Database Develop

Building a Nook Color extended battery

So after looking at the teardown and assembly info online, I've started to percolate a notion in my head to double the battery capacity of the NC.
My thinking is that if you sacrifice a bit of structural reliability by cutting out the portion of the plate the battery is on, you could cram another NC battery, scavenged from the ruins of a dead one, into there and wire it in parallel. The end result would be a heavier, probably slightly girthier, NC, with 8000mAh of life. I don't care how bright your screen is or how many rooted roms you're using, that fool will last a looooooong time.
My question is primarily for electrical folks here: any pitfalls to watch out for? Do we know if there's any circuits in the battery itself that might interfere or is the battery unit just a collection of Li-Ion packs?
Of course if you think I'm a mad scientist who must be stopped at all costs, please feel free to chime in too. Just stand over there on the scorched X on the floor next to the death ray...

Hmmm if the kernel allows for a charge higher than the one its in now. Like the evo charging issue with extended battery
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

BrianDigital said:
Hmmm if the kernel allows for a charge higher than the one its in now. Like the evo charging issue with extended battery
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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Don't believe I've heard of this. Whassat?

loganthered said:
Don't believe I've heard of this. Whassat?
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Click to collapse
Like he said: Whaa? I had an EVO [fun] but couldn't stand the less than less-than-stellar battery life. I'm talking dead by 4pm crap. Bought an extended battery and noticed no improvement. Is that why? Finally downgraded to an EVO shi[f]t [less fun] but I'm not getting the kind of improvement I would've expected going from a 4.6 to 3.6 inch screen, after all aren't they the biggest battery sucks?

sounds too scary for me!!! I think I'd rather just replace the battery (if it is possible to purchase one...)

The main issues would be....
1. extra strain on the charging circuit.
2. the possibility of battery imbalance...leading to extra strain on charging circuits...possible overheat...boom
3. possibility of overheating due to combined heat from 2 batteries during heavy charging...boom.
make sure all of those are taken care of and you are golden. Personally, I would source a larger amperage battery with similar dimensions and wire it in.

I like the idea, carry on

Why not just charge thru USB? Car adapter or external power pack?

UCSB said:
Why not just charge thru USB? Car adapter or external power pack?
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Because that defeats the purpose of bringing it a long for camping ;p or being marooned on an island with a black fog monster and a bunch of other idiots.

Just get the Energizer XP8000 and a little duct tape and you can get about 10+ extra hours out of it.

ExploreMN said:
Just get the Energizer XP8000 and a little duct tape and you can get about 10+ extra hours out of it.
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Which model do you recommend?

Duck brand duct tape is pretty good
Gorilla works well too

ExploreMN said:
Just get the Energizer XP8000 and a little duct tape and you can get about 10+ extra hours out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have one of those, and yes it will charge the Nook Color on the go.

Just a little heads up on the topic, android stores battery info in the boot partition I believe and that's what tells the kernal the status of the battery, I.e. a double capacity battery would report as fully charged when only half charged if you didn't Pachelhoffer the is/kernal and such to match the new capacity.
Correct me if I'm wrong!
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

use external battery pack
deadbot1 said:
The main issues would be....
1. extra strain on the charging circuit.
2. the possibility of battery imbalance...leading to extra strain on charging circuits...possible overheat...boom
3. possibility of overheating due to combined heat from 2 batteries during heavy charging...boom.
make sure all of those are taken care of and you are golden. Personally, I would source a larger amperage battery with similar dimensions and wire it in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These are excellent points. I would avoid hacking the internal circuitry and instead get a hold of an external battery, design a circuit to drop the voltage to 5v and use the usb cable to charge up the battery. Trying to charge two batteries in parallel is asking for trouble because of the imbalance problem.

d.v said:
Which model do you recommend?
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For the price, I got the XP1000 I think (its in my backpack which I left at work) I actually got it for my Epic to charge when I was out and about and moved around too much to use a wall charger. Works on the Nook too, but I haven't tried a real charge to see how much I get out of it. I would guess if I can charge my Epic 2-3 times that I could at least recharge the Nook once completely.

Warning - be careful screwing around with the internal LIPO battery and circuits. If something damages the single cell battery or voltage gets to low, and you try to add voltage and amps to it, it might puff up and if it does its flammable!
Its a single cell LIPO pack like used in rc airplanes and cars! They are very finicky to say the least when it comes to discharging and charging. Let alone if you want to hook up another one to it and do it wrongly! People have burnt down there whole house at night just over charging one and not babysitting the charging progress!
It is a lithium-polymer battery and not a lithium-ion!
They can catch fire when they puff instantly, many videos on youtube!

