Database Users

charge exec with an ipod charger?

I have a mini usb lead with me but not the exec charger. Can I just plug this into an IPOD or Blackberry charger and will this charge it?

I think you can without problem...
However, there is a small issue:
The usb standard specifies a maximum 500mA current for the usb supply (over 5V), but to charge the Universal in a reasonable amount of time more is necessary (The supplied one is 1A)
I succesfully charged the battery using a motorola psu, and in the same way you can charge it leaving it attached to the PC usb port.
I am pretty sure there is no risk for the phone but it is possible to overload the power supply - you better check it does not run too hot. Also, put the phone in flight mode and turn it off, to minimize the amount of total power used

I think you can without problem...
However, there is a small issue:
The usb standard specifies a maximum 500mA current for the usb supply (And 5V), but to charge the Universal in a reasonable amount of time more is necessary - The supplied one is 1A - I succesfully charged the battery using a motorola psu.
I am pretty sure there is no risk for the phone but it is possible to uverload the power supply - you better check it does not run too hot. Also, put the phone in flight mode and turn it off, to minimize the amount of total power used

ciaranfo said:
I have a mini usb lead with me but not the exec charger. Can I just plug this into an IPOD or Blackberry charger and will this charge it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure which ipod charger you talking about, personally i use the original one from apple (white with the USB plug) and it wks fine. The original charger for universal also has the same current rating of 1A @ 5V so I guess it shouldn't overload it.

Yes, I charge my Universal with a BlackBerry charger from time-to-time.
Keep in mind what TheDayOfCondor said about the original charger putting out 1 amp while the BlackBerry charger is only rated for 0.5 although I haven't had any issues.

right, that's good to know. thanks.

Portable Charger!

We (noordwyk & Me) managed to put together a Portable Charger for the Diamond. I have attached some pics:
noordwyk will soon post the diagram

Sounds cool anychance of some more info: Like what you used and a diagram to show how it's wired? Please.

When i get time I shall upload a graph

For everyone without soldering skills - there are plenty of portable external chargers for sale, even one from HTC:
HTC Battery Bank BB G300

i've bought a couple of portable chargers. Neither of them worked. In bothe cases i plugged them in and my diamond showed itself as being connected to a power source on the task bar. The light ring pulsed in the charge pattern also. However after a few minutes of "charging" once removed the battery level is lower than when i plugged it in. This is the case whether i had the diamond on or off when charging. Chargers work fine using different adaptors on other none wm phones. The thought i had was that the chargers were outputting enough to power the charging circuit but not enough to charge. This in turn is draining the battery. any thoughts ppl??

optiknerv said:
i've bought a couple of portable chargers. Neither of them worked. In bothe cases i plugged them in and my diamond showed itself as being connected to a power source on the task bar. The light ring pulsed in the charge pattern also. However after a few minutes of "charging" once removed the battery level is lower than when i plugged it in. This is the case whether i had the diamond on or off when charging. Chargers work fine using different adaptors on other none wm phones. The thought i had was that the chargers were outputting enough to power the charging circuit but not enough to charge. This in turn is draining the battery. any thoughts ppl??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Portable chargers and HTC don't go together. You MUST switch your phone off to charge it otherwise the PMS will get confused and keep changing power sources like External > Internal > External > Internal and so on. Just like a light switch when you turn it on it takes more power than just leaving it on for 10 minutes. Portable chargers have a charge rate of ~250 mA which is 1/4 of a Official HTC Charger.
Conclusion: If you want to use a portable charger ONLY use it after turning your phone off otherwise its USeLESS

mohamedhussain1995 said:
Portable chargers and HTC don't go together. You MUST switch your phone off to charge it otherwise the PMS will get confused and keep changing power sources like External > Internal > External > Internal and so on. Just like a light switch when you turn it on it takes more power than just leaving it on for 10 minutes. Portable chargers have a charge rate of ~250 mA which is 1/4 of a Official HTC Charger.
Conclusion: If you want to use a portable charger ONLY use it after turning your phone off otherwise its USeLESS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it the same for car chargers ? If so, how can we power the device for, say, using GPS navigation for long trips ?

mysterd said:
Is it the same for car chargers ? If so, how can we power the device for, say, using GPS navigation for long trips ?
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Click to collapse
Nope! Car Chargers work well. I use one regularly - specifically for the reason you mentioned- usage of GPS while on long trips.

