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Trouble Charging with Docking station

I purchased one of those docking stations with additional battery charger off ebay. However, for some reason the unit isn't charging the device when it's docked. Instead it loses power. I waited almost 2 months for them to finally ship the item now this. I was thinking it may be the 1.5ma adapter that came with it. My test this evening will be to plug up the regular charger in the mini usb port and see if that will charge the unit. Is anyone else having this problem? I was trying to cut expense by purchasing this unit instead of the more expensive ones sold on expansys for a little over $100 usd. I even went as far as implementing a 3.5 mm plug for audio (stereo) and this took quite a few hrs to do. Please give some feedback.

I have the same docking station you have. It charges my phone if I turn the backlight down, and dont run any data programs (gps, wifi or anything like that) If I run much of anything it will drain down. I attributed it to the charger cable that comes with it. Let us know how your tests go. I can voice for the xtra battery spot, it charges my spare in less than an hour from empty.

touchlasvegas said:
I have the same docking station you have. It charges my phone if I turn the backlight down, and dont run any data programs (gps, wifi or anything like that) If I run much of anything it will drain down. I attributed it to the charger cable that comes with it. Let us know how your tests go. I can voice for the xtra battery spot, it charges my spare in less than an hour from empty.
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Thanks for the reply bud. I said I'll try the OEM charger in the mini port first, and if that works then I'll buy a higher milli amp charger for it (maybe 3 ma). I did a nice little audio mod to it as I discussed and I'll take pictures later when I get in. I really like the unit and the great thing about my audio mod is that it doesn't broadcast my calls over my A/V receiver, it goes directly to my BT headset (conversations stay private), and once I hang up the audio goes back to the A/V receiver, so I can continue listening to my music. The mod only cost me about $3 USD for the necessary parts and some soldering and drilling.

Here are the pics of the mod I did. The Audio works fantastic. I converted the 3.5mm plug to stereo output and well placed too as the device just slide right onto the docking station without any trouble. Now my next task is to find a 3 ma adapter to use as a charger. For some reason even when I use the OEM charger in the mini usb slot the device charges, but does it very slowly as if it was getting the charge from the computer's USB connection, and the 2nd battery slot doesn't charge at all with this method. If anyone would like internal pics (not that they would help much as I've soldered and hot glued all the wires in the device for stability) I will be more than happy to upload some.

charging with cradle
Had the same problem before so I just plug both chargers into the unit. (Athena and cradle adaptor) It now charges abeit slowly with wifi and screen at middle illumination but fast if I turn the screen off( 20% to 100% in 2.5 hrs.). avoid plugging anything else to the usb or any ports while charging. It will grain your battery even if you are not using them.
Can you take a picture of the internal part of the cradle? The part where you installed the audio jack and rca sockets. This is where I am having problems. I find the space too small to install those you installed. Maybe you could give me an idea how to install the same in my cradle.
Another thing, do you think it is possible to put in another USB slot and/or a memory card slot? I'm going to the province(the provincial life here is like 1980's there in the US except for mobile phones and a few computers with limited internet access) and I don't want to carry arround so many gadgets and attachments with me. I have 2 4G usb drives, 16G cf and a 2G mini sd. I keep my file both for business and pleasure outside of my athena for safety. As much as possible, I don't want to attach an external usb hub as it drains my battery. I would rather have an internal hub and changing the led to something smaller to consume less power but integrate them to the cradle.
As much as I want to bring my laptop to the province, the size of my ibm x40 is still to big and heavy for me to carry constantly everywhere.

yetdy said:
Had the same problem before so I just plug both chargers into the unit. (Athena and cradle adaptor) It now charges abeit slowly with wifi and screen at middle illumination but fast if I turn the screen off( 20% to 100% in 2.5 hrs.). avoid plugging anything else to the usb or any ports while charging. It will grain your battery even if you are not using them.
Can you take a picture of the internal part of the cradle? The part where you installed the audio jack and rca sockets. This is where I am having problems. I find the space too small to install those you installed. Maybe you could give me an idea how to install the same in my cradle.
Another thing, do you think it is possible to put in another USB slot and/or a memory card slot? I'm going to the province(the provincial life here is like 1980's there in the US except for mobile phones and a few computers with limited internet access) and I don't want to carry arround so many gadgets and attachments with me. I have 2 4G usb drives, 16G cf and a 2G mini sd. I keep my file both for business and pleasure outside of my athena for safety. As much as possible, I don't want to attach an external usb hub as it drains my battery. I would rather have an internal hub and changing the led to something smaller to consume less power but integrate them to the cradle.
As much as I want to bring my laptop to the province, the size of my ibm x40 is still to big and heavy for me to carry constantly everywhere.
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I will upload some pics in a bit. I thought about putting in a 2nd USB slot, however now that you've mentioned the internal USB hub, you gave me a new task for tomorrow. I will go to Rat shack and try to find the smallest hub they have and take it apart and somehow get that bad boy to fit into the cradle. If you've researched any that's pretty small post the link and I'll take a look at it. Give me about 30 mins to upload some pics as I have to take the unit apart and stuff. Oh btw I had to strip the 3.5mm down to the bare metal from a cheap headset I had laying around.

