One of the complaints with the Sony Liveview watch, is the need to remove it from it's wrist holder to recharge it. I'm using a Nook Touch usb cable, who's plug is a bit longer than the average usb cable, with that I cut away a bit of the plastic of the usb, and I can charge the Liveview without removing it from the strap.
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Do they make a stand alone 8525 (hermes) battery charger? Perhaps I could order a spare battery and wall charger for it?
Issue I have is that with my home wall charger, the connector at the bottom appears loose. I have to hold it a certain way for the orange charge light to work. If I touch it while plugged in, the charging light blinks to orange to off and back randomly (like a very loose connection).
At work my USB cable doesn't do this, but I took a pair of plyers and squeezed the cable connector so that there would be a tighter fit. I've seen other people's StarTrek(3125) completely break off the port inside the phone, so in case that would happen to me I was hoping for a backup solution for at least charging the battery. I can still sync or transfer files with WiFi, but yeah it would suck if the USB connector inside the Hermes broke off like it does on the StarTrek flip smartphones.
While I have not tried one there are some available. Here is a link to a place that advertises one: http://www.cellphoneshop.net/debachwipoco3.html
I was always wondering how to speed up this unacceptably slow USB charging (If you are in a low signal area with bluetooth ON then the battery is drained far more quicker than the laptop can charge it ending up with a flat battery ). Finally I tested the output from the pins of the wall charger and my Laptop. Even when the laptop is powered off (no data exchange) the USB charging is very slow. The HD seems to send a ~1v pulse through D+ channel when to connect it to USB port (even when powered off the device seems to check if it is a USB data port), but with the charger it does not!, so we need to break this communication.
So I put a thin plastic film over the D+ and D- terminals of the USB cable and voila the device charges much faster..(slightly slower than wall charger - 25% slower, can be accounted for by the lower power output of the laptop USB port, the voltage of laptop usb port is 150-200 mV lower).
While I am typing this my HD has gained 9% charge with screen on!! . Natively it charged atmost 1% by this time with screen off.
Now I am looking for a permanent mod for my spare USB cable hacking off the data lines.
For those in a hurry with nothing but a HD with flat battery USB cable and a computer at hand, worthwhile using a thin paper over the inner two pins of the USB cable on PC side and plugging it in. (You do this at your own risk).
Hope it helps others too. Let me know your experiences.
With my Desktop USB port, charge rate is better than wall charger if you block the data pins. The port seems to be capable of 1.5 amp at 4.96 v
Also ensure that the USB cable snugly fits the mini USB port on HD.
Could this be also the problem why (my) Blackstone doesn't receive a TMC-signal with HyperGPS & iGO8 while charging in my car?
It's a genuine car charger from HTC, so I should say these pins are already "shut" from connection, or am I wrong?
I have a usb cable that is dedicatet for charging. It dosent have D+/- wires. With this cable on my laptop the charge time form about 20% is more than half of regular USD cable..
The cable was supplied with a car BT handsfree.
Regarding the TMC issue Im not shure, Try asking the guys that developed HyperGPS they might know, if not they might be able to fix if they arent aware of the issue
Interesting tip, thanks... I've lost my charger and have been finding it a pain to charge it using the USB port on my laptop.
I cut a small strip of paper from one end of a sticky note, and stuck the adhesive end to the outer flat surface of the USB plug to secure the strip in place. Seems to have done the trick, because the charging light is on and the PC hasn't detected the device. As for how long it takes to charge... will have to wait and see.
Also, I was wondering if there was any difference in charging speed (i.e. when charging via USB normally without using this trick) between activesync and file transfer mode?
Hey all, quick question.
I have my Nexus 7 installed in my car. Originally it was getting power from a 500mah USB car charger, but it didn't provide enough power to the tablet when running GPS/maps, etc.
So I bought an "8Ware Dual USB Car Charger 5V/2A" to try. I plugged it in, and the tablet doesn't detect it or charge from it. However I can plug my Galaxy S3 into it and it charges fine.
Really confused about this - it makes no sense.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
I understand your frustration and it sucks!!
But sometimes even when it says UNPLUGGED and NOT CHARGING, just leave it there for 30-60 minutes. You might see that your battery actually increase... This happens with my Griffin PowerJolt Dual USB car charger also.
You can either blame the device or you can start blaming other issues like the charger, the usb cable etc but for me, I blame primarily on the device.
- Charles
chaddeus said:
I understand your frustration and it sucks!!
But sometimes even when it says UNPLUGGED and NOT CHARGING, just leave it there for 30-60 minutes. You might see that your battery actually increase... This happens with my Griffin PowerJolt Dual USB car charger also.
You can either blame the device or you can start blaming other issues like the charger, the usb cable etc but for me, I blame primarily on the device.
- Charles
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Thanks for that. I tried plugging it in for a while but it definitely didn't get a charge.
Hey All.. I looked forever to find a solution. The Targus 2A car charger has a small (3") adapter cable that comes with it purportedly for Galaxy Tab. That little cable with the data wires shorted on the device end allows the N7 to be charged from ANY 2A car charger. I'm using the adapter with a Scosche dual 2.1 Amp Car Charger
Adapter picture
Targus Charger
Edit: I just built a usb cable with the data wires shorted on the Nexus end (cut, strip, short micro usb end green and white, remake connections red to red and black to black, insulate splices individually, wrap all in electrical tape or heat shrink for strength and beauty) and it works with all chargers. Took about 20 minutes.
Attention do this at our own risk as it may damage our phone.
My used samsung galaxy pocket-neo was becoming impossible to charge causing me to break the adapter cables with constant wiggling and balancing acts to get it to work. I took it apart and the micro usb socket looked like an extremely difficult soldering job to replace.
