Database Users

Power requirements of Universal

When I plug my MDA Pro into my PC it draws 460mA of current at 4.75V and the orange charging light always comes on.
I have bought a car charger - when the MDA Pro is plugged into that it also draws 460mA at 5.04V but the Pro doesn't always seem to realise it is being charged - the orange charging light doesn't come on and the backlight switches off so I cant see the SatNav! (when the light goes off the current goes down to 430mA)
The charger was bought of eBay from shop4hardware/PCglobe for £9.99 and it looks well made.
Any ideas what is going wrong? Has anyone got a 12V charger they are happy with - if so where did it come from and how much??
ceemjay the tight fisted

I bought a car charger off eBay, and while the orange light does come on and stay on, it doesn't seem to charge very effectively. If i'm using something like TomTom the charger manages to keep the battery charge level just about constant, rather than building up charge.
Is this a problem with the Universal? I had a Blue Angel before the Universal, and the car charger I had for that was very effective.
Cheers
Rowan

I had this problem too and solved it by purchasing an "orange" (UK mobile phone operator) branded charger for 10 quid from one of their shops. I have no issues now.
What i did notice when I had the problem was by ensuring the xda was off prior to plugging in the old charger, it would continue to stay orange when turned on. I think this problem is a common one with the usb cable & car charger adaptors combo.

i bought one from expansys, what i noticed:
1. It takes a lot of jiggling, pushing, pulling and twisting to get it recognised by the device (organge light on)
2. When it charges, it does so slowly, i think about 1% per 10 minutes or so, or about 10% per hour.
My two bobs worth anyway.

Many of the mini USB car chargers are simply not powerful enough to charge these devices. They all have the same voltage but the amps are different. I read somewhere that good M5000 car chargers should be rated at 1amp, I'm not sure about this but I've certainly had trouble with ones at around 600mah.
With the under powered chargers you often have to plug them in while the device is switched off. Even then it's not going to charge as well or as quickly. Getting them to start charging without turning you device off is just down to luck and patience.
My advice is to look for chargers that are specific for the M5000 etc. If it also mentions Motorola phones etc, then it's not going to have the required power output.
I hope this helps...
I bought an ORA one from a service station (phone bitz type shop), it was a bit expensive but I needed one in a hurry and you can test them in the store.

as per my earlier post - m5000 is orange branded htc universal, aka o2 xda exec. I believe mine stated it was for the spv500 and it still worked fine...

The universal wants a 2 amp charger really. the 0.5 amp from most chargers including USB ports just is not enough to do much more than stop your battery draining whilst your universal is in use !! other useful alternatives include the charger meant for the newish blackberry

Thanks for all the comments.
The charger that comes with the Pro is rated at 1A however I believe the USB spec only allows up to 500mA to be drawn (as I orginally posted it draws just below that) and I have never had a problem with charging via USB. Hence my confusion!
Is the charging software controlled and might there may be a bug which manifests itself under circumstances?
Clive

The Brodit active holder charges the universal first time everytime, and is a very good place to store the phone on the move. I've got a 3.5mm input on my car stereo and use my phone as my in car music source. If I could get a 3.5mm 4 pole to 3.5mm stereo plug and breakout mic it would be perfect since I could use it as decent handsfree solution, voice command can still use the built in mic when the stereo connection is inserted but the phone app doesn't.

The Brodit holders are nice. I prefer the unpowered version, so I use a separate charger cable. But I agree good holders.

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

Unsufficient charging

Hi commumity,
was using my Ameo today in my car. BT and phone activated, screen maximum brightness.
I have a 12V / 230V converter installed providing 160W continously. While using phone and contacts throughout the day, battery power dropped more and mmre though my device was connected to power supply. In the afternoon it ran out of power starting with loosing the connection to vodafone.
Who has similar experiences, who has a better way of charging in car?
best regards
dieter

My old car charger which works fine with all my old WM devices does not supply enough power for my Ameo.
My Brodit powered holder does.

Confucious said:
My old car charger which works fine with all my old WM devices does not supply enough power for my Ameo.
My Brodit powered holder does.
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Click to collapse
I second that. This has been discussed numerous times - you need to check the ampage of your charger. If it's niot supplying enough, turn the screen brightness right down.

Well i guess its time for a little electrical networks lesson.
this phone consumes, under typical use about 300mAh, so if you have the screen on bright and the phone on with bluetooth your going to be using more than that and don't forget you still need to charge the battery and to top it all off your device will start to get hot and nothing kills a battery more than heat.
Solution: you need to make sure that you get a car charger that has an output of at least 1A... remember it will work with less but it won't charge as fast. usually but not always, you can find this information somewhere on the charger.
hope this helped

Output of 1A is one thing, but it seems that HTC devices (the Athena for one) more ways for charging. The orignal car charger from HTC does power the device fast(I have the charger for a few days now and can confirm that). There is also adapter cable available that allows fast charging. See the following post and post. It looks like the original HTC connectors use different pins on the connector for fast/powerfull charging

dpbakker said:
Output of 1A is one thing, but it seems that HTC devices (the Athena for one) more ways for charging. The orignal car charger from HTC does power the device fast(I have the charger for a few days now and can confirm that). There is also adapter cable available that allows fast charging. See the following post and post. It looks like the original HTC connectors use different pins on the connector for fast/powerfull charging
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Yes, you're right. The original car charger does charge very well my Dopod with the screen turns to maximum, phone, bluetooth and GPS all are turned on.

