Database Users

"USB" connector

I have previously made up very short charging leads to use with earlier PDAs and my Arkon car mount. Having just got the Touch HD I was dismayed to see the "non-standard" USB connector. I cannot find a supplier of plugs to fit these anywhere. There are plenty of cheap car chargers around claiming to fit Touch HD, but I wonder if they do? Do they expect me to use the cable that came with the HD? I don't want to hack that one around. So any ideas? Can I buy a cheap sync cable and modify that? Can I get the plugs I need?

I thought the same thing but it turns out the normal usb plugs fit the HD.

You can just use a normal mini-usb male connector, it fits the same way as in a normal female usb-connector, at least for charging and mounting the phone as harddisk on a pc it works. i think even acticesync should work, 'cause its a normal usb-connection it uses.
greetings
Seth

Well, even activsync will work, at least it work on my HD, you can even flash your HD trough normal USB cable. Check - http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=BlackstoneFAQ.
Jakkuz

Wonderful! Many thanks everyone. I already have a car and mains charger with normal mini-usb connectors. Problem solved
I wonder why they made the connector like that?

pastyman said:
Wonderful! Many thanks everyone. I already have a car and mains charger with normal mini-usb connectors. Problem solved
I wonder why they made the connector like that?
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Click to collapse
I suspect they were considering some proprietary nonsense at some point

HD2's data cable.. is it micro USB?

I can't seem to find a usb to "whatever it is" wire selling..
is it a standard micro USB port?

leobox1 said:
I can't seem to find a usb to "whatever it is" wire selling..
is it a standard micro USB port?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes... u r rite... itz a MICRO USB...

But it can't supply power to a USB device, so it can't be used like a PC USB port. It's only good for recharging and syncing.

so if i want to buy an additional wire, i look for a USB to MICRO USB wire right? no need to buy from HTC right?
cause i saw one usb that is smaller but it doesn't fit.. is there a MINI USB port too?
am confused

Stephen Selby said:
But it can't supply power to a USB device, so it can't be used like a PC USB port. It's only good for recharging and syncing.
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Click to collapse
Erm yes it can,

Actually better take the device with you. Sellers here told me there is like 7 different very similar connectors. However this one should be the standard micro USB, which is supposed to be universal charger/sync cable in the future (at least in EU).
And yes, of course, there is mini USB. And there even are more versions of mini USB, for example HTC used their own.

You had better use HTC cables. HD2 is microusb, but not all microusb cables are good for HD2. Like iPhone, it takes a large charging current, and many no brand cables cannot do it. I've got a third party cable that syncs only, but if charged from the PC, the HD2 will say that the charging current is too small. Battery actually drops when I connect HD2 to PC using this cable (because my options set it that backlight is always on when HD2 is connected). Other combinations are OK:
original cable + AC plug: charging OK
original cable + PC: charging OK
third party cable + AC plug: charging OK
third party cable + PC: "insufficient charging current"

Be careful with cables- you'd be better to buy the genuine HTC version.
Many USB/MicroUSB cables are for charging only, and don't have the data pins connected. Thats OK if you just want to charge it while you are away from your main PC or power supply.
You can also buy a miniUSB/MicroUSB adapter for charging using and older miniSUB charger, but again these don't have the data pins connected.

I bought a number of 3rd party USB to microUSB cables a month ago for sync and charging (office, PC, bedside charging), so far so good... no issues (maybe I'm lucky). The OmniaII uses the same connector, so I'm using the HTC car charger to charge both.

I bought Nokia's cable (for E71,N97,etc.) and it work just fine with charging from laptop. much cheaper than HTC in here.

if you are going for the cheapo option...
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=MICRO+USB+SYNC%26+CHARGE+CABLE+for+HTC+HD2+HD+2+Leo+T8585
i got a couple from ebay - arrived the next day. - charge/sync fine.

charger from iPhone
The iPhone charger coud be used for charging HD2. Just plug the microUSB cord instead of iPhones and ... voila. The same outputs

N86-8megapixel cable doesnt work..
So I managed to leave my HTC cable at work (2 days after getting the Telstra HD2 in OZ) and now I am on 4-5 days leave from work and really want to tinker with my phone. I think I may end up having to go back to work to collect the HTC cable - as below... challenge to get non-HTC cable to work.
I found that my wife's N86-8megapixel nokia has a similar micro-usb cable.
When connected to the PC the phone starts charging and the PC does the "doo-doop" sound a "appears" to connect to the phone, but active sync cannot detect the phone \ sync.
I see others have had success with nokia cables - I am wondering if there is something wierd going on.

