Database Develop

HD2 Mains Charger with a difference!

I think this is pretty unique
http://tinyurl.com/yztqtrq
A mains charger with multiple plus adapters BUT...and here is the clever bit, the mains charger has a small lithium ion battery built in so that whilst you are charging your HD2...it's also charging the internal battery. That means if you are away from a power source, you can still charge your HD2 by flicking the switch on the side of the mains unit and it then charges your HD2.
I haven't had it long enough yet to see how many charges it'll do, but it seems like a good bit of kit and the only charging kit I'll ever need. Heck, it even comes with two USB ports in the top, (you can actually charge TWO devices at the same time) plus a USB charge cable and a car charger plug too.

Nice, but what's the battery capacity there? It looks a bit smallish.

Batrtery capacity
Looking at the battery it's a 3.7v, 1000mAh ... 'BL-5C' which I think is battery for some Nokia phones.

..you don't use the smaller 'emergency' battery actually in your HD2, you just plug your HD2 into the charger as normal, flick a switch on the charger and it uses the juice in the emergency battery to charge your HD2. So this means that even if you are away from mains power, you can still charge your device
simples...

1000 mAH is too little, alas. Otherwise I'd get a couple of those.

Too little...?
Hiya
Electricity isn't my strong point....but I don't get why you say 'it's too little'. I've been charging my HD2 using the device and it seems OK. Did I confuse you? The 1000 doesn't go *IN* the HD2...it stays in the charging unit and charges it form there...

stevep said:
I think this is pretty unique
http://tinyurl.com/yztqtrq
A mains charger with multiple plus adapters BUT...and here is the clever bit, the mains charger has a small lithium ion battery built in so that whilst you are charging your HD2...it's also charging the internal battery. That means if you are away from a power source, you can still charge your HD2 by flicking the switch on the side of the mains unit and it then charges your HD2.
I haven't had it long enough yet to see how many charges it'll do, but it seems like a good bit of kit and the only charging kit I'll ever need. Heck, it even comes with two USB ports in the top, (you can actually charge TWO devices at the same time) plus a USB charge cable and a car charger plug too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great find! The whole package is actually as cheap as a cheap non-OEM HD2 battery

stevep said:
The 1000 doesn't go *IN* the HD2...it stays in the charging unit and charges it form there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but that doesn't matter - surely a 1000 mAh battery will not be able to fully charge the HD2's 1230 mAh battery?
In fact, it would probably be better if the secondary battery did go into the HD2 as you're sure to lose some of the power by way of heat etc during the charging.

I must say i like the car charging aspect. If you find yourself low in the morning, you can charge while you driving, and take it with into work (or anywhere without having to plug in) and finnish it off. Traveling time is not usually sufficient to give a decent charge.
You can then replenish the small battery on the way home. Makes sense.

I got one of these but am having some trouble using the sync & charge cable with a PC. Although the phone will charge when plugged in, t I'm not asked whether I want to connect via ActiveSync, disk drive, etc. and I get driver errors on the PC. Do I have to do something special to use the cable with a PC?

I think its a charging cable only and not a data transfer cable.

Alternative 5V chargers (currency?)

Hi, I'm really a noob when it comes to electronics. For all I know, when a cable fits it should work
I have a couple of microUSB chargers laying around. They all have an output of 5 Volt but they output a currency that differs from the standard charger (1A).
What is the "golden rule" wrt currency? Are chargers with a currency that is less than 1A save?

current is not pushed, it is pulled by your device as necessary. voltage is pushed, so correct voltage,5V in this case, is very important. As for the current, if the charger can't supply enough current with that voltage it will get hot and cause problems. i.e., you should have a current greater or equal to your original charger and same voltage. this applies to ALL of your electronics.

ozkaya said:
current is not pushed, it is pulled by your device as necessary. voltage is pushed, so correct voltage,5V in this case, is very important. As for the current, if the charger can't supply enough current with that voltage it will get hot and cause problems. i.e., you should have a current greater or equal to your original charger and same voltage. this applies to ALL of your electronics.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for this explanation. What do you think, a 5v charger with a current of 850mA will that cause big problems when I use it just accidentally to charge my device.

appelflap said:
Thank you very much for this explanation. What do you think, a 5v charger with a current of 850mA will that cause big problems when I use it just accidentally to charge my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It probably wouldn't be a lot of problems, if you really have to do it, charge it when the screen is turned off, so that you will need less current.

