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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
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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 ?
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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

How To Make Your Own OTG Cable : Video Tutorial and Demo of USB Mouse

So if you are like me. Waiting a week for your OTG cable to come to your doorstep is not an option. Especially if I can make one with existing cords and equipment I have laying around. If soldering happens to be one of your skills then this is the guide for you.
This is what you need.
Micro USB Cable … Really you need the Micro USB Head
Female USB Cable Head … Pulled mine out of an old computer
USB Cable … to connect the two heads … I used the cable from the Micro USB
Solder Kit … connect the Heads to cords
But this video puts everything in context and you also can see how the mouse works on 3.1
http://youtu.be/COkLEJGo6vo

Orrr get a bluetooth mouse
Sent from my 4G LTE Thunderbolt using XDA Premium

DroidHam said:
Orrr get a bluetooth mouse
Sent from my 4G LTE Thunderbolt using XDA Premium
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True. Which I have, the USB mouse was just to show it works.

Nice to see you here too sleeplessninja!
Followed your tut, gonna do my update, I can't wait for my OTG cable from china to arrive, its almost half way but I can't wait any longer! thanks dude. Off to flashing some updates.
EDIT:
Finished installing the update, all fine and dandy!! tried the camera with the xoom, F-awesome! kinda slow but thats what you get off 18Mpix pics, tried a mouse, kb, all worked perfect...

DroidHam said:
Orrr get a bluetooth mouse
Sent from my 4G LTE Thunderbolt using XDA Premium
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Click to collapse
Can't use bluetooth for flash drives or the ps3 and xbox game controllers (or the other ones the 3.1 update lets you use) XD
I think I'll try this guide when I get home tonight.

sleeplessninja said:
So if you are like me. Waiting a week for your OTG cable to come to your doorstep is not an option. Especially if I can make one with existing cords and equipment I have laying around. If soldering happens to be one of your skills then this is the guide for you.
This is what you need.
Micro USB Cable … Really you need the Micro USB Head
Female USB Cable Head … Pulled mine out of an old computer
USB Cable … to connect the two heads … I used the cable from the Micro USB
Solder Kit … connect the Heads to cords
But this video puts everything in context and you also can see how the mouse works on 3.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't watched the video yet, but couldn't you also just use a USB extension cable instead of a separate usb cable and female usb port? Using an extension cable instead you could just replace the male end with the male micro usb and use heat shrink to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Congrats to OP for the DIY job. My preferred method would be not to cut up the cable, but by shorting pin 4 to pin 5 directly at the shell. This is easiest if all 5 pins are present (sometimes either pin 4 or 5 is missing), as you can simply bridge the two pins with a bit of solder, and quickly apply heat to the connector shell to melt it in place. If one of the pins is missing, then things get a bit more difficult.
The solder bridge wouldn't last for too many insertions, but it should be more than good enough until the real host cable gets to you.

Made the cable well kinda i used a adapter to convert male to female should this still work or does it need to go straight to female?

brilliant guide, used a different style on mine but this guide is solid gold, thanks very much

Great post, i used your method with good results
Probably more expensive than an OTG adapter, yet I found a supplier of micro usb plugs with solder tags, more useful perhaps in a DIY dock?
http://ntcdistributing.com/products/usb-connectors.htm?gclid=CNnGtN-U7K0CFZQgfAodLQvL5g

machina77 said:
Great post, i used your method with good results
Probably more expensive than an OTG adapter, yet I found a supplier of micro usb plugs with solder tags, more useful perhaps in a DIY dock?
http://ntcdistributing.com/products/usb-connectors.htm?gclid=CNnGtN-U7K0CFZQgfAodLQvL5g
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Click to collapse
if you have the bits lying around then its very useful. If your having to buy the components then its cheaper to buy the cable. Like many of others on here, i have thousands of usb cables so was easy for me.

D.i.y usb otg adapter/cable

Hi,
I made my own usb otg adapter from a plain usb a to micro b adapter. You have to connect pin 4 /which is not connected/ to ground to fire up host mode.
Edit: It is not easy to dismantle a usb connector or adapter and it requires soldering. So I guess anybody with the necessary skills will find the pin on his own. I will not post photos because my solution is far from being pretty.
For everybody else: the nokia USB OTG cable is wired the same way so it is very likely that it will work. (on Hungarian forums I saw references that it works, but I can not guaratee it.)
Tommorow I will go buy one and report.
USB Host mode will allow to connect USB pendrive, mouse, keyboard etc. to the SGS II.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

richyy74 said:
Hi,
I made my own usb otg adapter from a plain usb a to micro b adapter. You have to connect pin 4 /which is not connected/ to ground to fire up host mode.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is very useful for people like me who knows how to solder things, but for the people who have absolutly no Idea what you are talking about, you should add more details/pictures to the OP so the people who doesen't know much about electronics know what you are talking about, and what benefits it brings for them.
I myself will probably make one or more, so I don't have to always take my USB OTG with me all the time.

kaukassus said:
this is very useful for people like me who knows how to solder things, but for the people who have absolutly no Idea what you are talking about, you should add more details/pictures to the OP so the people who doesen't know much about electronics know what you are talking about, and what benefits it brings for them.
I myself will probably make one or more, so I don't have to always take my USB OTG with me all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be you dint know about this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1092493
This was explained with pics a long time ago

Yeah sorry. I never saw that. Thanks.

richyy74 said:
Yeah sorry. I never saw that. Thanks.
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Why be sorry. This forum is to help each other out.