Correct me if im wrong, but the battery has a built in monitor and charge stopper so if you were to charge both the batterys via the micro usb slot you would need some sort of trickle charge/sbc kernel mod to overcome this which could be a real pain in the arse and not to mention dangerous considering trickle charge has been known to damage batteries on occasion and we do not have an easily replaceable battery.

I have this unit, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0038VQET4. It will completely charge the battery of the nook.

jerrykur said:
I have this unit, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0038VQET4. It will completely charge the battery of the nook.
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And a lot of other things, I'd gather, judging by the number of "tips" it comes with.
Do you have any idea if it will charge an NC more than once?

1800 mAh battery + external charger + Docking Station

There is an existing thread about the same docking station here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1095395
(except mine is from this seller and sold $ 23.-, free shipping, without the car charger:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180667553428&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:CH:1123 and arrive after about 10 day at my home in europe)
So I won't say to many things about the dock, beside confirming it's made of good quality and is charging the Streak 5 perfectly (not enough place to hold the streak with any cover around nor the 2'400 or 4'800 mAh extended battery in it). It will charge only one piece at a time with the supplied 1'500 mA charger, first the external battery, then the streak 5. If you want to charge both at the same time, you'll have to plug the supplied USB cable in a computer or in another charger with a USB plug.
Bought also a 2'000 mA (yes!) car charger from the same seller for $ 6.30, came with a streak usb cable and is working fine.
Now to the 1'800 mAh standard sized battery: bought two of them with an external charger for $ 13.- including shipment here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170657953719&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:CH:1123
Can't say anything about how long it lasts yet 'cause I just charged and installed one in my streak tonight. Will update about it soon. I can of course not confirm in any way the accuracy of the supposed 1'800 mAh capacity, but one funny thing is that it actually weighs less than the original 1'530 mAh one! 31 grams instead of 36 grams. It might only be because of some padding or size of cables/casing, or it might be because it's absolutly not a 1'800 mAh battery...
Can anyone who bought a non genuine 1'530 or 1'600 mAh battery (read: Chinese) please give us the precise weight of it to compare? thanks.
The external charger came with a European plug adapter and can also be used as a usb charger since it has a 5.2V 800mA usb plug at one end.
I'm still expecting some of those silicone cases to see how they fit and protect my lovely but fragile baby.
Edit: silicon cases arrived. one black, one transparent and one grey-transparent. -> Power key a little hard to press (to power the phone/ display), volume up button to easy to activate, but beside this, the case fits perfectly.
Edit 2: I got one of the 1800mAh batteries working for 12 hours with the phone on and have now about 50% Power left. Only a few phone calls, some messaging & mailing and a little surfing. So very moderate use.

Did you test the 1800 mah battery? MY streak is just an the way, thinking about ordering same item as you...

Yes tested, but not with the phone on for the moment, so no good comparison. Only a little wifi and on standby.
In a few days I'll use it as my main phone and will report soon. But the new batteries work good, so you don't risk much anyway. And the dock and the external charger are very practical.

Thanks for your reply
Great, just ordered a single 1800 mah battery for 2,52 € including shipping.
Dock would be great too, I guess. But it isn't possible to use the dock when you have a silicon case on your streak, is it?

Well actually you can fit it on the dock with the silicon case, but the plug won't connect to the streak deep enough (you have to push it all the way down without the case to make it work). Maybe it could be modded to work with the casing, but I won't give it a try (Not yet. I already upgraded the internal 2GB microsdhc memory to 8GB with Patriot class 10 card -> a lot of room to install apps! And no boot.ini file to mod, it will just format it and reinstall the system on first boot).
Edit: ok, I gave it a try and unscrewed the dock to see it's innards.
The plug is kind of glued on the top (where the wires come out of it) and melted on the extremeties to the inside of the dock. I guess there is some modding allowed here, but you need to cut it and glue it back a little higher/further up. The perfect mod would be to build the plug on some kind of springs, in order to be able to use it with and without the silicon case.

Wait before u buy charging cable cause the Thickness of the does mean alot

OK so like some others i have the strange problem that the charging cable is "falling" from the connector on my note 2.
i have found a solution with replacement cable from HAMA and it was great cause the connector is about 1 mm longer and keep "stuck" inside the not 2
the problem is that i have found out the charging is slow...
i thought its my imagination but i take the charger on my bag to work and yesterday night went to sleep with about 12% battery and connecting to the charger i was sure that in the morning the battery will be full....
i woke up 3.5 hours later to work and ... ooops only 74% battery...
i decided that it has to be the cable so i took with me the original cable and here i am at work connecting the charger and in about few minutes i got 80% battery.
so i guess we have to find a thick cable cause "having" 2A charging is depend also on the cable thickness ...

