24 hour operation - Hardware Hacking General

Hello All,
I searched the forum for the below details extensively before posting this. Please forgive me if there is a topic which covers this or if this is not the right forum for this question...
I am building a community surveillance system using android phones for my gated community. This is because of the requirement to have a cctv kind of system as there are lots of elderly people living with us here. Actual CCTV s have been pain to manage and lots of money was spent of rewiring recently so we decided on a new approach as it simply fails every other day.
At present We have managed to do these...
1. An app which clicks images every 10 second once and uploads to a system through wifi. Works perfectly.
2. Server on Linux to receive images and display in webpage. Works perfectly.
We desperately need help with these big problems.... and how to solve this...
1. Power. We want to keep the phone working 24/7 hours. We found out that the phone just looses charge randomly and suddenly sometimes and shuts down. But sometimes it goes on for 4 or 5 days at 100% battery level... shutsdown with low power just when we start feeling happy . Is there a way to actually prevent the usage of battery (bypass the battery) and run the phone directly from the charger power? we have a uninterrupted power supply for our chargers of phones. In this way the phone would thing the battery is 100% always.
2. How to automatically start the phone with out pressing the power button. We are placing the phones in a place were it is not easily reachable to people. If there is a way where in the phone can start automatically when given power with out requiring us to press the power button... bypass the power button and power up automatically when charger is turned on...
We are desperately trying to get some help.... need some guidance please...thanks in advance....
regards,
Sen

You may have this board to avoid the issues. Running android, usb camera(pc webcam),3g usb dongle or wifi.
No battery needed, no power key needed.
www.kiwiboard.org