You can charge without risk with any USB charger. Unless the charger "signals" that it can supply more than 500mA by having the 2 USB data pins shorted, the HD2 won't pull more than 500mA, which is the minimum a USB charger must be able to supply.

"Golden rule" - If You have 5V its safe for Your phone, current level is determining the time that You need to charge battery.
Kilrah sad that HD2 'pull' no more than 500 mA - ok, if this is true ( i believe it is , he always make some test for it ) original charger needs about 2h, with 250 mA charger it will take more than twice of that time - 4h ( it's not fully linear )
@Kilrah - did You test what's power ( current taken ) consumption during charging ? it's really only 500 mA ? if so, than why HTC use 1A charger ? usually safety rules are about 15 - 30% more than max current needed.
0.5 A + 30% = 0.65A , so why 1A ?

The minimum current what HD2 accepts is 500mA because this is the USB standart.
If the supply could deliver more than 500mA the HD2 will take it up to 1000mA. The maximum current which the HD2 can use is 1A (1000mA).
So if your charger can deliver 5V and 2000mA the HD2 will limit the current to 1000mA. So you can use a charger, when the voltage is 5V and the current at least 500mA.
The push pull principe in the post before is correct, because the charger is a voltage source and not a current source.

I am already enjoying the benefits of proposed standardisation of phone chargers to micro usb pin. Since I upgraded with HD2 from Nokia N97 I am using the nokia wall chargers as well as well as car charger. I didnt have to buy new charging accessories for this mighty HD2.
By the way would the Nokia data cables (micro usb) be able to sync data when used with HD2. Havent tried yet.....

afropolak said:
@Kilrah - did You test what's power ( current taken ) consumption during charging ? it's really only 500 mA ? if so, than why HTC use 1A charger ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As said, IF the 2 USB data pins are NOT shorted (that's how it is by default on <500mA/3rd party chargers, or on a PC), the HD2 will limit the current it pulls to ~450mA.
IF they are shorted (on chargers that support higher current like the supplied one) the HD2 will pull more. With the supplied charger it's about 850mA, with a 3rd party "800mA" Chinese charger that didn't have the pins shorted but was modded to have it done, it pulls about 650mA.
PlayStation said:
By the way would the Nokia data cables (micro usb) be able to sync data when used with HD2. Havent tried yet.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Micro USB is a standard, so every micro USB cable should be the same. If not, you've got a botched knockoff.

so how do you short the cable assuming I get a car charger without a USB to micro USB cable and sourced my own cable from a parts bin that was probably for computer usage?

cheahcl said:
so how do you short the cable assuming I get a car charger without a USB to micro USB cable and sourced my own cable from a parts bin that was probably for computer usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think that would be a good move!
You would have to be certain of the regulation circuitry of the charger and it's ability to cope with the attendant initial draw of the battery when plugged in.
This will depend on the state of drain of the battery and the various functions in operation at the time on the phone.
At the moment of plugging in is when the draw will be highest and when any protection circuitry will be essential.
A well topped up battery will "draw" less than a depleted one and will continue charging on as little as 350mAh (again depending on what is running on the phone).
A very depleted battery may well not even start the charging process at such a level. That's why the HD2 comes with a 1000mAh wall charger!
The levels quoted for PC/Laptop USB power are nominal off load levels and will vary depending on any othe devices plugged in on the same bus supply.
So, with a PC that has a few attached USB devices, you may well NOT see 500mAh and as has been reported before, you can get battery depletion back into the USB port as other devices draw from the phone!
Always best to keep the battery topped up to prevent "charging strain" on the cells. This will maximise the capacity available when you need it for those longer periods of time.