I had similar problems here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2015459
It looks like all cables are not created equal.

I doubt it was the gauge. It probably was that the pins weren't fully contacting because they weren't aligned right or something. It doesn't take much wire to deliver 10 watts.

I don't have problems with charging, but the cable fit is very loose and can be very easily disconnected. I thought it's just me.

I too have noticed shower charge rate on other chargers/cables. I used one of my old palm pre (yes remember those) chargers and cable to charge my note2 one day and it took forever. Not sure what the reading is buti believe it was a 1.5a charger witha thinner wire.
I am using the stock Samsung note 2 charger/cable my phone came with and it is much faster. On the cable it says 23AWGx2. Not sure what the x2 is but i would look for the same 23 AWG.
I also have an I go charger with the interchangeable tips. I believe it is a 2a charger. Not sure about the wire gauge but it is thicker. It also charges fast like the stock one.
I'm guessing the smaller gauge wire loses some charge through the extra heat it is generating to push the2a required. I did notice on the palm pre charger that it was hot.

I have noticed on all my chargers besides the stock one I have to push much harder to plug it in. I hope its not damaging the connector on the phone.
Sent from my SPH-L900 using xda app-developers app

flaring afro said:
I doubt it was the gauge. It probably was that the pins weren't fully contacting because they weren't aligned right or something. It doesn't take much wire to deliver 10 watts.
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The important thing is amperes, not watts. And 2A is not that small.
I tried using the following site to calculate the voltage drop : h ttp://genuinedealz.com/voltage-drop.html. And with 4ft of 28AWG cable at 2A, the voltage drop is 1V. And 5V-1V=4V is not enough to completely charge li-ion batteries. Switch to 20AWG and the voltage drop becomes a more reasonable 0.16V.
Also, voltage drop is proportional to length, so longer cables must be thicker to compensate.

DIY Wireless charger for Droid4

Hi!
First, I'm sorry for English, I'm not professional.
A few days ago I made a working wireless charger for Motorola Droid 4.
What are the benefits?
People says, the original inductive charging cover is not compatible with most of cases.
Who live away from USA, can't use a wireless charger, becouse it is only available (officially) in the US. It is very hard to find on eBay or any other site. Almost impossible.
Very cheap. The original charging cover at US, Verzion is $29.99. (+ shipping, and need a person who ship it to me) It is only a cover, and we still need a charger as well.
So, I found a charging pad with and without receivers. There was a small problem. The receivers are only for Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and Note. Their connectors aren't compatible with Droid 4, but the charging voltage is OK.
We need to take it to compatible with Droid 4. I looking for a long time, which one can I choose. Fortunately I made the right decision.
I bought that: Qi Inductive Wireless Charging Upgrade Kit for Samsung Galaxy S3
Link here
That is only for $30.10 with EU plug. The package include charging pad, usb cable, 1500mAh charger and S3 compatible receiver, and worldwide free shipping.
The size of receiver unit is compatible with free space of phone. We need some cutting but it isn't horrible.
First, I recommend you try, how fits the module in your phone.
Then mark with a felt.
The electrical connector pins are big, (and incompatible) we need to remove it carefully. I used a rework station with hot air (360°C) but you can use a medium sized soldering iron. I think, about 50-60W of power is enough. It took for about 30 secs per pin.
It is important, you need to place the receiver in such a manner, if you remove the back cover, the S3 and some other text need to be visible! Otherwise it will not work!
You see backside of the phone, and the camera is on top. Removed cover. In the right side, you can see four copper pins. The top row is irrelevant. We need tha bottom row. In the bottom row, on the left tere is the +5 V pin. On the right, there is a Ground pin.
We need to make contact between +5V pin of the phone and the +5V charging pin of the receiver unit.
Place the receiver unit to the phone, and see what size of copper wire you need. The lower pin of receiver unit is the +5V. We need to connect it.
I used a wire,1 mm in diameter. It is lacquered, I cycled down it from an electrical part (coil).
I think, that half millimeter in diameter is enough, but a found that, and it is recommended due to the relative high current (about 1A).
When you use thinner wire, you can easier take the cover to the phone.
So you need to solder wire to receiver's +5V pin. Please use the minimum quantity of soldering wire, becouse if you make a big knot there, you will have not enough place to take cover back.
When it is done, you can see how can you bend (or cut) the wire for best connectivity with phone's 5V pin.
Now you need to solder a wire to ground, like the previovus one, but not sure, that the two wore have enough space, and we can make easily short corcuit.
For this reason, we will use the iron cover of the SD card slot. This is a very good ground point.
So, one cable will go down, other is go up. They can fit and the soldering is more easy.
PLEASE BE CAREFUL! I recommend, before you make any electrical or hot operating you need to put an aluminium foil or an iron plate to top of the battery. I think to taking out battery and then in, is not easily possible, becouse after soldering there are the receiver. The battery can damage and explosive! The plastic parts of pohone can tolerate the heat for sort time! If you can not solder succesfuly, you need to wait while the parts cooling down! I recommend, use flux and/or high quality of soldering tin. Take out the SD Card! Please don't make short circuit!
It is not too difficult, but you need to be careful and attentive.
When the soldering done, you can try the charger.
Before you can take cover to phone, you need to cut the lower center of receiver. (you can see on the cover, exactly where. There are a claw and on the phone there ara a hole) Important! We need all of holes on phone, so the wires must not hang in to holes.
I cut the piece of receiver unit from lower left side, at the speaker.
Thats all. We are done. I think it longer to read than make :cyclops:
I made some pictures, I will mark these and upload in short time.
I'm going to measure the charging time with:
1,5A USB charger (direct cable)
1,5A USB charger with wireless charging pad
1,5A USB charger with wireless charging pad (phone in a 1 mm thickness of Trident case)
0,5A standard laptop USB (direct cable)
0,5A standard laptop USB with wireless charging pad
0,5A standard laptop USB with wireless charging pad (phone in a 1 mm thickness of Trident case)
I use that from 3 days ago. It works correctly. By the factory, the charging current is 1000mA with the 1,5A charger. About 66% of efficiency.
The USB charger's stand by consumption is 0,4W.
When the charging pad is connected and it is in stand by mode, the consumption is 0,98W
I'm going to bring images, and refresh the post, but here (Hungary, GMT +1) the time is am 2:31.
Good luck guys!
---------------------------------
Uploaded images,
here are the original, better quality images. (11.5MB zip)