Related

help with battery power

Hello to you all,
My new XDA Exec has developed a fault. It works OK when plugged in to the USB on my laptop or charger but when running on battery will only do so for a short time. In fact a matter of a few minutes.
The battery indicator shows the battery at 100% when charged but the phone turns off variously at 95 - 98%. I tried a soft reset and not change.
I tried discharging the battery using small lamp then recharging in the phone. The battery indicator did show a lower %age 80 ish but not as low as I would have thought. Subsequent charging made no difference and the problem persists. Has anyone seen this before? Any bright suggestions?
Many thanks to you all for you time.
Cheers
Piran
Piran Bassett said:
Hello to you all,
My new XDA Exec has developed a fault. It works OK when plugged in to the USB on my laptop or charger but when running on battery will only do so for a short time. In fact a matter of a few minutes.
The battery indicator shows the battery at 100% when charged but the phone turns off variously at 95 - 98%. I tried a soft reset and not change.
I tried discharging the battery using small lamp then recharging in the phone. The battery indicator did show a lower %age 80 ish but not as low as I would have thought. Subsequent charging made no difference and the problem persists. Has anyone seen this before? Any bright suggestions?
Many thanks to you all for you time.
Cheers
Piran
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You battery is dead therefore you would need to change. You are not unique with this problem. That is common issue for Universal (exec) batteries. For your new battery: dont charge with the USB cable and charge when is completely drained.
Hi Bulldog,
thanks for the reply and the info. Regarding charging the unit from the USB port. Does the unit not begin charging as soon as it's plugged in to a USB port? Is there a way to prevent this that you know of? My phone was normally charged for about half it's life from the charger, half from USB.
From what I understand the LI ion batteries don't have a charge memory due to milisecond pulse charging so pardon me for asking but what does the total discharge do for the battery? Obviously it does something but what? (Not doubting you but I'm curious). Is there a away to ressurect a defective battery such as the one I have currently or is it a lost cause. I know some batteries can improve with either heating or cooling by about 20 - 40°C from normal operating temeprature, have you any experience with this?
Do you know if some makes of batteries are better than others?
Please pardon the inquisition but as I spend a lot of time in remote areas it's often quite handy to be able to bodge rig stuff in order to effect a temporary fix and it seems any bits of knowledge help!
Once again many thanks
Piran
Piran Bassett said:
Hi Bulldog,
thanks for the reply and the info. Regarding charging the unit from the USB port. Does the unit not begin charging as soon as it's plugged in to a USB port? Is there a way to prevent this that you know of? My phone was normally charged for about half it's life from the charger, half from USB.
From what I understand the LI ion batteries don't have a charge memory due to milisecond pulse charging so pardon me for asking but what does the total discharge do for the battery? Obviously it does something but what? (Not doubting you but I'm curious). Is there a away to ressurect a defective battery such as the one I have currently or is it a lost cause. I know some batteries can improve with either heating or cooling by about 20 - 40°C from normal operating temeprature, have you any experience with this?
Do you know if some makes of batteries are better than others?
Please pardon the inquisition but as I spend a lot of time in remote areas it's often quite handy to be able to bodge rig stuff in order to effect a temporary fix and it seems any bits of knowledge help!
Once again many thanks
Piran
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I have the exact same problem...works fine when usb or mains connected but only for a few minutes when on the battery. Usually when I give it some heavy task stuff it will suddenly just blank out the acreen and die.
I'm going to try and do what's suggested on the wiki page about masking off the charge indicator contact with tape - run the thing down and charge up again.
otherwise it's a new battery - not expensive - and plenty about on ebay.
fanger
Hi Piran,
Be Frank I am not battery specialist. Therefore I cant give a deep explanation what makes the Universal Battery having so many problems with USB charging. For my understanding it is the slow charge which leads to Battery overheat. Therefore All the post here regarding the Battery problems suggest not keeping the universal charged with USB. Just search for Post for "battery problems" and you will find few "explanations"
In Regards whether you could reverse your battery issue. From my previous experience I would say the max the you can get back is some 10-15%. However in your case the issue seams more severe as you device turns off by 90-100% therefore I think you would need to order new Battery.
following procedure I follow to drain my battery:
1) Turn off You Phone Radio (important)
2) disable the "Turn off Backlight" and put your device brightness to "full"
3) let your device drain the battery by him self( prevent doing anything with your device during this time. I found starting application, touching screen etc. leads that the device request a pick of power which the battery is not able to provide and turns the device off.
4) after certain time your battery will be to weak to keep the device on.
5) push the "power button + backlight button + reset pin" to put your device in to bootloader mode. (your screen will be almost off just some info like SERIAL or Bootloader Version will be visible)
6) again keep the device in this mode to drain as much you can until you cant see anything on the screen.
7) repeat this point6 few times as sometimes the device turns of but after trying again the button combination you can put it back to bootloader.
With above the aim is to drain the battery much as possible. After that you charge your device with power connection for min.12 hours. I guess you will gain few % however repeat the draining and charging procedure for next couple charging cycle to see how much max you will get back.
Good Luck.
I faced the same problem with my battery on Universal.
After a complete drain, the battery wont recharge:
1) Connecting the power cord it starts the boot process, after few seconds the power led ligths in red once, the screen blanks and the boot restarts again and again.
2) Using the usb cord the power led flashes in red without further actions.
I have to throw away the battery, I guess.
Thanks for any comment.
Cesare said:
I faced the same problem with my battery on Universal.
After a complete drain, the battery wont recharge:
1) Connecting the power cord it starts the boot process, after few seconds the power led ligths in red once, the screen blanks and the boot restarts again and again.
2) Using the usb cord the power led flashes in red without further actions.
I have to throw away the battery, I guess.
Thanks for any comment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, One thing you could try before given up on your battery. Try to Use your power connection to charge for while before starting up your device.
How much is a new battery?
Bulldog said:
Cesare, One thing you could try before given up on your battery. Try to Use your power connection to charge for while before starting up your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bulldog, many thanks for your replay.
When I connect the power cord the start up begins automatically.
There is a way to avoid the starting up?
Cesare said:
Bulldog, many thanks for your replay.
When I connect the power cord the start up begins automatically.
There is a way to avoid the starting up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, you right when you plug in the device it will boot up. However after while (ca.10-15) when the first initialization complete you could go and switch off the screen(with power button) which takes allot power. Anyhow in your case it is really strange as your device behaves like it has no battery at all. there could be 2 things leading to that.
1) your battery is completely dead ( check with a voltmeter to confirm)
2) or something wrong with your Connection clips (battery and device) you could again check with a voltmeter whether you get any juice on those clips.
Bulldog said:
Cesare, you right when you plug in the device it will boot up. However after while (ca.10-15) when the first initialization complete you could go and switch off the screen(with power button) which takes allot power. Anyhow in your case it is really strange as your device behaves like it has no battery at all. there could be 2 things leading to that.
1) your battery is completely dead ( check with a voltmeter to confirm)
2) or something wrong with your Connection clips (battery and device) you could again check with a voltmeter whether you get any juice on those clips.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Bulldog.
I think that the 1st one is the rigth hypothesis. I'll check with a voltmeter.
The connection clips are ok because the backup battery works perfectly.
To drain that battery I connected an optical usb mouse until the mouse ligth went off. Do you think that this action is the reason of the death?
Many thanks again
Cesare said:
Hi Bulldog.
I think that the 1st one is the rigth hypothesis. I'll check with a voltmeter.
The connection clips are ok because the backup battery works perfectly.
To drain that battery I connected an optical usb mouse until the mouse ligth went off. Do you think that this action is the reason of the death?
Many thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, your battery my not complete dead but it is to weak to lighten up your Universal. Said that leads to bad thing which is: you can only start to charge battery when the universal has come out of bootloader mode.
I had such case ones, after not using my device for very long time the battery was completely drained, And as you described the device keep booting after plugging to the power. However after certain time ( I think some 15-30min trying) suddenly I was able to start up. I am not sure whether that would help to overcome the booting mode with less power but you could try to take out your sim card and memory card and try booting. ( again not sure it will help)
Guys - a quick update from my previous post.
I was suffering a sudden power outage at about 75%-85% battery power - just a blank screen - power gone. Didn't happen when mains connected, only on battery.
Well, first things first, I thought...dodgy ROM for WM 6 - so I tried a few of them - Ivans, Ranju's and Beastys - no change - still this power out.
Read the posts on this forum and thought - gotta be the battery's fried.
Sooo,
I ordered a new Genuine JasJar battery and installed it - (let it charge for 8 hours) - since then...no problems - no crashes, stalls or blank outs.
I'm running Ranju's 7.4 with spb pocket plus - htc home, etc,
As a point of interest my old battery stated 3.9Volts when I put my meter across it BUT - a voltmeter isn't drawing as much as the universal - when 'under load' from power intensive apps - hence you think you've got a battery putting out the requisite power when you haven't.
This was a real niggly problem to sort out with potential culprits all over the place:
Bad battery?
Bad ROM?
PCB crack?
Hardware Fault?
At the end of the day it's good to have spent £32 or so and simply got rid of the problem totally.
I'd say to anyone who's getting outs or blank outs at 80% power or below - your battery stuffed and no amount of mucking about with ROM swaps, Freezers, charging/ discharging is going to stop it blanking out on you.
I'd also like to say how appreciative I am of this forum with a great deal of knowledge available from so many users across a very broad spectrum of skills and experience. Nice one!
Hope this helps,
fanger