[Q] Faster USB Charging?

Just reading up on USB chargers, and I found somewhere in a thread here about phones defaulting to smaller ma when charging via USB if the connector didn't have the data pins shorted or something.
So, I was wondering a couple of things:
1) If the default charger supplies 700ma, do you think that is the most the Nexus S can draw? Does anyone have one of these shorted USB chargers? Does it charge the NS faster?
2) If it does charge faster, how hard would it be to do something similar to shorting the data connections? I have a generic AC-USB cable which I currently use for my iPod touch.
3) Is there a way to check if it is already shorted out? The USB charging port looks similar to ones on my computer, but I'm not sure what to look for.
Thanks for any help! Maybe if we can sort out this stuff, we can provide a solution for those looking for faster charging!

it does work safely, i'm using a 1000 mAh charger at home, and a 2000 mAh charger in the car both are from aftermarket eBay/DealExtreme charges.
no overheating
and charges faster than stock

AllGamer said:
it does work safely, i'm using a 1000 mAh charger at home, and a 2000 mAh charger in the car both are from aftermarket eBay/DealExtreme charges.
no overheating
and charges faster than stock
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thankyou for that AllGamer, I'll think of possible ways I could mod the charger now

The only reason it is slow is because of the USB charging brick instead of just a charger.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I know it's a wrong thread, but anyone has any pointers as to how to short a regular USB cable to make the phone think it's a power adapter cable?

XBOHDPuKC said:
I know it's a wrong thread, but anyone has any pointers as to how to short a regular USB cable to make the phone think it's a power adapter cable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah it's not the wrong thread that was one of my questions! I'm not sure exactly where you would do it, but maybe if you skinned the wire, then cut the data lines it would work?
Not sure which end you would do it on however, but that may not matter. Any other ideas?

The two center pins in the USB carry the data. If you pull them out, the cable won't be able to connect to the computer.
Sent from my Nexus S

Wow - you don't need to do this and you wouldn't want to in a computer anyway.
The USB specification says that 500ma (@ 5v) of current should be available from a computer's USB port. Of course, the actual wires can carry much more than this, so manufacturers can tell their phones to takes as much current as is offered.
Almost all computers limit their USB power output accordingly - this is why some opld usb-powered external hard drives needed 2 USB plugs to get enough power. The only computers that I am SURE emit significantly more than 500ma on their USB ports are first and second generation MacBook Airs.
Some phones, the N1 and every other HTC specifically, look for a specially shorted cable to "know if they are plugged into the wall adaptor" as opposed to a computer USB port. In reality, this is just a way to make you specifically buy HTC chargers as opposed to third-party off-brands, because plugging one of these phones into an off brand charger will limit the current draw to about 450ma.
If you want to know if your Android phone thinks that it is in "USB" mode or in "AC" mode, just plug the phone in, open the dialer, enter *#*#4636#*#* and then select battery info. If your phone is one that cares (not all do), it will say USB if it thinks it should be in USB charging mode, or AC if it thinks it should be in AC charging mode.
I would not try shorting out the middle pins in a cable and then plugging it into the computer. First, most will probably just disable the USB port completely, shutting off even power you could draw. Second, if it doesn't shut down, you run the risk that a badly-built USB port might not properly limit the current to 500ma - and since they are not designed to furnish more current than that, you might melt something expensive or start a fire. third, if you make a mistake, you risk shorting out either your phone or your computer, which might ruin your day, week or month, depending on your financial means to replace the system that cooks itself.
I would just run out to your local store, pay 15 bucks for a 2A third-party usb charger brick, and go to town. That will work perfectly - this is what I use, and it probably cuts the charge time by 30-40%. Obviously, this indicates that the NS is not capable of drawing a full 2A - I have not put a meter on it, but I would bet that it limits itself to somewhere just under an amp in.