OTG Cable USB (B) to Micro USB (A) Powered with AAA batteries
As one knows, Samsung has promised a HMI Cable
You noticed it is not only a cable but a box out of which you may plug in an extra power supply.
The obvious reason is if the passive monitor does not furnish 5V, the phone will rapidly be out of power.
Now you know that to obtain video rather than anything less, Pin 4 (sense) and 5 (Ground) of micro USB (male A) must be connected with a 365K resistance.
I suppose the dock Samsung is selling for I9100 (yes, I have it) is grounded at 1000K as it provides audio with remote, and yes, the dock provides power supply via extra micro USB as well.
I come to my point: If I want to access any USB data On the Go, I need a cable OTG with 2 ports: USB 2.0/3.0 (female, B sided) to a micro USB (male, A sided, grounded but with no resistance = 0K). Many of them exist on the market out there.
But it is quite impossible to use because of lack of power supply in the passive device (let’s say a handy 1T HDD usually powered via Host connexion !
Would it be possible to insert some sort of receptacle for AAA battery in the middle of such a cable to provide for power while you are for a long time out of access to an electric plug ? Does such a cable exist somewhere to buy ? What would be the sheme to mount this ? HELP !

Instead of shorting pin 4 and 5 from within the cable head, would it also be viable to short them from within the device itself? Say if I disassembled the phone to access the back of the female usb micro connector and soldered the pins. Would there be any damage caused if the permanently shorted pins 4 and 5 (within the device) is connected to a charging adapter/PC?

diy mircousb hub

hi folks,
i would to like to build a micro usb hub.
e.g. 1 male connector and 2 female connector.
does anybody have experience in micro usb to stabilize the voltage and current?
thanx

KindsKoPP said:
hi folks,
i would to like to build a micro usb hub.
e.g. 1 male connector and 2 female connector.
does anybody have experience in micro usb to stabilize the voltage and current?
thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be interesting to see, I think your gonna need drivers for that as well because your gonna need a switch to cycle back and forth on what connector your using, and thats gonna be hard to do from scratch. I was contemplating doing something similar to that but wound up at a dead end. If you figure it out let me know.

it won´t need a driver. i want to build as a host hub. but the current is too low i think, so it is difficult to stabilizise the current,,
mbm262 said:
That would be interesting to see, I think your gonna need drivers for that as well because your gonna need a switch to cycle back and forth on what connector your using, and thats gonna be hard to do from scratch. I was contemplating doing something similar to that but wound up at a dead end. If you figure it out let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

It's not a question of stabilizing the current.
It's supposed to be 5 volts throughout the USB spec.
If you are using a cell phone as the host, that already produces regulated 5 volts through a charge pump.
The amount of current out of a cell phone is maybe around 100 mA.
That's what you have to work with.
If it's not sufficient for what you want then you need an external power source, not a regulator.
Hubs can be power hogs.
The spec says that a hub can take up to 100 mA all by itself.
To make a micro USB you can either take an existing hub and change the connectors.
Of course since the PCB pattern will not match up you'd have to wire the connectors in discreetly.
If you really wanted to make a real job out of this, buy a hub IC for $3,
lay out a PCB, slap on a 24 MHz crystal and connectors.

???
the idea is to build an mobile hub for tablets or smartphones for plugin external devices like sd card reader or usb stick and
mouse and keybord. hub will stick in a phone and plug in the external devices. i already had tried with a keyboard and mouse with standard usb and it works. i had already build some devices with micro usb connector. so i would like to use all devices at the same time and outdoor. i try to solve the idea without a lot of adapter..
if the usb give all devices 5v and 100mA at the same time, that would be great, without an additional IC power supplier..
thats all

i found out thats not possible to use more than 2 gadgets at the same time cause of the voltage without an external power supplier. keyboard and mice work at the same time but i f u want to plug in a 3rd gadget then wont work. 1 solution could be a mobile battery with 5v connecting with the hub. or make a built in battery in the hub..
@ renate. maybe u have an suggestion?

I have a jig for measuring current consumed by USB peripherals: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=30668417&postcount=26
I use USB with only low power things like a keyboard or else
with a powered hub (also back-powering the Android).
The second option is more like a docking station.

KindsKoPP said:
hi folks,
i would to like to build a micro usb hub.
e.g. 1 male connector and 2 female connector.
does anybody have experience in micro usb to stabilize the voltage and current?
thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 2 female connectors don't make much sense i think, because:
I can't think of any device you would like to connect with your phone as host that has a µusb connector..? You would need 2 additional OTG-cables in almost all cases
You would need OTG capability for security reasons: Imagine you hub is pluggend in you phone and you connect you computer to the hub too -> Data crash + 2 power sources in parallel -> risk of damage
I would use a normal tiny usb hub and only change the cable

u did not read my post above attentively or?
quote:
i had already build some devices with micro usb connector. so i would like to use all devices at the same time and outdoor. i try to solve the idea without a lot of adapter..
and the gadget are already automatically OTG. I already thought all about that before!
-schumi- said:
The 2 female connectors don't make much sense i think, because:
I can't think of any device you would like to connect with your phone as host that has a µusb connector..? You would need 2 additional OTG-cables in almost all cases
You would need OTG capability for security reasons: Imagine you hub is pluggend in you phone and you connect you computer to the hub too -> Data crash + 2 power sources in parallel -> risk of damage
I would use a normal tiny usb hub and only change the cable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse