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Using a different mini-USB charger

I am going away for a little while and I don't have my mains charger for my universal. Both my parents have Motorola Razrs, which charge via mini-USB from a mains plug. On that mains plug it says it is 5.0v, 550mA. Could I use it to charge my universal?

Yes you can, but you must turn off the Universal before connecting the charger.
I use it in my car.

How do you mean turn off? Press the power button so the screen isn't on? Or do you mean turn it off completely? If the latter, how does one do that?
Is it a Motorola Razr charger you use in your car?
Thanks for the response.

I use one motorola charger in the car with my universal. If you connect the charger with Universal switched on then dont start charge. Press the power button and switch off the universal, connect the charger and charge start.

Ah, that explains some quixotic behavior I observed. I thought my chargers were bad. Also, I notice that some chargers specified as compatible with the HTC Universal say they put out 12vdc. I queried the vendor from whom I bought one, and they assured me that the device would only take the voltage it needs (i.e., 5vdc). Furthermore, an output of 5vdc might not be enough to keep the device charging when, for example, navigating with GPS software, but a higher capacity charger will do so (most car chargers output 5vdc, but some output 5.5vdc, or even 12vdc).
Can anyone confirm that the higher voltages are indeed acceptable to the Universal? Since I discovered this disparity AFTER recharging, it appears to be the case, no damage was done. Cheers,

Thanks for the replies here, I did indeed use the motorola charger to juice up my device overnight, using the method suggested.

Yes, you can do that
Hi,
I use Motorola Razrs charger few month, it's good.

gibhenry said:
Ah, that explains some quixotic behavior I observed. I thought my chargers were bad. Also, I notice that some chargers specified as compatible with the HTC Universal say they put out 12vdc. I queried the vendor from whom I bought one, and they assured me that the device would only take the voltage it needs (i.e., 5vdc). Furthermore, an output of 5vdc might not be enough to keep the device charging when, for example, navigating with GPS software, but a higher capacity charger will do so (most car chargers output 5vdc, but some output 5.5vdc, or even 12vdc).
Can anyone confirm that the higher voltages are indeed acceptable to the Universal? Since I discovered this disparity AFTER recharging, it appears to be the case, no damage was done. Cheers,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ATTENTION!
Any higher voltage that you apply to any most of electronics devices is almost surely going to damage your device.
Most modern devices are designed to withstand some kind of "abuse" but 12V are 2.4 times 5V, almost a sure firework.
Electronic voltage regulators are widely used in electronic equipment, but unless you know exactly what are you dealing with, you cannot know the maximum specs of any device, one little example.
I sold my first PDA in Ebay, the person who bought it (I don't know how) changed the power supply (5V, 2A) with a 9V one, result? Burnt PDA, me with lots of troubles to repair it and a baaad feeling about all the situation.
So, be aware.
By the way, I also have used a moto charger to charge my universal (also several card reader mini usb cables), works ok, rule of thumb, be sure that it is a 5V type, 500mA at least (to be in within safe margins) more current they supply is better, unlike voltage, if you have more current available it will only be "used" as much as is needed, this is true for these devices, not for all.

Homemade car charger for 8125

For those interested, I thought I'd share my work that saved me $10 - $30. Since I never used the USB cable that came with my 8125, I cut the cable and connected it to a cigarrette lighter plug. There are 4 wires in the USB cable (yellow,,black,green,white); 2 wires in the plug(red,black). Connect red to yellow, and black to black. The white and green wires can be twisted together to be out of the way, they are NOT connected to any thing. Voila! a homemade car charger that really worksP.S. Check out this website: Funformobile.com. Today animations, ringtones, all sorts of cool stuff for your 8125.Cingular 8125ROM 2.25.11.1

12volts straight to the dome! Better stop up and batteries!

Ya know, the real 8125 car charger converts the car batt 12VDC to 5VDC and regulates the amps to 1. Just thought Id throw that out there!