I have recently bought both a 2A wall charger and car charger and my phone does not recognise either of these as anything more than a 500mA source.
Is it really just a case of opening the car charger up and shorting out pins 2 & 3? they are currently not connected to anything in the charger.

If it's indeed a matter of shorting the data lines, then I think you can skin the wire as suggested by others, but then cut the data lines, short the end that leads to the phone, leave the end to the computer open. I think it's the phone that tries to determine whether the data lines are shorted.
Edit: Can someone measure the continuity between the data pins with the stock charger? I wonder if they are shorted. I'm still waiting for my Nexus S to arrive, so can't test it.

Yup, the data lines in the stock Nexus S charger ARE shorted.
I just modified a cheap 1A car charger by popping it open, soldering the 2 data lines together and putting it back.
The report on the Nexus S before I did this (*#*#4636#*#*) said "USB", and afterwards it now says "AC".
I will report back after I make a road trip if this improves the GPS + Pandora + Screen in car situation. I suspect it will.
----------------
Yup, the car charger seemed to actually maintain and increase the battery this time. Seems good.

The NS supports chargers output to a max of 1000mA, as it says on the back of it, where the battery resides.

Quick question about charging a mobile battery

Quick question. If you leave your phone plugged in and its fully charged and your using it, is the phone just leeching off the charger for power or is the charger pushing out small bursts of power to the battery. The context of my question is i'm starting to use webtop alot and I leave my phone on all day plugged in. Is continuing this behavior going to impact my battery or does the phone just leech directly off the charger without using the battery?

It's fine to leave it plugged in all the time. The phone has a "smart circuit" that use what is called trickle charge to just continually top off the battery as it drops below full charge. The phone is designed such that it doesn't receive power directly from the charger or USB cable, unless the +5v DC current is on pin 1 like a factory flash cable.
Bottom line is there is no damage or shortening of the life of the battery to leave it charging all the time while in the dock or any other means and Li Ion batteries no not have memory problems.

On a related note, is there any damage in using low-power chargers?
I have an external solar-powered battery charger that also supports USB-out, and I find that it doesn't put out enough power to really charge the battery, but it can keep the battery at its current charge level (whenever it is plugged in) for the equivalent of one charge (so the phone could theoretically last 2ish days).
I'm wondering whether this is constantly charging/discharging the battery (bad thing), or just providing enough power to run the phone (good thing).
I've also seen a similar behavior when charging over USB. If I'm using the phone a lot, sometimes a usb port doesn't supply enough juice to charge the phone.
I also saw this in some (rarer) cases with my OG Droid, but I didn't pay it much mind because I had 3 batteries for that thing and you could pick them up for a few dollars off of Amazon.com.

Thanks!
cellzealot said:
It's fine to leave it plugged in all the time. The phone has a "smart circuit" that use what is called trickle charge to just continually top off the battery as it drops below full charge. The phone is designed such that it doesn't receive power directly from the charger or USB cable, unless the +5v DC current is on pin 1 like a factory flash cable.
Bottom line is there is no damage or shortening of the life of the battery to leave it charging all the time while in the dock or any other means and Li Ion batteries no not have memory problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for your response. I had a feeling it was something like this. Good old "smart circuit".

podspi said:
On a related note, is there any damage in using low-power chargers?
I have an external solar-powered battery charger that also supports USB-out, and I find that it doesn't put out enough power to really charge the battery, but it can keep the battery at its current charge level (whenever it is plugged in) for the equivalent of one charge (so the phone could theoretically last 2ish days).
I'm wondering whether this is constantly charging/discharging the battery (bad thing), or just providing enough power to run the phone (good thing).
I've also seen a similar behavior when charging over USB. If I'm using the phone a lot, sometimes a usb port doesn't supply enough juice to charge the phone.
I also saw this in some (rarer) cases with my OG Droid, but I didn't pay it much mind because I had 3 batteries for that thing and you could pick them up for a few dollars off of Amazon.com.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To my knowledge, there is no reason a low power charger should present any problem, but charging from the USB on a PC is limited to 350mA and will definitely not push enough current to charge the phone while it is under heavy use like Mobile Hotspot tethering with LTE or even 3g.
The standard wall charger is 850mA and even that can sometimes only keep up or charge very slowly under heavy load.