mohamedhussain1995 said:
Portable chargers and HTC don't go together. You MUST switch your phone off to charge it otherwise the PMS will get confused and keep changing power sources like External > Internal > External > Internal and so on. Just like a light switch when you turn it on it takes more power than just leaving it on for 10 minutes. Portable chargers have a charge rate of ~250 mA which is 1/4 of a Official HTC Charger.
Conclusion: If you want to use a portable charger ONLY use it after turning your phone off otherwise its USeLESS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically what i thought then. I must be getting particularly rubbish ones because they dont even work when the phone is off. I gave up on them a few months ago and just bought a spare battery and charger. Quite cheap off ebay and a battery is a smaller item to carry than a portable charger.

mohamedhussain1995 said:
I managed to put together a Portable Charger for the Diamond. I have attached some pics:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be quite interested to see a wiring diagram of this too, it'd be great to be able to just grab a 9v and charge up on the run...

mohamedhussain1995 said:
a light switch when you turn it on it takes more power than just leaving it on for 10 minutes
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Click to collapse
is this true ?

lastnikita said:
is this true ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its true in the UK

Shouldn't be too hard to build. Take one of these (high efficiency!), solder the 9V battery adapter and the mini-usb cable to it and your're done. Only thing I worry about is the capacity. You get NiMH 9V cells at approx 250 mAh. Given the battery voltage is 9V, you get a total energy of 8.1 kJ stored in it, which translates to 450 mAh at 5V (input voltage of device). Given that this back-of-the-envelope calculation does not take conversion losses in account, you can be happy if you get 20-30% charge out of it. Maybe you could wire several 9V batteries in parallel so you get more charge out of it. Which I am gonna try out right away .

lastnikita said:
is this true ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. MythBusters tried it out. Turning on an incandescent light bulb (60W I think?) uses about the same power as leaving it on for 17 seconds. Fluorescent light bulbs didn't use significantly more power to turn on.

smjoshi said:
Nope! Car Chargers work well. I use one regularly - specifically for the reason you mentioned- usage of GPS while on long trips.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok...
The only problem is that my Diamond seems to use more power than what is provided by the car charger... So the car charger limits the discharge, but that's all.
On my old prophet, I could have used GPS for days (using a bluetooth external GPS of course).
It's a pity the diamond is not as power efficient.

mysterd said:
Ok...
The only problem is that my Diamond seems to use more power than what is provided by the car charger... So the car charger limits the discharge, but that's all.
On my old prophet, I could have used GPS for days (using a bluetooth external GPS of course).
It's a pity the diamond is not as power efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you. A fellow XDA member posted somewhere here that he started of with 100% for a 6 Hour journey using his diamond and when he got to his destination he said it was around 30% left!

It's not too hard to build one, as soon as I remember, it's adapter (for the battery), 5V regulator and a female USB (it's easier to find, you use your sync cable and you can charge other things, MP3 players, portable speakers etc.).
Am I right, or you have different design.
Also, you can use 4 1.5V batteries, I've got few 1900mAh of them, so they should last longer. Also, I think the regular 9V battery is bigger than 250mAh.

Well i soon will be updating my E42M website with this years invetions so visit it when you can
See my signature

Faster USB Charging?

I remember on my WinMo phones there was a program to speed up the charging through a USB port. Anyone know of a similar app, hack, what have you for our Heros?

all that ever got me was an overheated phone. and defective batteries

Negrito said:
I remember on my WinMo phones there was a program to speed up the charging through a USB port. Anyone know of a similar app, hack, what have you for our Heros?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you could try a wireless charger, or use the normal wall charger or get a 3rd party battery.
I use a 3rd party battery, and my phone charges from Dead, to full in under 2 hours. i think my brand battery is a radioshack one but i dont remember, and im too lazy to look lol

If the phone detects that it's hooked to a USB port, it'll charge more slowly because the typical computer port will only output 500 mA. A wall charger typically does a full amp.

codelockdown said:
you could try a wireless charger, or use the normal wall charger or get a 3rd party battery.
I use a 3rd party battery, and my phone charges from Dead, to full in under 2 hours. i think my brand battery is a radioshack one but i dont remember, and im too lazy to look lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No thank you, i dont need something else to carry around. I work next to a computer. it just sucks that if my phone is near dead in the am when i arrive to work it will have to be tethered to the computer most of the day to fully recharge.
kynetx said:
If the phone detects that it's hooked to a USB port, it'll charge more slowly because the typical computer port will only output 500 mA. A wall charger typically does a full amp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, thank you. i know. that's why i am asking for a program to trick the device into believing its always the wall charger while its plugged into anything with that program running.