Charging led "broken" while phone phone is turned off

I have report on Jira the following issue.
The led in our OnePlus One doesn't lit when the phone is turned off and we try to charge it, it will affect most if not 100% OnePlus One user, the bug is reported by me using their official rom but happens almost in every rom I've tested(radio issue if you ask me).
Check it here: https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-4187
The assigned person on this actually told me to stay quite about this and I'm like why??? and to be exact and not lying about it, he said: " I'm not going to advertise the issue (and I would rather you not either)". They want to hide this for some reason.
Some might say but why charge it while it's turned off? well if you are in a hurry every juice is needed, also why not have a "proper" phone? even Chinese no-name brands have this, it's basic function.
Please spread this and make an upvote so this would be solved asap(sure it's not life threating issue but surely I'd like to have it because why not?)
Can't say I have ever turned my phone off to charge it. Nor can I be bothered to even to test it.
I don't really see the issue, if you are turning it off to quick charge then you are in a rush and not fully charging it anyway.
Won;t the LED draw power and slow down charging *jk*
Just out of interest, does the power drain on startup of the phone not offset the tiny amount of power saved that the phone would be using when in deep sleep
indesisiv said:
Can't say I have ever turned my phone off to charge it. Nor can I be bothered to even to test it.
I don't really see the issue, if you are turning it off to quick charge then you are in a rush and not fully charging it anyway.
Won;t the LED draw power and slow down charging *jk*
Just out of interest, does the power drain on startup of the phone not offset the tiny amount of power saved that the phone would be using when in deep sleep
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you plug the cable how would you know it's actually charging? ..to verify you need to press the power button once to check the battery level in the screen. People don't mind have problematic devices fine by me they deserve this
Me on the other hand? why not fix this, even if I rarely use it ..it's not rocket science and it was working when I got the device in the first place
P.S. "Just out of interest, does the power drain on startup of the phone not offset the tiny amount of power saved that the phone would be using when in deep sleep" Lets say you have 30 minutes to spend and you need to leave ASAP, turning off the phone will charge more than having the phone turned on in "deep sleep" ..phone still uses energy and some apps do run in the backround that you probably forget to close(we're only humans)