USB spec is [email protected] not 350mA. But yes, a dedicated charger probably will charge faster. Some may go as high as 1A output...
Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

alternate source of fast charger?

So I left my NC wall charger and cable in my hotel room in South Korea last weekend, and of course I am back home in TX with no way to charge besides normal microUSB, which takes forever.
Is there any source other than B&N for a high-speed (high current) charger and cable? The B&N one is like $25, which is not too bad, but I still would rather find an alternative if possible.

What you're looking for on the charger is something that's rated at 1.9A or better. Most made for the ipad are 2A. The only alternative I've made use of is a Belkin one they sell at Wallyworld for $20 bucks, (same type deal as you but I still had the cable and was still on the road). With the stock cable I get a full charge in about three hours and with a regular cable I get a full charge overnight. If I had to do it over I might have pushed my schedule a little harder and looked for a B&N so I would have ended up with a "spare" cable out of the deal.

mr72 said:
So I left my NC wall charger and cable in my hotel room in South Korea last weekend, and of course I am back home in TX with no way to charge besides normal microUSB, which takes forever.
Is there any source other than B&N for a high-speed (high current) charger and cable? The B&N one is like $25, which is not too bad, but I still would rather find an alternative if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bummer! I travel to S. Korea regularly in Jan/Feb and in early Aug. Team development programs with Samsung at their Cheonan S1 Training Center. Where do you travel to in S. Korea?

Where as finding an adequate charger seems easy enough, its the cable that's the problem. Has to be an official B&N cable for fast charging. A standard microUSB will charge very slowly. I've yet to find an aftermarket equivalent.

Has anyone checked out a touchpad charger? It looks like it's just a standard micro usb charge that puts out 2A. It seemed to charge my nook reasonably fast but I didn't let it get above 95% since I wasn't sure if it would hurt the battery. I'll have to do a better test to see how long it takes to charge

bitnerd said:
Has anyone checked out a touchpad charger? It looks like it's just a standard micro usb charge that puts out 2A. It seemed to charge my nook reasonably fast but I didn't let it get above 95% since I wasn't sure if it would hurt the battery. I'll have to do a better test to see how long it takes to charge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here are the results of a very quick test that I just performed:
Nook Color running Mirage CM7 latest version (5/18)
Overclocked to 1100Mhz and interactiveX governer
Screen at 100% brightness
Battery Monitor Widget main graph screen displayed entire time
Logging set for every 60 seconds
Test lasted about 5min for each combination
Battery at about 70%
Nook charger & cable
- average reading of +892mA
- mV increased 3844mV to 4053mV
Touchpad cable & charger
- average reading of -335mA
- mV increased 3847mV to 3901mV
Touchpad cable & Nook charger
- average reading of -407mA
- mV increased 3847mV to 3888mV
Nook cable & Touchpad charger
- average reading of +1211mA
- mV increased 3826mV to 4081mV
So it looks like the Nook cable is the key. As long as you have a charger that puts out around 2 amps or so and the Nook cable, the Nook will fast charge. It actually charged faster on the HP charger (2.0A output vs 1.9A for the Nook charger).
I also tried a cheap data cable I had and it stated "USB charging" and the results were similar to using the HP cable but a bit lower on the mA readings.
I plan to run the test again using a high Amp car charger but I think the results will be pretty much the same.
The best combination for a super fast charge is the HP Touchpad wall charger and the Nook cable

Just call B&N, talk nice. They will either give you a new set, or set you up with an order. They gave one to me, 2 day ship too...