The yellow plastic piece is where the stereo adapter is located. I had to shave down a piece of plastic on the insde that was kinda blocking the space. I also made sure that the unit was able to close properly. As you can see in the pictures there's no other wires for the unit to short out on and everything's secured properly with the hot glue, and some soldering.

Is the audio not availble via the usb plug? I was led to belive the usb to 3.5mm headphone adaptors work with the ameo? If this is correct and all the pins have connectors then the audio should be availble without adding a 3rd plug.
The genuine htc cradle does have audio out but looks like it only has 2 plugs so it must be possible?
I have just got a 2nd dock station from ebay to try and make my own 4 in 1 plug for charging, tv out, and hdd connection for the car. Does any one have the mini usb headphone adaptor and the ability to test for continuity between the headphone socket and the usb plug?
regards

delboydell said:
Is the audio not availble via the usb plug? I was led to belive the usb to 3.5mm headphone adaptors work with the ameo? If this is correct and all the pins have connectors then the audio should be availble without adding a 3rd plug.
The genuine htc cradle does have audio out but looks like it only has 2 plugs so it must be possible?
I have just got a 2nd dock station from ebay to try and make my own 4 in 1 plug for charging, tv out, and hdd connection for the car. Does any one have the mini usb headphone adaptor and the ability to test for continuity between the headphone socket and the usb plug?
regards
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Those 3 in 1 adapters do work, however I did the mod to eleminate the need to carry around any extra hardware. I used the 3 in 1 adapter in the usb slot from T-mobile wing phone and it worked just fine. It has the 3.5mm slot, and 2 mini usb slots. But again I did it this way to eleminate the need for that. I'm currently in the process of finding a small USB hub that I can strip down from it's housing and fit it inside the docking station. I already located a 3ma adapter with variable voltage settings. This should be good enough to run all the components and charge the batteries at the same time. Let me know how your mod goes or if you need some ideas.

I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.

tootallk2000 said:
I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.
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Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.

yetdy said:
Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.
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I got in late yesterday, and wasn't able to check the size against the cradle. I see you have slots for a flash card reader on yours, the question now is, have you found a spot to fit all that in there? The size of the one I saw looks like it would work, but it doesn't have the card readers in it. I think that would be very ideal to have in there too. Let me see pics of the final product, if you can get it to fit, if you can't no biggy i'll just do without the card reader in it.

tootallk2000 said:
I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.
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What was the solution for charging? Have you talked with the folks at gpsforless or HTC to see if they could fix there design, by using the designs that you have developed so far? Or are you interested in making a couple extra docking stations for a fee? Sometimes we have more time than money and other times we are starved for time... Lately, I have been starved of time...
Thanks for taking the time to develop a solution that I have been dreaming about, while on the road traveling, ect...
Part of the work around that I was using was BT audio recievers, they have been a great work around, but also have some limitations as well...
I look forward to hearing and seeing good things from you in the future
v/r
Bob

yetdy said:
Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.
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Have you gotten any of the hubs to allow for you to power and recharge the device or spare battery via USB?

the usb hub works but it literally drains my battery so much that i prefer not to use it anymore.

[Q] Making an external battery charger.

Hi there!
My brother just bought me a spare battery. Well it still needs to be charged after usuage. The thing is I have to swap the batteries everytime I used them both. The solution is to buy a cradle to charge it but these are kinda expensive.
My solution would be to build my own charging cradle. But I lack the knowledge of electricity skills to succesfully making such charger without blowing up my battery. Therefor I'm asking the community on XDA for help!
Well this is what I need:
- Battery has 3 connectors: + and - and on in the middle but i dont know what that is.
- I have a usb cable with 4 wires (black/red/green/white)
- I want to connect the usb connecter to my PC or AC adapter and the wires to my battery.
This way I can charge both my HD2 and the spare battery at the same time.
The question is, is this possible and if yes, can this be done just like that or do I need transistors or conductors (or whatever they may called). It needs to be safe, I dont wanna blow up my battery or my AC adapter nor my PC...

