Database Users

charge exec with an ipod charger?

I have a mini usb lead with me but not the exec charger. Can I just plug this into an IPOD or Blackberry charger and will this charge it?

I think you can without problem...
However, there is a small issue:
The usb standard specifies a maximum 500mA current for the usb supply (over 5V), but to charge the Universal in a reasonable amount of time more is necessary (The supplied one is 1A)
I succesfully charged the battery using a motorola psu, and in the same way you can charge it leaving it attached to the PC usb port.
I am pretty sure there is no risk for the phone but it is possible to overload the power supply - you better check it does not run too hot. Also, put the phone in flight mode and turn it off, to minimize the amount of total power used

I think you can without problem...
However, there is a small issue:
The usb standard specifies a maximum 500mA current for the usb supply (And 5V), but to charge the Universal in a reasonable amount of time more is necessary - The supplied one is 1A - I succesfully charged the battery using a motorola psu.
I am pretty sure there is no risk for the phone but it is possible to uverload the power supply - you better check it does not run too hot. Also, put the phone in flight mode and turn it off, to minimize the amount of total power used

ciaranfo said:
I have a mini usb lead with me but not the exec charger. Can I just plug this into an IPOD or Blackberry charger and will this charge it?
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Not sure which ipod charger you talking about, personally i use the original one from apple (white with the USB plug) and it wks fine. The original charger for universal also has the same current rating of 1A @ 5V so I guess it shouldn't overload it.

Yes, I charge my Universal with a BlackBerry charger from time-to-time.
Keep in mind what TheDayOfCondor said about the original charger putting out 1 amp while the BlackBerry charger is only rated for 0.5 although I haven't had any issues.

right, that's good to know. thanks.

Speed of charge

I've tried searching, but came up with nothing (not even on Google).
It seems to me that my HD2 charges up much quicker when connected to the mains than it does when charging via USB - is this correct ? I'd prefer to only charge via USB as, that way, the phone is still syncing, but it sometimes takes forever to get to full charge that way.
Just wanted to get others' opinions on this.

wilsojer said:
I've tried searching, but came up with nothing (not even on Google).
It seems to me that my HD2 charges up much quicker when connected to the mains than it does when charging via USB - is this correct ? I'd prefer to only charge via USB as, that way, the phone is still syncing, but it sometimes takes forever to get to full charge that way.
Just wanted to get others' opinions on this.
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The wall charger charges at 1 amp.
USB, with a powered USB socket, will max out at half that due to the 500mA standard that USB uses.
So, in theory, it should take twice as long to charge on USB alone.

Plus the 500mA limit on USB is spread across several physical ports, so if you have anything else plugged in then you'll be charging at an even lower rate.

Good to know - thanks, guys - I learnt something new today
Guess I'll charge via mains going forward.
Thanks again !

plus when connected to active sync the phone is on, when its I wall charger it will be on standby.

Despite HTC shipping a 1A charger (which is the most I've ever seen for a USB charger) Lion battery prefer not to get cooked while charging and would last longer if charged at 500ma.

rp-x1 said:
The wall charger charges at 1 amp.
USB, with a powered USB socket, will max out at half that due to the 500mA standard that USB uses.
So, in theory, it should take twice as long to charge on USB alone.
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samsamuel said:
plus when connected to active sync the phone is on, when its I wall charger it will be on standby.
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Exact, the phone actually limits what it draws from an USB port to about 450mA (some safety margin). Then, is stays powered on and active (due to ActiveSync running), drawing approx 100mA. So it actually charges at about 450-100= 350mA, taking ridiculously long (4-5h) to charge. With the supplied charger it charges at 850mA.
Aterlatus said:
Plus the 500mA limit on USB is spread across several physical ports, so if you have anything else plugged in then you'll be charging at an even lower rate.
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Wrong, each port gets 500mA.
airwater9 said:
Despite HTC shipping a 1A charger (which is the most I've ever seen for a USB charger) Lion battery prefer not to get cooked while charging and would last longer if charged at 500ma.
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Li batteries support 1C charge without drawback (would be 1.32A for the HD2's battery).

Wrong, each port gets 500mA.
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Incorrect. The USB standard requires 500mAh nominal at any port when used alone. Manufacturers then decide whether they will "over specify" or not. You will not get 2mAh from a 4 port USB bus unless the internal power supply its built for it and many are not. Current is drawn by the device and if the draw exceeds the supply rating then there is a shortfall to all devices. It all depends on how well the equipment is specified and there its wide variation.