Take a look at this then!!! I had a camera that i droped and its in little bits, so i just cut the holder abit and now i have a phone holder for when i am flashing roms or doing other things on it!

calouro said:
Ya know, the real 8125 car charger converts the car batt 12VDC to 5VDC and regulates the amps to 1. Just thought Id throw that out there!
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That's funny, I saw the "real" car chargers, and not 1 has a "built-in" converter or step down transformer from 12V to 5V. All it has is a cigarrette lighter plug and the charging cable like the one I made. Is the converter in the cigarrette lighter plug? I use my homemade charger every day in my truck, and have had no problems. My phone would had fried when I first tested it. If anyone else decides to make their own charger, you're doing this at your own risk. I am not responsible for your stupidity or lack of mechanical skills. I'm just sharing my work.

hotdog53 said:
... I am not responsible for your stupidity or lack of mechanical skills. I'm just sharing my work.
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So, what you are saying is that it was stupid of you to create your own?
Yes, the original car charger has a down converter within the plug - sooner or later your device will either blow up or your battery will break.
I do not recommend this to anyone! You better keep your original USB data cable and buy you a real car charger for $5.00 (and up).
Going hotdog53's way is saving money on the wrong end ... your WIZ is a bit too expensive for that, isn't it?

Junner2003 said:
So, what you are saying is that it was stupid of you to create your own?
Yes, the original car charger has a down converter within the plug - sooner or later your device will either blow up or your battery will break.
I do not recommend this to anyone! You better keep your original USB data cable and buy you a real car charger for $5.00 (and up).
Going hotdog53's way is saving money on the wrong end ... your WIZ is a bit too expensive for that, isn't it?
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Come on now, how in the heck can a converter or step down transformer be made inside a plastic cigarrette lighter plug??? Visit Cingular's accessories website for car chargers for 8125 or8525, and click on the view details located at the bottom of the car charger pic. The home charger with the big black plug has a converter to step down 120V. I used the pistol type cigarrette lighter plug. Where can I get 1 for 5 bucks? I'll buy it for a spare.

Almost every vehicles electical system runs on a +12V DV Current. A standard cigarete lighter is 12volts. and does not have a transformer. By tying in the usb cable directly to the cars 12V system you are now stuffing massive amounts of electricity into your phone at an unregulated rate. It is highly likely you will burn out sensitive resisters and capaciters in the phone because they are very small and not designed to handle the current. Also charging a battery too fast is bad for it regardless of NmHi, Nicad or Lithiom. If you charge rate "amps" is too high you'll permanently damage battery cells "cook" them. One thing also is that it could actualy draw current from your phone. What I mean is that your phone may plug into the cable and show that it's charging but it's actually draining the battery.
I'd spend the $14 at walmart for the motorola "mini usb style" charger...
Option "b" is to buy a cheap power inverter that converts the current from dc to ac and you will be able to plug in your standard wall charger.

Thanks for this very informative reply. I've used my homemade charger for several days now, and my battery has no problem charging from the home charger. True, the cigarrette lighter is 12V, but the vehicle's voltage regulator controls the amount of voltage that is put into these 12V receptacles. For safety, a fuse would blow before anything drastic happened.
Yeah, but if my truck's Not running, what does the voltage regulator do? NOTHING! Hey everybody who replied and read this thread, I stand corrected and apologize for my sarcasm and knowing all! The protection IS in the plug, and fortunately the pistol plug I used was from another phone car charger. I agree with all the rest...DO NOT MAKE YOUR OWN!SORRY EVERYONE!!Cingular 8125ROM 2.25.11.1

Kensington 4-port Charger and Treo Pro

Does anyone have experience using 3rd party chargers with the Treo Pro or HTC devices in general?
I've purchased a kensington 4-port USB wall charger. It's an interesting concept which allows you to plug in up to 4 USB cables (iPods, iPhones, Treo Pro) and only use one outlet. A neat trick when you have multiple phones and devices in your family.
My problem is that the kensington won't charge the Treo Pro. When I plug it in, the LCD lights up, but the charge indicator does not appear nor does the tone sound that it has been plugged in. Note, as far as I can tell the Treo Pro charger outputs 5v DC exactly the same as the Kensington charger.
I've read several posts that lead me to believe that HTC does something to their devices that only allow certain chargers to work or that their USB cables have a certain pin-out that allows them to charge. Anyone have any advice?
Thanks!

