I'm building a simple G1 based solution to track my car using the phone's GPS capabilities.
Basically, the desired solution is that the G1 is wired to the car's accessory power system, and when the car is either started or the key is in the accessory position, the phone will be turned on and report its GPS coordinates occasionally.
I have most of the pieces put together for this... A G1 running cyanogenmod 6.1, a hacked up car charger that I can wire directly to car power, and some preliminary test software.
My problem, is that the phone doesn't automatically power up when plugged in. The problem scenario will be something like:
1) Car turns off
2) Phone goes on battery power.
3) I go on vacation and don't drive the car for two weeks.
4) Phone battery dies at some point.
5) Restart the car.
6) Battery starts charging. Phone never turns on. GPS tracking does not resume.
Any ideas on how to work around number 6? I don't supposed there's a firmware mod or something that changes the power-on behavior?
All ideas (even crazy mechanical ones) are welcome.
-Paul B. Davis
This is just an idea, so don't read too far into this...
How willing are you to modify the phone?
Here's why:
Ok...When you push the power button, it completes a circuit, causing the phone to power on.
1. Mod the phone, with a relay. This relay would switch one time per power cycle. Allowing for a quick one time completion of the power circuit, forcing the phone to power on when the car does. ...Turn the car off, the relay clicks again, turning the phone off. (Set the power button to turn off when pressed instead of sleep.) ..You could also go as far as to use a software mod to have the phone start a macro when the power button is pushed. This macro saves current state of whatever is running, then powers off. there are paid apps to do this BTW.
2. Set this program you will be using to autostart with the phone.
Viola... Problem solved. ...Easier said than done, I know. Just a thought though. Great idea BTW.
G1 Car Phone Power
Easer said than done.
Is a bit of an understatement.
even takeing off the case and seting up a relay onto the on/off button would not be a very neat solution. As a ciruit connected simply to the on/off button would not know the current state of the phone .
Is it off yet? is it on yet.
And simply checking the charging current would not reliably tell you if the phone is on or off . So you would need to find a power pin on the processor tracks that is held to vcc when the phone is on.
Hope this gives you some ideas.
This turned out to be an interesting project (and a PITA). I'll post pics at some point before I permanently deploy.
What I ended up doing was sort of splitting the difference on the relay issue.
As you suggested, I ultimately could not find anything approaching a software/firmware based solution for power-up on charger connect. To solve this problem, I took the phone apart until I got to the front button panel, and soldered small leads to the two sides of the power switch.
This was a particularly harrowing solder job, because the power switch conductors are actually tiny copper plates sealed into a flexible film. To get at them you have to partially dissect the film, remove the top half of the power's membrane switch, and then solder to the tiny plates without melting the film.
Anyway, once the leads were in place, I reassembled the phone. This was also a slight PITA because the front panel is engineered with no free space and now has to accommodate the new leads coming off the power switch.
After reassembly, I found a cheap timed relay circuit board that trips its relay for a variable length of seconds or minutes, and then goes dormant until being de-energized and then re-energized. I wired the relay to the power leads in parallel with a momentary power switch, wired the relay circuit to car power, set the circuit to 10 seconds, and it worked perfectly. Phone turns on every time.
It's not entirely deterministic, but I'm OK with it. Realistically, when has your phone ever NOT turned on when you held down the power button for 10 seconds?
The other half of the project was to catch the charger disconnect (car turning off) and power down. This was far simpler to implement, as the phone is rooted and I have access to everything I need to shut off.
I created a simple BroadcastReceiver that catches ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED and runs this little block of code to turn off the device:
Code:
Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("su -");
java.io.OutputStream os = proc.getOutputStream();
os.write("reboot -p\n".getBytes());
os.flush();
os.close();
I haven't tested it extensively, but it seems to work as expected every time.
I could make this a little more deterministic by creating a service that watches the charger connected state and initiates a shutdown when it notices a state change to "disconnected," but it's not clear to me that a BroadcastReceiver is any more unreliable than a service that can be pushed out of memory.
I loaded it all up into a little plastic case, and it seems to work pretty well, so far.
-PBD
Related
If I check in "Settings-System-Power-Advanced-On battery power" to turn my JAM off if it is not used for some time (e.g. 3 minutes), it goes off and then I can not turn it on. I tried to push/hold power button, nothing helped but soft reset. If I turn my JAM off manually by pushing power button I can turn it back on manually too. But after 3 or 4 times it acts just like it was turned off automatically, i.e. iregardless if I push or hold power or any button, LED flashes green and the phone does not turn on. The worst part of it is after I push Power button trying to turn my JAM on and LED indicator starts flashing green (and JAM still remains off) if somebody tries to call me he hears the signal as if my phone is ringing (not busy signal or "The number you dial is not available right now" etc.)
Does anybody know what the problem can be? I've got this problem even after hard reset with no third-party applications installed.
non functioning of on/off switch
Check the connectors of your battery on the inside of the JAM. I had the same problem and I found out that one of the connectors did not really "touch" the battery.
I checked it. The contacts on the battery look like they were scratched by contacts on the phone, so I'd think the connectors are in good contact. I even tried to put a small piece of paper between the battery and phone bodyon the left side to make sure it is really pushed to another side, it did not help either
JAM does not turn on after being turned off
Did anyone ever find out the answer to this??! I have the same problem with mine except it's a bit random - mostly doesn't turn back on again after an auto power off for a long(ish) period of time - like at night.
sounds like a possible fault is occurring. Best thing is to do a full backup of your system and then do a hard reset your device and see if the same thing is still happening. If it is, try the positioning of battery as suggested in earlier posts and if still happening, then a handheld service is required
I'm new to Mortscript and trying to work out how to code a small script to turn the power on when I connect my Kaiser to my Brodit car kit. The power & backlight come on when I power from USB or the mains charger but not when in the Brodit, even though the red charging light is on.