Can I just get a mini to micro usb adapter and use my G1 charger?

Sorry if this seems noobish but if I get one of those cheap little mini usb to micro usb adapters, can I use it to connect my Nexus One to my old G1 wall charger. Is there any difference in voltage or whatever that might damage the new phone?
EDIT: One of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=380195084986&view=all&tid=147583237025

You should be able to do that without any issues whatsoever. Same power output, different plug.

Great, thanks

actually this is incorrect.
the g1 uses htc's proprietary ext usb connector format which is not the same as mini usb.
This means that a micro to mini usb adapter will NOT work on the g1 charger.

dwang said:
actually this is incorrect.
the g1 uses htc's proprietary ext usb connector format which is not the same as mini usb.
This means that a micro to mini usb adapter will NOT work on the g1 charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I don't get what you mean? I have connected my G1 with loads of different mini usb cables (Nokia ones, printer ones, the one that came for charging my PS3 controllers) and it seems to work fine. I have also used the G1 charger to charge a bluetooth headset. Seems standard to me

I have the G1 and the N1 and got the micro-USB adapters. They work with the car and wall chargers just fine. I even used the adapter on a cable and charged off a PC. It's fine.

3Shirts said:
Sorry, I don't get what you mean? I have connected my G1 with loads of different mini usb cables (Nokia ones, printer ones, the one that came for charging my PS3 controllers) and it seems to work fine. I have also used the G1 charger to charge a bluetooth headset. Seems standard to me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A g1 will work with a mini usb cable, but the g1 charger cable is extusb fromat which means those mini to micro usb will not work.
all you have to do is look at a mini usb cable and compare it to the g1 usb cable/charger. The connectors are NOT the same.

dwang said:
actually this is incorrect.
the g1 uses htc's proprietary ext usb connector format which is not the same as mini usb.
This means that a micro to mini usb adapter will NOT work on the g1 charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Early model G1's came with an incorrect charger that was standard usb-mini B so it is possible that you can if you have that charger

student.driver said:
I have the G1 and the N1 and got the micro-USB adapters. They work with the car and wall chargers just fine. I even used the adapter on a cable and charged off a PC. It's fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that wasn't the OP's question.

I thought extusb just had extra pins for audio? Since the connector is physically the same wouldn't the adapter just lack the audio pins and thus not be able to pass those through (not a problem if you just want to charge)?

godsfilth said:
Early model G1's came with an incorrect charger that was standard usb-mini B so it is possible that you can if you have that charger
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, that explains it. I just looked more closely and I see that the G1 socket is a different shape with only one indent (obviously extusb) but the plug on the charger is indented on both sides (standard mini usb). I guess this is how they extusb is backwards compatible.
In other words, my G1 charger is usb mini B so the adapters will work. Amazingotron
EDIT: This does raise the question, why would they use extusb for the chargers anyway? There is no audio to pass through and since standard mini usb is compatible, it must be cheaper to stick one of those in the box than a proprietary-ended charger.

I have two G1s, and one was a preorder. The wallworts were different but the connector plugs are the same: mini-USB. I use my adapter on my G1 charger.

An adapter should work fine, the US cable and the headphones that came with the G1 had the extusb connector, the charger however was normal mini-USB.

using a microusb works fine for me too even for data transfers to pc.
anyone notice though that the n1 charges REALLY SLOW when it's using the G1 charger? i'm in vegas right now and using my g1 charger w/ a microusb. I left my N1 charger at home. But from about 50%, it took literally around 3 hours to charge back to 100%. The specs for output is [email protected] manufactured by PHIHONG

You can do, up to 1000 mA are allowed

Car Charger

Does anyone know if you can use the g1 car charger with the Samsung Vibrant? I read that the Samsung vibrant uses mini usb but of course that does not mean it will work properly. Thanks

No, the Vibrant is micro usb, not mini.

Pancake345 said:
Does anyone know if you can use the g1 car charger with the Samsung Vibrant? I read that the Samsung vibrant uses mini usb but of course that does not mean it will work properly. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, like it was said, micro usb, but on ebay you can find mini to micro usb converters... I bought 2 for .99 cent a piece shipped and they even transmit data, sadly one has some loose connections but the seller refunded me right away for it.
Other than that I am not sure it's the most efficient (I haven't looked at what the g1 power supply sends amp wise, nor the max the vibrant can take) but it would work, as long as you get the right male end (again, micro usb)
Also, there is a accessories forum that this would have been better suited for.
EDIT: Sorry, I may have spoke too soon. If it was an HTC charger it might not work since only one corner of the male end is cut and the other is straight, that is their proprietary male connector that has extra pins and will not fit in a female mini usb port. Now if it was an aftermarket that was a true mini usb, then you can get a converter... Otherwise you can just get a car charger that has the standard female USB A port and plug in any USB A to Micro cable... Point is, if it is USB you are on the right track.