More details about charging here

pa49 said:
Incorrect. The USB standard requires 500mAh nominal at any port when used alone.
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Read page 171 of the USB 2.0 specification:
Root port hubs: Are directly attached to the USB Host Controller. Hub power is derived from the same
source as the Host Controller. Systems that obtain operating power externally, either AC or DC, must
supply at least five unit loads to each port. Such ports are called high-power ports. Battery-powered
systems may supply either one or five unit loads. Ports that can supply only one unit load are termed lowpower
ports.
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A port is either low power, in which case it can supply 1 unit load (100mA), or high power, which can supply 500mA. There's no spreading between ports, for each port if it's a high power one it must be able to supply 500mA at any time, if it's a low power one it will never provide more than 100mA. So there's no such thing as one that provides 500mA if used alone and less if others are connected... or the manufacturer is violating the spec.
Note that low power ports pretty much don't exist on PCs. They can be found on multimedia players with host function for example, which are just good to power a USB key or card reader.
Further on the page you can see that with hubs that don't have external power, the output ports are required to be low power ones, so that a 4-port hub can give one of the 5 unit loads it receives to each port, plus one for its own power, so you can't draw 500mA on any port of a bus-powered hub and be within spec.
Now if you could refrain from misleading users... can't count anymore how many times I've corrected you on your firm affirmations...

PC USB charging a dead-battery Atrix.. Impossible?

I woke up this morning and the battery of my Atrix was completely dead. Since I was in a hurry to get to work I thought I'm going to charge using the computer in my office with the supplied USB cable.
It appears that the phone won't charge from 0% turned off! I had to borrow a Blackberry wall charger from a college and jump start the Atrix before plugging it to my computer's USB and start charging.
My iPhone 3GS would come back to life if plugged to the USB port after a complete discharge.
Is there a solution for the Atrix? Are there other android devices you know of with the same issue?
Thank you

my milestone also have this prob

The moto wall chargers run at 800+ma. This is more than the usual ~400-600ma that other chargers run at. Computer USB ports only supply 500ma MAX. The atrix doesn't seem to like anything under ~600ma and prefers 800-1000ma for some weird reason.
If you've got a well powered USB port, it will charge the phone. If it's underpowered, the phone won't even take the charge.
Yes, from a dead batt, the phone wont even wake up the charge circuit for anything under 600ma. I've experienced it as well.

Thank you. What about USB 3.0? I have that in my home PC. But it still sucks how I can't wake up the phone if the battery completely drained with all the USB around me at work or wherever when a wall-charger is not within reach.
Shouldn't the phone preserve the last drops of the battery before shutting down so it allows us time to start it up again and charge by USB 2.0?
I think it wouldn't hurt if Motorola made it shutoff at like 2% allowing us to charge the device and get it up using USB 2.0. Or maybe a dev can get around it as an optional tweak for users?!
That also made me think of something else. Would the alarm go off if the battery completely died while you were asleep? I know iphone, Nokia and probably many other smartphones does that (preserving last drops for this purpose).

all usb has the same voltage specs, 3.0 ports wont charge better than 2.0 ports on the same system, the only thing that will make a difference is the build quality of the hardware and the voltage regulation from the power management.
A powered usb hub would be your best bet if you can't get to a moto charger

diedemus said:
all usb has the same voltage specs, 3.0 ports wont charge better than 2.0 ports on the same system, the only thing that will make a difference is the build quality of the hardware and the voltage regulation from the power management.
A powered usb hub would be your best bet if you can't get to a moto charger
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I thought it's better to bring up this thread instead of opening a new one since I've been investigating the same issue.
We all know that Android phones and widgets especially can drain the battery unexpectedly.
I PM'ed kennethpenn if there's a way to automate a shutdown when the battery reaches a certain level so it can charge and wake up connected to a computer USB 2.0 port (As in if it can be implemented in his ROM). Kenneth replied that he's not sure, and I've been looking for an app that can do that.
Now before we go more on that, I wish to have your opinion on how important you think it is to sacrifice the last little drops of the battery in favor of being to charge/wake up your devices when you're on the go and may not have access to wall charger?
If there's an app that can allow it then I'm welling to do the tests and find the sweet spot of when to shutdown and if it would actually charge to wake up.
Thank you

I had the same problem yesterday, I only have the USB cord with me and I thought my phone was dead for real or defective. Thanks god for XDA ... The user manual did not say anything about computer usb power not being powerfull enough.
CyberPunk7t9, there is (a few) threads dedicated to improving Atrix battery life full of usefull tricks. I did not try it yet, but SetCPU might be of a great help too.