Well, I got my wall charger and car charger from Officemax. The charger brand is "Just Wireless". Both are working fine for me. Before, I tried to use the sync cable to plug the regular USB power adapter for wall or car charger, some work, some don't. It seems Palm modified the micro-usb cable...
So my suggestion, if you are looking for charger for Treo Pro, you should look for compable with Moto R9 (which using micro-usb plug, too) I used to have one Moto charger, It worked in my Treo Pro!

jbinmn said:
My problem is that the kensington won't charge the Treo Pro. When I plug it in, the LCD lights up, but the charge indicator does not appear nor does the tone sound that it has been plugged in. Note, as far as I can tell the Treo Pro charger outputs 5v DC exactly the same as the Kensington charger.
I've read several posts that lead me to believe that HTC does something to their devices that only allow certain chargers to work or that their USB cables have a certain pin-out that allows them to charge. Anyone have any advice?
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There's really nothing "special" going on here. It's all in the USB spec. http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power
That said, there are few other devices that demand a dedicated charger (or a communicating host), so in that sense it is special.
The problem being that the TP won't draw more power than agreed upon with the host (or in this case the carger). And since your charger doesn't tell the Treo that is has power to spare, the Treo trying being a good little device won't start charging.
Now, for the charger to tell the Treo that it is, in fact, a dedicated charger and "go ahead, draw as much power as you want up to 1.8A" it would only have to short its data pins.
Now that is something YOU could do to get the charger to work with your Treo. Either open the charger and solder the data pins (the two middle ones in a normal sized usb socket). Or if you can't for some reason, slice a micro-usb cable open and short the two data (usually the thinnest (green/white maybe)) wires inside.

I got a couple of desktop chargers from ebay for about £8 each. Work fine.

frause said:
There's really nothing "special" going on here. It's all in the USB spec. http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power
That said, there are few other devices that demand a dedicated charger (or a communicating host), so in that sense it is special.
The problem being that the TP won't draw more power than agreed upon with the host (or in this case the carger). And since your charger doesn't tell the Treo that is has power to spare, the Treo trying being a good little device won't start charging.
Now, for the charger to tell the Treo that it is, in fact, a dedicated charger and "go ahead, draw as much power as you want up to 1.8A" it would only have to short its data pins.
Now that is something YOU could do to get the charger to work with your Treo. Either open the charger and solder the data pins (the two middle ones in a normal sized usb socket). Or if you can't for some reason, slice a micro-usb cable open and short the two data (usually the thinnest (green/white maybe)) wires inside.
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Hi!
Yep i just bought two kensington 4 port chargers and looks like it doesnt charge the TP
Im about to buy a microusb cable to do the trick you suggested, (i cant seem to open the Kensington 4 port!), any reference websites you could suggest that could explain abit more about the shorting of the data wires inside? Just like to read up abit more before the cable arrives
Thanks!

shorting two center pins solves problem
Thank you for the details. I was able to get two car chargers to work with Palm cables after opening them up and shorting the middle pins with a dab of solder. I opened up a non-Palm cable and discovered only two wires, red and white, and no surprise: it did not work even with the "fixed" adapters. So you need to have pins shorted, and a cable that can return the short to the Treo from the adapter, or if you have a cable with all leads inside you could short the two wires instead and leave the adapter alone. However, if you only have two wires inside the cable you would have to short inside the micro plug, which is a little cramped to work in. If you have only two wires in your cable (hard to tell really without cutting it open; too small to get a continuity probe in there), and/or an adapter without the pins shorted, the Treo will not pull current and charge itself.