Do not even contemplate it.
It is clear that you do not know enough about batteries.
A quick google for desktop chargers came back with one for only £30

For 25quid i got a spare battery, desktop charger and 2 screen protectors from e-bay. Carnt go wrong at that price

I know that the AC adapter converts the input of electrical energy to my phone, I believe my phone does it to my battery too (thats where I'm not too sure).
All I need to know is if I can charge the battery safely when connecting the red wire to the + and the black wire to the - side of the battery... (The green and white wires are data)
I'm not to sure because the AC adapter has a different output than the PC USB output. Although the USB dilivers a tiny bit less voltage it delivers a significant less amount of Whats (or Amps) Basicly that means it just takes longer for the USB to charge as long as the voltage remains identical. (The USB delivers less voltage but the effect on damaging the battery is minimal because the difference is discardable)
My actuall question was: can I connect my battery directly to the AC adapter or do I need to convert the electical energy again (if my phone does a second convert after the AC adapter).

You can find chargers on eBay for less than 5usd. Buy one or you will fry your battery.

VerusAmos said:
I know that the AC adapter converts the input of electrical energy to my phone, I believe my phone does it to my battery too (thats where I'm not too sure).
All I need to know is if I can charge the battery safely when connecting the red wire to the + and the black wire to the - side of the battery... (The green and white wires are data)
I'm not to sure because the AC adapter has a different output than the PC USB output. Although the USB dilivers a tiny bit less voltage it delivers a significant less amount of Whats (or Amps) Basicly that means it just takes longer for the USB to charge as long as the voltage remains identical. (The USB delivers less voltage but the effect on damaging the battery is minimal because the difference is discardable)
My actuall question was: can I connect my battery directly to the AC adapter or do I need to convert the electical energy again (if my phone does a second convert after the AC adapter).
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Watts not Whats
Simple answer: No you cannot connect your battery directly to the AC adaptor.
Detailed answer:
The USB port of a computer/AC adaptor provides approx 5V and a variety of currents depending on what the USB lead is plugged into.
This 5V goes to the phone.
Inside the phone is the battery charging circuit, this detects the level of charge in the battery, controls the voltage and current going to the battery to stop it releasing too much hydrogen which would cause the battery to swell and explode (look on youtube for lithium polymer battery fires).
If you think you can create a charging circuit (including selecting the right ICs and programming them) without burning yourself in a hydrogen/lithium fire, be my guest.

Incapable of making an external battery charger...
Here I am trying not to be a complete idiot and then I go and spell watts the wrong way...
But tnx for the replies, that was all I needed to hear... I guess I'll be swapping batteries after all untill I find a cheap external battery charger...
Cheers!!!

Amzer makes a very nice cradle with charging slot for your spare battery. I got mine for $28USD. I'm not going to provide the link to the outfit I bought mine from because they weren't the best of suppliers to buy from. But the Amzer cradle works very well. Downside is that you cannot use it if you have a case for your Leo that wraps around it, and is designed to stay on. Leo must be caseless to fit into the cradle. But even if you don't use the cradle as a cradle, it does have the ability to charge your spare battery.

Friend purchasing nook for me. Should I get anything else?

I have a friend who is visting the US (I'm from Canada) and I asked him to pick me up a nook. Not finding clear info in some of the reviews, mainly concerned about charging.
This charges over usb when hooked up to your computer right? Just want to make sure it doesn't use a proprietary cable for charging. I read on the ipad side, that older computers don't give out enough power to charge over usb, is that an issue with the nook?
What adapters/cables does it come with exactly? And is it just a standard mini-sub for the charging?
Also, this has a headset jack correct? I've read no bluetooth, I guess there's no way to get a mic working on this then.

Micro USB, will charge VERY slowly using a computer. Includes a 2amp wall socket and special cable to quick charge (still micro usb, just more pins). Has a headset port but does not come with a headset.

I've only had a few mobile devices. I read the ipad can charge over usb if the mobo supports giving out that extra juice. Some mobo's have a new firmware update to enable this.
The connector is micro-usb but just more pins. Hmm. so if the cable breaks or I misplace it no other micro-usb will charge it?
edit: i read a little more and found that it's 30 pin proprietary cable to speed up charging. I also read the galaxy tab does something similar.
Does anyone know if they use the same pin configuration? probably not, but I can get tab usb cables here.

I know you didn't ask for it but I'll tell you anyway
In case you are worrying about registering your device (mandatory at initial setup).
I'm NOT in the US and it worked fine.

Good to know. Thanks.
But I'm more concerned about charging it and relying solely on their cables.
I read the ipad can trickle charge on newer computers but some wouldn't provide enough power. Asus et al have released utilities to increase the power to the usb ports.
I can't post the links but endgadget has an article about it providing links to those utilites. They just talk of apple devices but does this work with the nook?

It comes with a charger for US-type sockets and only if you charge your nook with this (and yes, it is proprietary ) it'll charge quickly. It does seem to charge when you connect it to a standard PC USB port but at an extremely low rate.
On the device Micro-USB (not Mini) is used.