Usb host on dell streak

Looks like the streak might have usb host... if you look in the sdcard settings it has the option to unmount ums (usb mass storage) devices and the option to format them.
Im on the 8105 2.1 o2 rom on a us att dell streak.
Ill make a cable soon to test but was wondering if anyone else tried th already
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

If the option can be found in 1.6, I may already have the hardware to test it.
This would be a beautiful thing!

I just so happened to have the correct hardware on hand to try this so I gave it a go, looks like it does! I'm actually typing this message with a USB keyboard- I can't get it to mount a USB drive yet, but I intend to brush up on my Linux commands and syntax tomorrow and try again- if I can get it to mount external storage, all of my dreams have officially come true (minus the Froyo, that is).
Edit: I'm on the MoDaCo custom ROM r2, 2.1 build 8105, for those interested.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

Hey there, real interested in what you did to mod your cable to handle this. Was it a matter of tying the OTG pin to ground?
Did the streak supply power over usb? Many android devices cant, but I believe given the right cable mod the streak can.

I didn't have to do any mods on mine, I have the home dock (which converts the Streak's port to miniUSB) and a dongle that has male miniUSB on one end and female standard USB on the other. Streak on the dock, dongle in the back of the dock, and keyboard into the dongle.
I don't know if it supplied power or not, what would be the best way to check? Multimeter across the power/gnd should give 5V regardless of if it's powered, do I need to check the amperage as well? I was thinking I might just try firing up the ol' G1 and plugging it in, to see if it charges.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

A good test would be to not have the dock plugged in to any power source. Dock your Streak, then use your adaptor with USB keyboard. Does it work? if so, the power is being supplied by the Streak.
If not, it doesn't prove that there is no way to get powered USB host out of the Streak, it would just show that it may require different connections (a modded cable or dock).

Then yes, it supplies power, my dock was unplugged the whole time. Rejoice! I foresee emulators with a USB gamepad in my near future...
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

That's great to hear! Game controller for EMU's is what I'm looking to do with it as well
Funny though, I tried the same with a gender changer a week or so ago and it didn't work for me. I think the difference must be that the cable you're plugging in to the dock must ground the OTG pin.
Unfortunately that probably means I'd either have to get a dock, or dissect and solder my USB cable to get the same.

Glad to see it works as i suspected. now all we need is some to make it mirror the display over the hdmi out
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

Ah, I wondered what that meant. I have the home dock and saw Win7 did something funny... it's all a bit beyond my abilities so I look forward to someone doing interesting things with it

how can we make a usb cable with "usb host" feature ?

mrmrmrmr said:
how can we make a usb cable with "usb host" feature ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EiHter using the media dock with a male mini usb to female usb adapter, or i think using the standard usb cable with a female to female adapter placed on the end should work too.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

keatonreckard said:
EiHter using the media dock with a male mini usb to female usb adapter, or i think using the standard usb cable with a female to female adapter placed on the end should work too.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately I don't think a female to female adaptor alone will do the trick with the Streak USB Cable. I have one here, and it's not working.
I believe the reason is the USB OTG pin needs to be grounded to identify that we are in USB OTG mode (pin 4 as identified here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDMI).
I think the reason it's working with the dock for that person is because the dock exposes that pin at the mini B port and the cable adaptor he's using is an OTG cable that grounds the pin.
I haven't tried modding my cable for this yet, but will soon. My soldering iron is in storage right now unfortunately.

Ok; I understand that we have to connect OTG pin (no 4 on PDMI) to GND (no 2 on PDMI)
Is that correct ?
Is there a way to do it on the other end (not the PDMI side but USB side) ?
Because I don't want to break my only Dell Streak data cable...

Unfortunately, no. only 4 wires run through the cable and are exposed at the other end. You would need a 5th (the USB ID, aka OTG lead).
So I just finished creating my own modded cable and it is working great.
I've attached pictures of the build here. I found that this only works in Android 2.1 (8150 build for me, may work with other 2.1 builds). 1.6 seems like it doesn't have the drivers for this.
DISCLAIMER: If you try to duplicate what I did here, you're taking the risk of damaging your cable beyond repair, and if you do something incorrectly and plug the cable in to your Streak, there is a definite possibility you will damage your streak permanently. So anything you do, do so carefully and at your own risk!
I will say this; this cable is HARD to de-shield! It has metal shield all around the parts we need to get to, and I had to cut with metal clippers and desolder parts of it to get the shielding off. Not pretty, and pretty risky for damaging the cable. I would advise you buy an extra cable before trying this. I didn't have an extra, but I was really risking not being able to charge my device or something if I broke my cable.
After removing the shielding you can see that there is a small PCB with traces marked 1 3 on the left, and then 2 5 on the right. These correspond to the PDMI specification at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDMI .
For my build, I chose to solder a switch to bridge the OTG pin 4 to GND pin 2. This way, my cable can still be used as a normal USB cable as well. In one image I have flipped the opened PDMI connector over and you can see an orange wire I have soldered on to pin4. (One side of the PDMI connector has ODD pins, like 1,3,5,7... the other side has EVEN 2,4,6,8...). Pin 2 is the first pin on the right on the EVEN side, and pin 4 is the second.
As was stated in earlier posts, you can use a female to female gender changer for the other end of the USB cable, rather than soldering on your own connector or something.
Note that having the cable in OTG mode when plugging your streak in to your computer or power adapter over USB could damage something because OTG mode will start outputting power over the same pins that it's usually inputting from!!!

0TheRain0,
This is great !
Thanks for sharing your findings.
I sent you a PM; please check it when you have time...

When I built my Dell Streak Mini USB adapter, I brought out PDMI pin 4 to the OTG pin on the Mini USB.
I tried it with 2 different cheap Mini USB to Standard USB ("A") female adapters, and tried several devices including a Apple Mini Keyboard/Hub, and USB Flash drives.
I also tried the same components on the Dell Home Dock.
They did not work, but I suspect that the Mini USB to Standard USB female adapters do not short the OTG pin to ground.
What we need is some that do. Then it would be plug and play at least for dock owners.
Edit:
These claim to enable USB host mode when Connected to a N800:
http://www.electronicproductonline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2043
Therefore Should require no modification to use with the dock, as long as the dock brings out pin 4, which as far as I remember, my testing said it did.

This thread is currently of great interest. Should it, in theory, be possible to hook up my Canon digi SLRs as mass storage devices then?
Sometimes being able to get the image onto a bigger screen has it's benefits. The Streak's screen is actually very well calibrated as well, compared to my hardware calibrated monitor!
In the ideal world i'd be able to tether and shoot using the streak (like I can with my laptop) but I'm realistic and know that's not likely to happen!
What I DON'T get is why Dell have put in USB host functionality without implementing it in the lead?

Well, I was going to hold off on cutting up a cable to try something, but I just had a cable go through the washer and dryer... and it was looking pretty bad and actually cut through the jacket and shielding on the wire... so I cut off the PDMI lead and about 3" of cable (right before the break).
Inside the jacket are 4 wires. Black, White, Green, Red. Obviously they correspond to the USB 2.0 spec... so I guess in some way, VDC, Ground, Data+, Data-... but no OTG wire.
Would anyone that opened up the connector know how these wire colors correspond?
What I really want is for my 80GB iPod to have it's music available to the Streak in my car, so here's what I was planning:
1) Cut up the Dell PDMI cable (done).
2) Cut up an old iPod to Firewire cable I have laying around
3) Splice VDC+ and Ground on the iPod and PDMI to the corresponding VDC+/Ground USB end of the original Dell Cable. This will plug into a 12V->USB Adapter (probably the Dell one) to power and charge both devices.
4) Splice the corresponding PDMI and iPod data transfer wires.
5) Ground OTG on Streak side and add a micro switch, like TheRain did...
I can then wrap this up in some custom cable thing shround thing that I'll figure out.

Little bit of research led me to the micro-AB receptacle that basically determines if a device is acting as a host or slave. So, I would say the preferred way to do this, instead of wiring in a switch, would be to find a receptacle and hack into it... so here's one you can get cheap:
http://www.retractablecables.com/US...ro_AB_Female_Adapter_for_USB_OTG_Devices.html
This should be able to wire up something that basically puts the device into OTG mode when you connect a micro-A cable to the device, and a slave device when you connect a micro-B cable.
So solder/wire that up.. connect the Streak with a micro-A cable to a powered USB hub, connect the peripherals to the hub, and you should be good to go without a micro switch.
On an edit note, I also found a bare micro-AB female that you can buy... but it's more expensive than the previous adapter, so uh I guess it depends on how much time you want to spend tearing the adapter apart.
http://ntcdistributing.com/products/usb-connectors.htm