My cable broke last weekend. I went to a BN store, and they sell the cable without the charger for $15.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk 2

I don't know about the fast charger, but the charger for a samsung cell phone (not a smart phone just a normal phone) phone will charge the nook. I've accidentally plugged it in and it worked. I've not used it for extended periods so can't speak to its long term ability to work.

joelgrice said:
[...] So it looks like the Nook cable is the key. As long as you have a charger that puts out around 2 amps or so and the Nook cable, the Nook will fast charge. It actually charged faster on the HP charger (2.0A output vs 1.9A for the Nook charger).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed that my NT on B&N firmware 1.4 will charge on a non-B&N charger, but that the charging status shown in settings always says "not charging". My NC on CM7.2 simply indicates it's charging. I don't know if the B&N status really matters or not, but it is finicky about the wall adapter. If/when you re-test, could you please note the battery status?
Meanwhile, I did some testing with a PowerGen 12v adapter. I was able to get the NT showing "charging (AC)" while using the 1A plug on the adapter with the B&N cable. Reading the little booklet that comes with it indicates that "some devices" can pull more than 1A off this plug, including the "HP touchpad, Kindle Fire". While charging, I did get the erratic screen issue while plugged in. With the B&N charger, the same cable didn't cause this behavior on the NT. Not sure what that means, but you basically can't use it while it charges with the adapter. The 2A plug, described as "for the iPad" shows "not charging" (but not discharging). Using a generic microUSB cable also yields "not charging".
I also tested a EZOPower 7800 mAh supplemental battery. I was able to get a NT showing "charging (AC)" while using the "S" plug, described as compatible with the Samsung P1000 (Galaxy Tab) with the B&N cable. The "I" (iPad) plug did not work. The battery itself does charge off any 1A USB source, and will charge external devices at full 2.1A power as it charges. This means you should be able to let this battery power your NC, while the EZOPower battery charges more slowly from a normal 1A USB 12 VDC or AC adapter. Once the NT is fully charged at full rate, the EZOPower battery will itself charge. There were no screen issues with this combination, and I could use the device as it charged (with the usual cautions about the fragile B&N cable, of course.)
I don't know if the distinction between "not charging" and "charging (AC)" actually means anything, but the B&N firmware seems to care, while CM doesn't.

The reason why people notice they need a stock NC cable to 'fast charge' is that While it appears at first glance to be a standard microUSB plug.... it is not. Go ahead, try and plug it into your cell phone (no, it wont hurt your phone). The NC 'microUSB' plug actually has many more pins than the standard 5 (Something up near 20 as I recall). There are the normal 5 upfront, then the rest as further back. When you plug it in to charge, one of the rear pins connects and can supply the 1.9A max charge current. That 1.9A pin is directly connected to the Power Mgmt chip and is the only way to get high current charge.

The <explicitvie delted) whole story
There are three pieces to this puzzle.
1) a high power 2amp / 2000ma USB charger
2) shorting the correct pins in the cable to let the device know it is connected to a high power charger
3) extra long 12 ping next gen micro usb cable.
Some details...
Not all 1.9 / 2amp chargers are actually 2 amps
Some are 2 x 1amp
Some are mis-represented
etc.
I have tried many...
Some are frauds
Some are designed by idiots.
Few actually work
Yes, this is a Ipad spec.
Shorting the data pins (2 to 3) is required.
Go on eBay and look up pwr+ usb filter.
This little USB type a male to female adapter
does just that
shorts the data pins
finally the cable...
There is a new type of micro USB 12 pin connector on the cable.
The other big side is standard 4 pin.
The micro connector is longer than a standard micro USB.
The are some overseas import cables that work.
A standard USB cable WILL NOT WORK.
PS:
using a standard charger and cable will work but takes 4x longer.
Charging while on will run the battery down.
Pretty much stay with genuine OEM parts.
Especially the cable.
Unless you are tech savvy.
Google 12 pin USB
You can source a good 2amp power supply.
You can use OEM Ipad chargers.
HP makes a good 2A charger. PN 157-10157
12V - Scosche big black 4" long job 2 port 2.1a + 1a
However you must short the data pins with the pwr+!
mail at lofthouse dot org