The Wikipedia USB Spec referenced by frause above says in part:
" A Dedicated Charging Port can supply a maximum of 1.8*A of current at 5.25*V. A portable device can draw up to 1.8*A from a Dedicated Charging Port. The Dedicated Charging Port shorts the D+ and D- pins with a resistance of at most 200O. The short disables data transfer, but allows devices to detect the Dedicated Charging Port and allows very simple, high current chargers to be manufactured."
An interpretation of the reported observations and this spec is that a charger can communicte to the device under charge the maximum current the charger is able to supply. This communication occurs by the charger either "shorting" the data pins or not. Non-shorted data pins indicates that the charger is capable of at most 500 mA. Its possible that the Treo Pro(TP) is smart enough to know it should conserve power when being charged from a low current charger. One way for the TP to conserve power would be to not power the LED on the TP if there is only 500 mA available for charging.
NOTE THAT IF THIS INTERPRETATION IS TRUE THEN IT IS ACTUALLY DISADVANTAGEOUS TO ARTIFICIALLY SHORT THE DATA PINS.

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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)

Bricked Desire HD - power issues!

My battery discharged while I was travelling - it went to <10% and shut off by itself. I left the original HTC microusb over seas and so I used my old Motorola microusb to try to charge the phone. After leaving it overnight a number of times I thought the battery was dead. I ordered a new battery (from Mugen) and tried to charge that.
All I get is a flashing orange/red light. The phone does not turn on.
I have tried charging on both the AC charger and via PC usb port.
Are all MicroUSB cables universal? I can't get a straight answer about this from HTC's customer support. Every time I call someone gives me a different answer which leads me to believe that they have no clue what they are talking about.
Is there anything I can do to remedy this?
The HTC AC charger is rated at 5V 1A, while my old Moto charger is rated at 5.1V 850mA. Could I get a charge by using slightly higher voltage with lower amperes?
I really would like to avoid sending it back to manufacturer warranty so if there is any other alternate route I can take please let me know.

I have some cheap MicroUSB cables and they seem to charge very slowly compared to the HTC one. There may be a difference, but I suspect the cheap cables are just plain cheap.

No the Motorola charger wont have done it any harm, 0.1volt wont make a difference, and charging at a lower current is less likely to cause damage.

Could I have damaged the phone by using a different companies' cable?
Is there a chance that the phone is FUBAR? Should I be able to turn it on if its plugged into a power source even if the battery is dead?

please excuse the bump
need to know
*bump*

I've actually tried all the different combinations of charging and they all seem to work fine
I've tried a cheap microUSB cable with the official charger, official microUSB cable with iPhone charger, cheap microUSB cable with PC, another cheap microUSB cable in my friend's car, and even a Nokia microUSB cable in all the mentioned combinations
They all just gave different current readings (from CurrentWidget) but in the end they all worked well. I'm not sure if a Motorola microUSB would have modifications that cause incompatibilities though

I also tried different Micro-USB Cables and my DHD still works normally.

me too have the same problem. I got a total of 3 diff USB cable. One give me 330mA, one give me 120mA and one gave me only 50mA. i do not mind spending the money if i know how to choose a USB cable which can give me 330mA everytime i charge. Anyone knows how to spot the correct ones?

Neurosis said:
me too have the same problem. I got a total of 3 diff USB cable. One give me 330mA, one give me 120mA and one gave me only 50mA. i do not mind spending the money if i know how to choose a USB cable which can give me 330mA everytime i charge. Anyone knows how to spot the correct ones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any Blackberry USB cable should work..

used Motorola cable many times. No issues.
Might be a fluke that u busted ur phones charging system.

The USB cables are all the same and have no effect on charging current. The charging current is determined by how the two data lines within the cable are terminated in the charging device. If the data lines are left open ciruit, the phone interprets this as being a USB charger and will therefore only draw a maximum of 500mA to prevent damage to a PC's USB port. Chargers that are capable of delivering more current (such as a wall charger) connect the two data lines together. The phone then interprets this as being a charging device which is capable of delivering a higher current and will draw greater than 500mA. If you look at "Menu - Settings - About phone - Battery" it will state either "Charging (USB)" or "Charging (AC)" depending on what you are charging from.