That great way to charge the phone. i know that my usb plugin is getting a little wore out.......glad to know that there another way to charge up the phone in case of emergency. Congrats.

Hi,
thanks, it works for me
My IQ receiver was a bit higher, or the battery, so I had troubles to fit it in. My solution was to cut every superfluous piece and pull the uper layer of slide away. Additionally, I put it a bit nearer to the camera, The last thing was to horizontally cut the gold contacts and solder the wire directly on them.
During charging, the usb charger+pad+droid 4 use 7W, without the droid 4 the pad+charger draw 0,4W, both measured at the primary side ot the charger.
Best regards,
mifritscher

Thanks for the info, looks promising I love your using Micro SD casing as GND
BTW the pad + receiver can be found at eBay for as low as US $12 Gonna try out for myself soon.
Did you get to measure the charge times?

LuH said:
Thanks for the info, looks promising I love your using Micro SD casing as GND
BTW the pad + receiver can be found at eBay for as low as US $12 Gonna try out for myself soon.
Did you get to measure the charge times?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Charging times are about equivalent

Different approach, same result
Hi, thanx 4 the great idea.
I took a different approach to install the charging pad. I felt not comfortable to solder directly to the phone, so I used copper-tape, capton-tape and some short wires I took from old headphones to mod the pad directly into the back cover of my phone. it got a little bit bumpier (half a mm), but it charges perfectly.
I applied some solder to the ends which connect to the pins, so the copper wont oxidize and the connection has more pressure.
The pictures in better quality:
View attachment goodquality.zip

zuloo.de said:
Hi, thanx 4 the great idea.
I took a different approach to install the charging pad. I felt not comfortable to solder directly to the phone, so I used copper-tape, capton-tape and some short wires I took from old headphones to mod the pad directly into the back cover of my phone. it got a little bit bumpier (half a mm), but it charges perfectly.
I applied some solder to the ends which connect to the pins, so the copper wont oxidize and the connection has more pressure.
View attachment 2842634
View attachment 2842635
View attachment 2842636
The pictures in better quality:
View attachment 2842637
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a nice solution, and pretty much how the "real thing" was probably set up. I noticed that the back has an internal indentation where the pins are to accommodate the connector, and I had experimented with how I might fit a charging pad in there (actually, it was the connectors that I saw as the biggest challenge), but didn't manage to get anything that I thought was robust enough (I was using cut down parts of a SIM card for the pins to make contact with - you look to have done a better job with the copper tape.
I'm really surprised that we can't buy a new back with all of this gubbins already installed - perhaps you should manufacture a few?

mugen 3800mAh inductive charging cover required!!!
i'm tempted to try this myself. the droid4 keeps getting better.
i just experimented with cardboard, seems to have plenty of room between the cover and the battery. i definitely need inductive charging.