Negrito said:
yes, thank you. i know. that's why i am asking for a program to trick the device into believing its always the wall charger while its plugged into anything with that program running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no point in "tricking" the device to think it's the wall charger because what you want is the phone to charge up, not to beleive it's charged up when it's not. The usb port will not output more than 500mA. The phone will only charge as fast as 500mA will get you, no matter what tricks we try to pull on them.

daveli said:
There is no point in "tricking" the device to think it's the wall charger because what you want is the phone to charge up, not to beleive it's charged up when it's not. The usb port will not output more than 500mA. The phone will only charge as fast as 500mA will get you, no matter what tricks we try to pull on them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, most USB 2.0 ports can unofficially support up to 1000mA (which is indeed out of spec), with the only limitation from the device itself which when in spec will not draw more than 500mA. This is why no2chem's Fastcharge worked on WinMo phones, by increasing the maximum limit on the device.

Rootwind said:
Actually, most USB 2.0 ports can unofficially support up to 1000mA (which is indeed out of spec), with the only limitation from the device itself which when in spec will not draw more than 500mA. This is why no2chem's Fastcharge worked on WinMo phones, by increasing the maximum limit on the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the clarification, It's good to learn something new every day

Rootwind said:
Actually, most USB 2.0 ports can unofficially support up to 1000mA (which is indeed out of spec), with the only limitation from the device itself which when in spec will not draw more than 500mA. This is why no2chem's Fastcharge worked on WinMo phones, by increasing the maximum limit on the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for this post, i couldnt remember no2chem's nick to save my life. I wonder how he feels about dev in android.

daveli said:
There is no point in "tricking" the device to think it's the wall charger because what you want is the phone to charge up, not to beleive it's charged up when it's not. The usb port will not output more than 500mA. The phone will only charge as fast as 500mA will get you, no matter what tricks we try to pull on them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know where you're coming from, but the phone will indeed pull more current when it detects it's on a wall charger. I specifically remember seeing it in the manual.

Has anybody heard anything new on this matter, I really hate not being able to charge at 1A from a computer USB anymore. 500mA is pretty much useless, especially in constant usage, it pretty much just maintains the current %.

from less than 10% to 100% in about 30 minutes when plugged into the wall...turn your phone off while charging!! itll charge so much faster!!

This was specifically about usb....

I seem to remember hearing you can tweak some usb wires (I guess remove the data pins) so the phone thinks it's on AC but I'd want to have connectivity as well as the swift charging. Otherwise I'd have to have two cords on me, though I wonder if the phone charges "AC speed" while off (since there's no mind to talk to the PC's OS)

Negrito said:
I remember on my WinMo phones there was a program to speed up the charging through a USB port. Anyone know of a similar app, hack, what have you for our Heros?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup, i remember that too, it was called fast charge.

iviyth0s said:
I seem to remember hearing you can tweak some usb wires (I guess remove the data pins) so the phone thinks it's on AC but I'd want to have connectivity as well as the swift charging. Otherwise I'd have to have two cords on me, though I wonder if the phone charges "AC speed" while off (since there's no mind to talk to the PC's OS)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this does't work, as I have a cable with no data pins (it's a cheapy charge cable only) and it's still slow on a pc to charge.

Get a USB 3.0 port.

swears11 said:
Get a USB 3.0 port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ummm... you mean you would have to buy a whole new mobo with usb3.0 support.

I have a belkin travel power surge protector with 3 outlets and 2 usb ports on it. The phone, when plugged into it, doesn't detect that it is plugged into AC power and just charges at USB speeds. Anybody know why? Will it only charge at AC speed if it detects the HTC supplied Ac adapter?

danaff37 said:
I know this does't work, as I have a cable with no data pins (it's a cheapy charge cable only) and it's still slow on a pc to charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a cheapy cable too and that might be why it's still slow. I don't use the cable anymore because my TP used to charge at like 200mAh with it.
swears11 said:
Get a USB 3.0 port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the problem here is with the software not hardware lol, all someone has to do is change the value of "when connected to computer: Charge 1A" instead of "when connected to computer: Charge 0.5A" (simplified of course)
gunnyman said:
I have a belkin travel power surge protector with 3 outlets and 2 usb ports on it. The phone, when plugged into it, doesn't detect that it is plugged into AC poer and just charges at USB speeds. Anybody know why? Will it only charge at AC speed if it detects the HTC supplied Ac adapter?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it was a stupid idea to ever limit the charge speed. lol
If only I knew how to program or to edit code, I'd so fix this for all of us >_<