in Dire need of some help from my kind XDA bro's

Xperia Z. Canadian version.
I can't get this phone to boot at all, the battery died after hitting zero percent (aw ****, one of these issues), and now it won't start. I've had it for about 2 months, and I bought it from some liquidation store (I DO have a warranty, but it's just to replace, I have a very few Very important files I want to pull off of it before writing it off, if I can't keep using it).
The notification light turns on, as if it's charging, but it will not turn on at all even after 20 hours of 'charging'. Volume up and volume down with power button does nothing, even just volume up and power button or just volume down and power. PC Companion doesn't detect the phone, I am unable to find out if Device Manager on Windows sees the connection of a device, so I can't speak to that.
I'm tempted to take the back plate off and physically detach the battery myself and re-attach it, it seems like there is no activity going on at all unless the USB is plugged in, which would imply that the battery is so dead I can't even do a simulated battery pull.
Some notes - the battery would lose its last 5 percent in a matter of seconds in the last week, but it also would spend over a half an hour on just 1 percent. So something clearly was wrong.
Briefly:
Not rooted (but I did use KingRoot a couple times)
Locked bootloader
Completely stock, 5.xx whatever, the newest official update.
Edit:
My phone and 2 laptops died all on the same day. I'm not saying I angered the Gods, but I'm definitely about to become more humble
Or if I can't fix anything I will become obsessed with chaos and mischief until eternal damnation
1. Voltage spike/power surge in home power supply? (One time I fried home camera surveillance server AC adapter like that when lighting hit transformer)
2. Spoiled/faulty battery that just give up and died.
3. Faulty/wrong charger.
Using wrong voltage/amps/wattage charger can destroy your device in a matter of days/weeks. For example even using +4W charger on device made for 1.5/2W can mess it if used for longer time(even if phone control power that charger give).
4. Extensive and long exposure to heat from heavy task made by phone CPU or external source(sun/air conditioning).
Battery that is exposed to heat for long time can lost it properties. The same with cold.
5. humidity/water exposure that got inside. For most of time, especially with humidity it can take days or weeks before it mess up device. Corrosion can make small short circuit and phone is dead.
6. Software failure, maybe battery stat, kernel management, or anything like that.
The battery died and won't restart, I was recording audio when it died.
sucks to be me, phones always fail, sigh, I didn't even root it.
Have you tried booting into fastboot or flashmode?
the battery was completely dead. The solution was to remove the battery and boost it with a 9v battery, it works find now. device is running a little hot, but idk if thats just cause the back cover is still off and i can feel it directly. Regardless, that's what to do if your phone won't respond to anything.

Battery information - where is it store?

I was wondering if anyone can explain to me where the charging history and battery history are stored?
Obviously it is something separate from the system partition because it keeps its history through upgrades and off charging.
That is my first question.
My second is if anyone is aware of malware that can infect the executable part of the battery charging code?
Not too long ago my MXPE started to behave strangely and I noticed that in fasboot the modem is always busy.
There is some kind of activity going on with the modem partitions that are keeping them locked.
This started happening exactly at the same time the phone starting draining like mad, even through hard power off (power + vol down for 15 seconds). I did notice that hard power off does reset the problem but it quickly reappears like something remote is installing over the modem.
Some of the symptoms are:
1) battery icon that shows the charging symbol all the time.
2) battery refuses to charge when running android unless hooked up to a data cable (4 wires + ground).
3) the device drains power even while it is supposedly off
So I am thinking something has lodged itself in the executable part of the battery charging firmware and would like as much information as possible. I know the charging part of the phone has firmware just like the phone does but I do not know if it is updated ever or if it is just a small flash prom that gets ignored.
I think figuring out where it stores the info is the first part of this and maybe dumping that and dumping the partition or files that it runs when you plug in a power source.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Guyz need help rectifying my phone!!!

So here the deal guys , my mi 9t pro is about a 18 months old and recently started to have issues with battery life (long story and since I wasn't personally using it I can't explain the issues very clearly but it was all over the place doesn't charge at times verified the charger was indeed charging another phone , sometimes the phone turn off when the charger is connected so quite a lot of erratic faults and no consistent issue to point out )
I have been trying to look into it for a week now and this is my observations.
So first and foremost the phones does not turn on ,meaning that when just the power button is pressed it is stuck on the boot screen with just mi displayed on the screens and does not change at all even after hours.
I did find a way around it when I send the phone to recovery mode by pressing the volume+ and the power button and then selecting reboot and reboot to system. This way the phone always turns on . How long it remains on is a different matter some times it a few secs while at other times it could up to 10 mins and most of the time if its plugged to a charger and I disconnect the charger it immediately turns off.
Things that I have tried
Firstly, I had suspected the battery but on opening the rear cover realized that the previous battery looks in extremely good shape additionally I connected the new battery but connect the cable and realised that the fault persisted.
Thinking it was a software issue I also tried to flash the latest MIUI version from its official website with no help.
Now I am certain the issue is with the circuit or with the motherboard.
Any previous experiences and how it was fixed could be helpful .I don't mind doing some troubleshooting myself and can arrange for advance tools if required.
In short would appreciate advance level help as I enjoy fixing these things myself.
TL;Dr my phone is behaving quite erratically and having tried the battery and software need help repairing it.

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