The solution I am using for more than a month with no adverse effects is to cut the plug off and strip the 2 power wires at one end of an old usb cable. There are 4 different coloured wires, red, black, green and white. The green and white wires transmit data, whilst the red and black are the power lines. Red is positive, Black is negative. The sleeve of the cable has a metal mesh which is not necessary for my purposes so I electrical taped it back onto the cable.
The next step is to remove the battery of the phone: I have only done this on phones with removeable batteries. The ones I have used have three terminals; one is plus and one minus, the middle one is for a thermistor in the internal of the battery so that it doesn't overheat. Check the plus and minus with a tester to be sure and look at the way it mounts into the phone. The corresponding terminals in the phone are where I connect the wires.
Now here is the complicated part, - or negative(black) goes to the one negative copper pin in the back of the phone. The positive +(red) wire however needs to bridge the other two pins for reasons that I would like to find out. The white and green wire got taped up seperately to avoid short circuits and I replaced the battery to hold the wires firmly in place and closed the back of the phone. Plug the phone into a charger or external power pack (DC 5v) and it will work fine with no overheating, I suggest this be monitored for a while as it may vary with other hardware.
There may be better ways to do this, as far as I can tell in my case I am not actually charging the battery, instead the phone is running directly from the external power source. The strange thing is that the software(CM11) battery icon slowly discharges and after about 10 hours tells me I need to charge the battery but never turns off and when I restart it is immediately back up to full.
I have tested with a normal cable and the micro usb is still working even though it is still only working when I constantly wiggle the cable, I have cleaned it and as far as I can see its not going to ever work properly.
It would be good to know why the battery does not chargewhen using this method. I imagine it has to do with the internal workings of the phone that control the charging, discharging and battery temperature.
Making the old hardware live longer.
Replacing the micro usb is doable with a hot air gun a pair of tweezers, a clunky spring loaded solder sucker, a flux pen and two pairs of 3.5 x magnification reading glasses. You dont need any fancy rework station or microscope, assuming you have steady hands, reasonably good eyesight, and some soldering experience. I just tried this myself yesterday and fixed and Ace 3 and two S3 mini boards from my junk pile, and while it was a little tricky, it didn't require any brain surgery skills, just care, patience and some previous smd soldering experience.
Proceed as follows, mask off all of the surrounding components with kapton tape, apply lots of flux from your flux pen, then heat the plug carefully, pointing the hot air across the plug and away from the rest of the board. Grab the (hot) metal can of the USB plug with the tweezers, and gently lift it. Only remove the plug when all the solder is melted, and it feels loose, to avoid pulling off any tracks. Remove those tracks, and the phone is for the bin. Next, clear any holes that are required to mount the new plug, take care at this stage, as it is imperative that the replacement plug sits flush on the board otherwise the pins on the plug, wont touch the pads on the board, and worse still, you wont get the case back on at the end of the process.
To fit the new socket, clean the pads... no really clean them.... now make sure they are clean, and then flux them and tin them. Fit the new plug, and check that it sits flush to the board. Tack down one metal lug only on the can of the new plug. Check again that the pins are lined up, and carefully drag solder them. Check for shorts. Check again... clean the pads and check again. If you are happy, tack down the remaining three lugs, make sure they are flush and that there are no blobs of solder on the tops of them. Clean the board again. Test... Profit
Total time including additional swearing, re-cleaning... re-re-cleaning and re-fitting.. about 30 minutes and two strong coffees.
The replacement USB plugs are readily available on ebay typically around the £2 ($3) mark, but there are several different styles, and they are different, so make sure you use the correct one for your board.
Now back to your question... why does your battery not charge when you tack the wires to it... simple... it is trying its best not to explode. The USB port provides 5V, but the battery needs between 2.8 and 4.2 vots.. depending on its current state of charge, and this is what the charge controller chip within the phone provides. Anything else and the protection circuit kicks in.
I suggest if you don't fancy repairing the USB plug yourself, you get one of those cheap "universal" usb phone chargers from China, they cost about the same as the replacement USB plug, but are (marginally) less likely to blow up your battery.
itsthatidiotagain said:
Now back to your question... why does your battery not charge when you tack the wires to it... simple... it is trying its best not to explode. The USB port provides 5V, but the battery needs between 2.8 and 4.2 vots.. depending on its current state of charge, and this is what the charge controller chip within the phone provides. Anything else and the protection circuit kicks in.
I suggest if you don't fancy repairing the USB plug yourself, you get one of those cheap "universal" usb phone chargers from China, they cost about the same as the replacement USB plug, but are (marginally) less likely to blow up your battery.
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Good description of the soldering job, the samsung pocket neo is very small but I look forward to having a go at fixing it properly one day, I dont yet have a magnifying glass or solder sucker, but I want to get them. Without these tools the job would be near impossible.
Little update: the phone is charging, I have disconected it and it holds its charge nicely, the internal software just doesn't register the trickle charge it is recieving, I have loads of old chargers and new usb cables and my old second hand phones micro usb port is way too damaged to work anymore with any charger. I use it as a modem principally, so it is connected every day and providing wifi to multiple devices and has no problems with over heating. Now nearly two months have passed and it works fine. Using this method it is possible to completely remove the battery as well. The phone is running directly off the 5 volt power with no ill effects.
It would be convienient to connect it directly to a pc in usb debug mode occasionally, and this is a very good reason for eventually fixing the usb plug.:good:
just a fyi, found on gearbest a nice charging stand for 6$ , it has one of those "2ways" usb connectors so you can put the phone with the e-ink panel front
https://www.gearbest.com/chargers-cables/pp_1481185.html or search for "Mirco USB Desktop Charging Dock Charge Cradle Desk Charger Station Stand"
Adding some little plastic pads keeps the phone nice "straight" on the connector.
i've attached some pictures.