You say it does seem to, do you mean from personal experience? How slow? It sounds like that if you do own one it was so slow you didn't let it finish.
Like if it's 8hrs overnight, I can live with that, but I want to confirm that there is a plan b and not solely rely on their cables.
And as I mentioned asus and others released utils to give more power output to the usb (although these seem like their were only created for ipads). Wondering if those utils speed things up.
for ex, google asus ai charger to see what I mean.

I received my nook Color a mere few hours ago so I can't tell you a lot about its charging behavior It "seems" to load slower via standard USB... if you want to know about the details check one of the large threads on the NOOK and its rooting. I remember reading some information about the USB connector and its peculiarities there.

Ah you just got it. I see.
I found this on the root thread:
'
"There are 12 pins coming off the connector. It looks like there are no pins for the standard micro USB portion, only the extended 12 pins. 2 pins are used to bring in +5V, 2 pins are for signal ground providing a hefty circuit for the 2A charging. USB takes up two pins, and as far as I can tell 2 more are for each LED via current limiting resistors. Two more pins go to discretes that I haven't identified, and two more pins are unconnected. I'll take my scope to them when I have some time."
Not sure what he means when he says no pins for the standard micro portion...

Maybe the plug doesn't have standard USB pins, but the NOOK itself does have standard USB pins as well as the proprietary ones. Because I have trouble inserting the original B&N plug, I went out earlier today and bought a standard Micro USB cable...
I connected it to the nook and it said "not charging", so I went out to do some shopping (10-20 minutes max) and left it at 89%... when I came back it was at 93 %.
So it DOES in fact seem to charge albeit slowly.

Thanks. It's weird, lots of comments of its own cable not fitting properly.
As long as it charges with a normal cable I'm good.

I guess it is charging... however there is a slight chance, that it's NOT charging and the battery charge display is lying (de-calibrated). I don't think so, but I'll only know for sure after a few more days of using only the standard USB charger cable.

usb cable defy+ different than normale ones

My defy+ cable has on the mirco side two metal pins on each side. Normale cables got only two metal pins on the wider side of the mirco side.
Do you follow me? I made picture below had to use * because spaces will disapere when posting
Defy+
**'***'**
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*\***/*
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**'**'**
Normal
**'***'**
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*\***/*
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Sorry, I don't understand you, but you can use standard microusb wires for data and charge with your Defy+ (I usually use a Samsung usb wire)

The cables i used on my htc Desire wont charge or are only use full for date transfer. When i trie to charge true my charger or car charger. It start charging and within a second i got a message that it is unconnectend and then connected again. And it loops.

taarmen said:
My defy+ cable has on the mirco side two metal pins on each side. Normale cables got only two metal pins on the wider side of the mirco side.
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Those aren't "pins" in the sense of providing data signals or charging current. They are more like small springs designed to improve the mechanical retention of the micro USB plug in the socket. They don't make any difference to the electrical or electronic function of the USB cable, beyond reducing the risk of a poor physical connection, or a loss of physical connection if the handset is moved which charging/transferring data.
My Blackberry charger's micro USB plug doesn't have them , but the short USB to micro USB cable which came with my noise-cancelling headphones does - and the only function of that cable is to charge the battery in the headphones. I think you will find that there are a number of subtle mechanical variations of this kind between micro USB plugs from different manufacturers.

taarmen said:
The cables i used on my htc Desire wont charge or are only use full for date transfer. When i trie to charge true my charger or car charger. It start charging and within a second i got a message that it is unconnectend and then connected again. And it loops.
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I used with my Defy+ usb chargers and usb cables from Samsung Wave and Blackberry 8990 and all of these works property for charging and for data transfers.
Maybe your HTC usb cable don´t work propertly?

elTorres said:
Maybe your HTC usb cable don´t work propertly?
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Other possibilities are that the charger is faulty or providing a charge current which is slightly outside spec, or that there is a problem with the battery. I have seen problems caused by both of these kinds of fault (with third-party chargers and batteries) when using my Motorola USB cable.

Shorting the USB Port?

I bought a Nexus One with the infamous broken power button issue, and I am curious what would the effect be if I short the VCC and GND line in the charging port? Has anyone tried that? I am thinking that it will either fry the board or trick the phone to think that it is charging.
The reason I want to do this is because I travel a lot and I might not have access to USB charging if I want to swap the SIM card. I am familiar with the other tricks regarding remapping the trackball_center and I am going to install a version of CWM that doesn't support charging (that way the phone boots when I plug a charging cable).
So long story short... what do you think about attempting to short the micro USB charging/data port?

It won't fool the phone into anything, only ruin your USB socket and potentially fry any device into which you'll plug such phone, forgetting that it's shorted.
For charging detection 5V needs to be applied between VCC and GND - standard VBUS voltage.