Remeber, the Atrix requires the Motorola usb drivers to be installed to charge the phone off a port. If the phone is off, your computer is not reconigizing that it was plugged in, so the drivers do not start. *I could be wrong* Happen to me last night though

it's a hardware issue on the computer side. without the moto drivers there telling the USB port to up the current coming out, your phone won't charge on it. most computer-based USB ports do not run high current for power purposes unless enabled. it cannot be solved with an app and mandating a shutdown at 2% is most likely going to cause more problems than solve. the solution is to not run your battery down, honestly. you shouldn't be for LiPo batteries anyway.
diedemus said:
all usb has the same voltage specs, 3.0 ports wont charge better than 2.0 ports on the same system, the only thing that will make a difference is the build quality of the hardware and the voltage regulation from the power management
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It's not voltage that matters, it's current.

I have a gigabyte board which has 'rapid charge' technology, meaning it supplies extra amperage to the usb ports...my battery was close to dying when I saw this thread so as a test I let it completely die and then I tried charging from usb.
Result: It worked.
I still don't get as quick of a charge from USB as I do from the wall but at least there is enough amperage to charge from a completely dead state.

diedemus said:
all usb has the same voltage specs, 3.0 ports wont charge better than 2.0 ports on the same system, the only thing that will make a difference is the build quality of the hardware and the voltage regulation from the power management.
A powered usb hub would be your best bet if you can't get to a moto charger
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Get your facts straight!..............USB 3.0 IS a powered USB port!
USB 3.0 will charge more devices, quicker
Not only will USB 3.0 cables facilitate faster transfer speeds, but they’ll carry more power, too. The USB-IF recognizes the growing number of portable devices that charge via USB (cellphones, MP3 players, digital cameras), and have bumped the power output from about 100miliamps to 900 milliamps. That means not only will you be able to power more than 4 devices from a single hub, but the increase current will let you charge up heftier hardware as well.
Maximum PC
<edit> Also, my Atrix charges fine off the 3.0 ports on my HP laptop.

dcarpenter85 said:
I have a gigabyte board which has 'rapid charge' technology, meaning it supplies extra amperage to the usb ports...my battery was close to dying when I saw this thread so as a test I let it completely die and then I tried charging from usb.
Result: It worked.
I still don't get as quick of a charge from USB as I do from the wall but at least there is enough amperage to charge from a completely dead state.
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I have a gigabyte UD7 in my PC. I wanted to use the rapid charge feature for a while. Still planned. Also the On/Off Charge feature to charge the iphone/ipod while the computer is turned off. I will probably assign some time to test those tomorrow.

CaelanT said:
Get your facts straight!..............USB 3.0 IS a powered USB port!
USB 3.0 will charge more devices, quicker
Not only will USB 3.0 cables facilitate faster transfer speeds, but they’ll carry more power, too. The USB-IF recognizes the growing number of portable devices that charge via USB (cellphones, MP3 players, digital cameras), and have bumped the power output from about 100miliamps to 900 milliamps. That means not only will you be able to power more than 4 devices from a single hub, but the increase current will let you charge up heftier hardware as well.
Maximum PC
<edit> Also, my Atrix charges fine off the 3.0 ports on my HP laptop.
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I have USB 3.0 in my PC too. But as someone stated here, USB 3.0 does not provide more voltage than USB 2.0. Just more consistency I think.
But what matters, Can any of those solutions charge and start a completely dead Atrix?
Thank you for participating guys.

USB ports can only source 100mA unless the host and client agree to a higher current. If as mentioned the Atrix needs more then this to wake-up the phone with a dead battery then it can never request the higher current. This is also why the Moto drivers need to be installed to get the higher current.

CyberPunk7t9 said:
I have USB 3.0 in my PC too. But as someone stated here, USB 3.0 does not provide more voltage than USB 2.0. Just more consistency I think.
But what matters, Can any of those solutions charge and start a completely dead Atrix?
Thank you for participating guys.
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you need a port or power source that will supply enough current to the phone. period. if your computer's ports don't do it, it won't work. go find a higher amp USB port.

Maybe try the usb 2 to 1 cable? So you plug it into 2 usb ports and than into the atrix

CaelanT said:
Not only will USB 3.0 cables facilitate faster transfer speeds, but they’ll carry more power, too. The USB-IF recognizes the growing number of portable devices that charge via USB (cellphones, MP3 players, digital cameras), and have bumped the power output from about 100miliamps to 900 milliamps.
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Click to collapse
Actually USB 2.0 can supply 500 mA, but as someone said to get more than 100 mA, the host and device have to 'negotiate' which I think means driver support of some kind.
I have noticed in Device Manager says that my SGS plugged into my laptop as a mass storage device is only taking 100 mA, but it doesn't charge much slower than it does from a wall charger (which is actually pretty slow, almost 3 hrs for a full charge). Still if I do the math to charge 1500 mAh at 3.7V with 5v in 3 hours would take about 370 mA (assuming 100% efficiency, so the actual current draw must be higher).
If anyone knows a more accurate way of determining the current a USB port is supplying, since Device Manager seems to be wrong, that would be interesting information.
What's interesting here is that at 0% the device isn't even on and can't power up to negotiate a higher current draw. If it can't turn on with 100 mA from the charging port it's stuck, which I suspect is the problem here with the Atrix.