Would anyone please care to post a direct link to a fast 1A car charger in the UK? I tried looking at the HTC ones at expansys but wasn't sure which were official and which weren't. Thanks

Yeah, a link for a good charger in The Netherland would be apriciated as well!
Thank in advance.

The official HTC car charger
for NL: http://www.expansys.nl/p.aspx?i=145177
for UK: http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=145177

yaughan said:
Would anyone please care to post a direct link to a fast 1A car charger in the UK? I tried looking at the HTC ones at expansys but wasn't sure which were official and which weren't. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Brodit mount has car charging built in and is also extremely sturdy. Available from Brodit dealers

dieterpapa said:
Hi commumity,
was using my Ameo today in my car. BT and phone activated, screen maximum brightness.
I have a 12V / 230V converter installed providing 160W continously. While using phone and contacts throughout the day, battery power dropped more and mmre though my device was connected to power supply. In the afternoon it ran out of power starting with loosing the connection to vodafone.
Who has similar experiences, who has a better way of charging in car?
best regards
dieter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen the ameo using over 1.2A
Device turning to hot to handle...
But then again mineis back with T-mobile for repairs...
Wich sucks bigtime
had the device 1 week
T-mobile has it 3 weeks
Told me it would take 2-3 weeks, now they say they don't know when it will be ready

Emergency charger and Tytn II

Hello, I've just bought an emergency charger for my Kaiser. It takes the power from an AA battery and gives the USB voltage in the output. It works great with my Mio A 501, but doesn't work at all with the Kaiser. I did a quick search and found this in a discussion about car chargers:
Are you using the HTC charger or an OEM one?
The HTC charger works all the time the OEM ones don't - the reason being that if you use a normal Mini USB cable, the handsets will only take a charge if there is an indication of a data connection (either than gprs or the cable) - otherwise it won't take a charge.
You can apparently solder a couple of wires together on a normal mini USB cable - but I wouldn't know where to start on that!
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Click to collapse
Now I've already heard of that, for example, a Play Station Portable needs the data wires in the USB grounded in order to charge. Is it the same with Kaiser? (putting three wires together isn't a big deal) Or is there an easier way how to make it charge?

So, I gave it a try and soldered the data wires with the ground wire. But when I try to charge the Kaiser, a yellow led starts to glow (which it didn't with the original cable) and, after a minute or two, the led goes off and Kaiser stops charging. When I turn the Kaiser off and then plug the cable in, the yellow led doesn't go off. However, when I turn Kaiser back on to check the battery meter (after about half an hour), I find out that the battery didn't take any charge at all. So, could anyone tell me what the problem is?
thanks, Mike
PS.: Adding some photos of the wires...

Probably because of the voltage...
Hey!
Have you checked the output voltage of this charger? Standard charger outputs 5V. If yours outputs less - the battery won't charge; if outputs more - you may "burn" your PDA chipsets
5V - 5.5V is safe range.

I found this on thinkgeek.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/b43f/
It says for iPhone, but sure it would work just fine with other devices that have issues.

had a same problem but using it in the car...
when i got my tytn2 i immediately bought a car charger and the salesman told it's an original one, said output 5v 1A.. when using in the car it charged for a minute or two and went off... than i got from ebay a micro usb 1A charger (used for iPhone too) and tried in the car-> it work flawlessly

a500 car charger

Has anyone torn down a car charger to direct wire the car charger into a vehicle?

Why not just use an inverter and plug it into that?

Car Charger
partin_us_99 said:
Has anyone torn down a car charger to direct wire the car charger into a vehicle?
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Click to collapse
Why tear one down. You would have to completely redesign and rebuild it. The plug and wire is about all you would be able to use.
This is kinda pricey but I think this is what you want:
powerstream. com/ADC-p006. htm PST-YD100W
There is a couple of things to consider.
1. A car electrical system typically runs from about 9 volts on the low side to about 15 volts on the high side taking in consideration noise spikes maybe more in very short spikes.
2. your tablet is designed to run very close to 12 volts probably + or - 5% or 11.4 to 12.6 volts it may work okay up to + & - 10% or may not.
3. the adapter must be able to supply 12 volts @ at least 1.5 amps - you can find this value on your AC Adapter that came with your tablet.
So while the car may still run down to ~10 volts the tablet would likely have problems. Regulators normally take the input voltage and use a couple of volts to regulate. So if the input is 12 volts the output is going to be around 10 volts - to low for the tablet to work reliably. In most cases the car regulator when charging outputs around 14.4 volts. That on the other hand would work. One solution and the one I believe is used by the device from the power stream website is to use a voltage multiplier or DC to DC converter that amplifies the voltage then regulates it down to what is needed.
By the way it also comes with a bunch of plug adapters to match the jack on the tablet.
Regards,
- Phil

Found an article on hard wiring it with an add a circuit so I'm gonna do that. This isn't my first car wiring rodeo so it'll work. Thanks for all the replies I'll keep y'all updated
Sent from my GT-N7005 using xda app-developers app

I used an old Nokia 636 plug that I had that has the 3X1mm tip needed and spliced it into a mini usb car adapter, that was for my Tilt2 at the time, right after the fuse so I could power my phone and A500 simultaneously. It's been working fine for over a year and a half, I still use the Tilt2 as my dash cam. The Tilt2 plug also has an extra full usb port and friends and family will occasionally use that to charge their phones on trips so that one plug powers 3 devices and works fine.
So go for it, you will be fine.