I'm hoping a Mortscript that detects (ExternalPowered() could be used to power on the device. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as having to find the power button on the Kaiser every time I'm in the car is a pain.
Tytn II running Laurentius26_WM_6.1_PRO.V6a
Bad chance. No program is executed while in standby, so it's a classical recursion problem: You'd need to power on to execute a program that powers on. Only some basic system routines (like clock, phone, and a scheduler for alarm clock, appointments, etc.) are running in standby, and there's no way to add own ones.
While it's possible to power on your device with RunAt (which uses the scheduler mentioned above, WM calls this "Notifications"), this wouldn't be much good - it would also turn on your device if it's in your pocket, and a PowerOff if not externally powered might cause it's done while you were doing something else...
I took my HD on a road trip for New Years. I made a custom vehicle mount for the center console of my mini van. Unfortunately, although it is solid the dash vibrates quite a bit when driving fast (for a minivan anyways). I had it in the holder and in sleep mode but not plugged in since I was trying to kill the battery. I went to turn it on and it would not turn on. After several long and short presses of the power key I had to remove the back cover and press the soft reset button which did turn it on. I have had no problems since. I have put it back to see if the vibrations may repeat the isssue but they did not. My question is what do you guys think about vibrations and the phone in general, I would imagine most people have subjected the HD to some serious vibrations at some point or another? Any one ever experience it shutting down?
Thanks, dhatw.
dhatw said:
I took my HD on a road trip for New Years. I made a custom vehicle mount for the center console of my mini van. Unfortunately, although it is solid the dash vibrates quite a bit when driving fast (for a minivan anyways). I had it in the holder and in sleep mode but not plugged in since I was trying to kill the battery. I went to turn it on and it would not turn on. After several long and short presses of the power key I had to remove the back cover and press the soft reset button which did turn it on. I have had no problems since. I have put it back to see if the vibrations may repeat the isssue but they did not. My question is what do you guys think about vibrations and the phone in general, I would imagine most people have subjected the HD to some serious vibrations at some point or another? Any one ever experience it shutting down?
Thanks, dhatw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think it would do any damage as there are no moving parts in this phone, and it doesnt have a hard drive like an ipod classic for example.
My HD gets put in my car cradle which is stuck onto the windscreen and vibrates constantly when driving. It does no damage to the handset at all, and i would say theres nothing to worry about.
The fact that it didnt turn on the time you are talking about is probably the result of you running the battery flat.
Cheers
My Note 4 (N910F) wasn't recording media-audio, none of the voice-call apps worked, recording video or audio didn't record anything. Regular calls on the cell network worked flawless though!
So i decided to open it up and see if maybe anything got wet. I cleaned some dust carefully with pressured air and some soft cotton buds for the contact points and put it back together again.
Now the device won't start at all anymore.
I can connect the charger on USB and it does show that it's charging and almost full and i can push the menu button to get that screen again after it turns black.
I can connect it to a PC, it detects the device as well.
What i can not do however is turn it on with the power button. Nor does it show the charging screen when i press it shortly.
I suspected there's something off with the switch so i measured it.
Pin 3 and 4 are shorted by default (vibrator motor i assume). Pin 1 and 2 short when i push the button. So that seems to be as it is supposed to be as well.
I have no idea why it doesn't start or get the power-on signal.
Is there anything else i can measure or somehow i can force the device to start by connecting points on the back of the mainboard?
Any help would be appreciated.
Hello everyone,
I just installed a eunavi head unit.
First of all it doesn't have acc delay off function. There are no options in the menu and the seller told me that it's not possible. I tried to connect the acc line with an external battery but the unit still turns off while cranking the engine. (I have verified that all the connections are correct). I suspect that it has to do with the voltage drop of the car battery while cranking the engine. My next project will be to install an auxilary battery (a small one, 12V 2Ah). While the engine is running, the unit will be using the main battery. The small one will be there to supply current while the engine is cranking and it will be charged from the car while the alternator is working. It will also power the acc line using a delay off circuit.
My question has to do with the shutdown process. When I put the key on the off position, the unit turns off almost immediately. There is no any message on the screen telling me that it's turning of. I put an ammeter on the power line to see what's happening while it's turning off. After cutting the acc line, in less than 1", the current dropped from ~900mA to 50mA, after 1" to 33mA and then to 16mA. After 3-4" it dropped to 3mA and it stays there. Is this normal? Could this behaviour harm the unit? Should I be concerned? How could I check it's shutting down correctly?
The power button doesnt turn off completely the unit. It turns off the lcd but the unit still gets 700mA. There is a secret menu that could change the button function from "false shutdown" to "true shutdown". If I select the "true shutdown" and press the button the unit turns off like when I cut the acc line. Is this a good sign?
Thank you
anyone?
I've noticed that if I shutdown the unit (by turning off ACC power) while some apps are open (like the music is playing), the next time I turn it on, the apps are opening automatically. It this a good sign that the unit is shutting down properly or the same thing would happen if it shuts down violently (by cutting the power line).
Could anyone explain us how the MCU shuts down the unit properly? Does is trigger a pin on android to perform shutdown or it sends a command using a communication protocol (like UART).
I don't know what happens on mine but I suspect that the MCU cuts the power on the Android if it doesn't get power on the ACC line. I was thinking if that would be possible to send a shutdown signal on Android (using hardware or software mod) when the ACC power is off.