Speed of charge

I've tried searching, but came up with nothing (not even on Google).
It seems to me that my HD2 charges up much quicker when connected to the mains than it does when charging via USB - is this correct ? I'd prefer to only charge via USB as, that way, the phone is still syncing, but it sometimes takes forever to get to full charge that way.
Just wanted to get others' opinions on this.

wilsojer said:
I've tried searching, but came up with nothing (not even on Google).
It seems to me that my HD2 charges up much quicker when connected to the mains than it does when charging via USB - is this correct ? I'd prefer to only charge via USB as, that way, the phone is still syncing, but it sometimes takes forever to get to full charge that way.
Just wanted to get others' opinions on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The wall charger charges at 1 amp.
USB, with a powered USB socket, will max out at half that due to the 500mA standard that USB uses.
So, in theory, it should take twice as long to charge on USB alone.

Plus the 500mA limit on USB is spread across several physical ports, so if you have anything else plugged in then you'll be charging at an even lower rate.

Good to know - thanks, guys - I learnt something new today
Guess I'll charge via mains going forward.
Thanks again !

plus when connected to active sync the phone is on, when its I wall charger it will be on standby.

Despite HTC shipping a 1A charger (which is the most I've ever seen for a USB charger) Lion battery prefer not to get cooked while charging and would last longer if charged at 500ma.

rp-x1 said:
The wall charger charges at 1 amp.
USB, with a powered USB socket, will max out at half that due to the 500mA standard that USB uses.
So, in theory, it should take twice as long to charge on USB alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
samsamuel said:
plus when connected to active sync the phone is on, when its I wall charger it will be on standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exact, the phone actually limits what it draws from an USB port to about 450mA (some safety margin). Then, is stays powered on and active (due to ActiveSync running), drawing approx 100mA. So it actually charges at about 450-100= 350mA, taking ridiculously long (4-5h) to charge. With the supplied charger it charges at 850mA.
Aterlatus said:
Plus the 500mA limit on USB is spread across several physical ports, so if you have anything else plugged in then you'll be charging at an even lower rate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong, each port gets 500mA.
airwater9 said:
Despite HTC shipping a 1A charger (which is the most I've ever seen for a USB charger) Lion battery prefer not to get cooked while charging and would last longer if charged at 500ma.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Li batteries support 1C charge without drawback (would be 1.32A for the HD2's battery).

Wrong, each port gets 500mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Incorrect. The USB standard requires 500mAh nominal at any port when used alone. Manufacturers then decide whether they will "over specify" or not. You will not get 2mAh from a 4 port USB bus unless the internal power supply its built for it and many are not. Current is drawn by the device and if the draw exceeds the supply rating then there is a shortfall to all devices. It all depends on how well the equipment is specified and there its wide variation.

More details about charging here

pa49 said:
Incorrect. The USB standard requires 500mAh nominal at any port when used alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read page 171 of the USB 2.0 specification:
Root port hubs: Are directly attached to the USB Host Controller. Hub power is derived from the same
source as the Host Controller. Systems that obtain operating power externally, either AC or DC, must
supply at least five unit loads to each port. Such ports are called high-power ports. Battery-powered
systems may supply either one or five unit loads. Ports that can supply only one unit load are termed lowpower
ports.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A port is either low power, in which case it can supply 1 unit load (100mA), or high power, which can supply 500mA. There's no spreading between ports, for each port if it's a high power one it must be able to supply 500mA at any time, if it's a low power one it will never provide more than 100mA. So there's no such thing as one that provides 500mA if used alone and less if others are connected... or the manufacturer is violating the spec.
Note that low power ports pretty much don't exist on PCs. They can be found on multimedia players with host function for example, which are just good to power a USB key or card reader.
Further on the page you can see that with hubs that don't have external power, the output ports are required to be low power ones, so that a 4-port hub can give one of the 5 unit loads it receives to each port, plus one for its own power, so you can't draw 500mA on any port of a bus-powered hub and be within spec.
Now if you could refrain from misleading users... can't count anymore how many times I've corrected you on your firm affirmations...

Faster USB charging?

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)