser, a yellow led starts to glow (which it didn't with the original cable) and, after a minute or two, the led goes off and Kaiser stops charging. When I turn the Kaiser off and then plug the cable in, the yellow led doesn't go off. However, when I turn Kaiser back on to check the battery meter (after about half an hour), I find out that the battery didn't take any charge at all. So, could anyone tell me what the problem is?
thanks, Mike
PS.: Adding some photos of the wires...

Probably because of the voltage...
Hey!
Have you checked the output voltage of this charger? Standard charger outputs 5V. If yours outputs less - the battery won't charge; if outputs more - you may "burn" your PDA chipsets
5V - 5.5V is safe range.

I found this on thinkgeek.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/b43f/
It says for iPhone, but sure it would work just fine with other devices that have issues.

had a same problem but using it in the car...
when i got my tytn2 i immediately bought a car charger and the salesman told it's an original one, said output 5v 1A.. when using in the car it charged for a minute or two and went off... than i got from ebay a micro usb 1A charger (used for iPhone too) and tried in the car-> it work flawlessly