USB 3.0 has the potential to charge at 900mah but yes it’s still 5vdc, the phone will not pull more than 500mah unless it detects the data lines are bridged. This is a safety feature so it doesn't blow your usb2.0 ports as the phone wasn’t built with usb 3.0 spec in mind. If you have a 3.0 usb port you can make a fast charge cable with the data lines cut and bridged, make sure you cut them and they aren't still connected to the host side or you might kill your port.

callen81 said:
USB 3.0 has the potential to charge at 900mah but yes it’s still 5vdc, the phone will not pull more than 500mah unless it detects the data lines are bridged. This is a safety feature so it doesn't blow your usb2.0 ports as the phone wasn’t built with usb 3.0 spec in mind. If you have a 3.0 usb port you can make a fast charge cable with the data lines cut and bridged, make sure you cut them and they aren't still connected to the host side or you might kill your port.
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mA, not mAh

dLo GSR said:
mA, not mAh
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I'm so used to talking about batteries I guess I left the "h"ours in, haha.

P1000/P1010 Charging current?

The stock charger says 2000mA on it. I built a circuit using a 5V 3A switching regulator to plug into my car. But when I plug it in, the tab displays the x over the battery icon indicating insufficient current. It does seem to be trickle charging but what am I missing to get the tab to enter charge mode?

I should add that the voltage is indeed 5v so its not a droop issue and while connected to my circuit, the tab is in usb debugging mode. Any thoughts? Is there a hardware specific forum I should be posting this in?

You need to signal to the device that it can pull more than 500mA. Afaik it should work something like this: http://blog.curioussystem.com/2010/08/the-dirty-truth-about-usb-device-charging/ Don`t exactly remember though whether Samsung uses exactly that setup or a slightly different one - but i think i also read something here about those 200 Ohm resistors.

HTC ONE Charging methods

At home I have an iPhone 5 charger and a Blackberry Bold 9900 Charger along with a Cooler Master Battery Bank. The out put on the battery bank claimed 5 Volts 2.1 Amps but when hooked up to my HTC One it showed USB Charging. I hooked it up via my iPhone 5 charger which has an output of 5 Volts and 1A and also got USB Charging but when I hooked it up via Blackberry Charger with an output of 5V / 750 mA I got Charging (AC) on my HTC One. Looks like it won't accept any higher power input than what it needs for faster charging.
Picture posted is via Blackberry Charger.

Here is a picture via Cooler Master Battery Bank showing charging (USB)

The maximum current is drawn when the battery is empty. The first phase of charging is constant current, where it will draw up to 1A from AC and 500ma from USB, then moves to constant voltage, where the current will drop off. Your battery is probably too charged to be drawing max current.
HTC phones switch to AC charging when the data pins on the USB are shorted, otherwise it's USB charging.

BenPope said:
The maximum current is drawn when the battery is empty. The first phase of charging is constant current, where it will draw up to 1A from AC and 500ma from USB, then moves to constant voltage, where the current will drop off. Your battery is probably too charged to be drawing max current.
HTC phones switch to AC charging when the data pins on the USB are shorted, otherwise it's USB charging.
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I need to double check which USB cable I had used. At work now but just saw that the USB cable I had at work was the Blackberry USB Cable and when I hooked that one up with my new HTC ONE I got AC Charging on my HTC ONE. A sales person had told me that the USB cable can make a difference at times. Will try messin around with a few wires along with my Cooler Master Battery Bank to see if the results change.

desiregeek said:
I need to double check which USB cable I had used. At work now but just saw that the USB cable I had at work was the Blackberry USB Cable and when I hooked that one up with my new HTC ONE I got AC Charging on my HTC ONE. A sales person had told me that the USB cable can make a difference at times. Will try messin around with a few wires along with my Cooler Master Battery Bank to see if the results change.
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I find that the charger it came with charges it fastest. The other chargers I have used are my neuxs 4 and gs4.

The phone is looking for a 'short' across the two data wires, I believe. The HTC chargers have this so that the phone knows it's not a USB port that isn't able to deliver the current. I'm surprised the blackberry charger fooled the phone to think it's AC.