Update 2016
@zuloo.de
Hi! I copied your method for wireless charging but I was too lazy for soldering. That is why I used only copper tape. I ordered under 5$ charging pad and receiver for Galaxy S3 (cheap from China) and it is working good. My receiver says that it can output only 0.8A so I guess it is little bit slow. Can you tell your feelings about the heat? I think that my Droid 4 is pretty hot but I never used wireless charging on other phones so I don't know if it is normal. But thanks anyway posting your method :good:
Here is pictures. I tried to take picture about the bump. It is not bad but you can feel it.

Wireless Charging inside the OnePlus 6T mod

https://imgur.com/a/hhlTgw8
I'm super happy with the results
I bought a more expensive wireless USB type C charger that I thought would charge faster, since it was advertised as a 2000 mah (On amazon, it was gold), but once you open it up it seems to be the same cheap 1000 mah ones.
I did this because my phone is getting old, and I cracked the back glass, and I figured, while I'm inside... I might as well do it.
I had a blast, and I'm super happy with the results, it charges slow, but it works! and I can keep using my wired charger!

Syndor said:
https://imgur.com/a/hhlTgw8
I'm super happy with the results
I bought a more expensive wireless USB type C charger that I thought would charge faster, since it was advertised as a 2000 mah (On amazon, it was gold), but once you open it up it seems to be the same cheap 1000 mah ones.
I did this because my phone is getting old, and I cracked the back glass, and I figured, while I'm inside... I might as well do it.
I had a blast, and I'm super happy with the results, it charges slow, but it works! and I can keep using my wired charger!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a pretty cool project! Care to elaborate on the steps and materials needed?
One pointer from my end: do not leave this charging overnight or when you're away from the device! Though customizations like this are fun and interesting, they are also a common source of house fires. Risks are probably low here as it involves slow charging but you really don't want to risk it.

Timmmmaaahh said:
That's a pretty cool project! Care to elaborate on the steps and materials needed?
One pointer from my end: do not leave this charging overnight or when you're away from the device! Though customizations like this are fun and interesting, they are also a common source of house fires. Risks are probably low here as it involves slow charging but you really don't want to risk it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm making the small guide and I'll post it later
The bad thing is I couldn't really take many pictures, since the phone is what I used to do that, so I'll be using some footage from ifixit teardown video.

So this all began when my phones back crystal panel broke on a fall.
I decided I had to replace it, so I ordered a new Transparent one, since like Jerryrigeverything I love to be able to see the electronics.
While I was at it I figured, why not add wireless charging to the phone? It should be possible, so I looked around for a guide, and I found this one:
https://www.instructables.com/Add-Wireless-Charging-to-Any-Phone-Using-the-LG-V2/
That was way sloppier than what I wanted, but it was a good read, and you can read about what he did.
You will need, a multimeter to check for continuity
A soldering iron, one that can regulate heat so you don’t damage anything, and with the smallest tip you can find
A donor charging receiver
Time and patience.
After that
With help from ifixit (link: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/OnePlus+6T+Teardown/115698 )
I opened up the phone, and since ifixit said there was no fingerprint connector you can just go at it, heat, and separate.
Once inside, disconnect the battery first.
The OnePlus 6T has a different design, there’s no pcb for the usb c on the speaker area, it has a connector that goes up to the main pcb, that snaps right next to the battery, since they had to make room for the optic fingerprint scanner.
So I removed the battery, so I could strip the layer of safety glue and make a little more room by peeling away a couple of layers, otherwise this wouldn’t close.
I started probing around with my multimeter for continuity, to do this, I connected the usb type c wireless charge pad (this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087TW7MGK/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=AQB8EOE9WF3ZF&psc=1 ) after I stripped the protecting plastic cover (to make it even thinner, and to see the insides).
https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5118635&d=1603036807
So you connect it and probe the +Vbus and the Ground on that pad, at first I was a bit baffled, since it had pins on both sides, why if it isn’t carrying data, then I realized how stupid I was being, of course, it’s because it’s usb type c, you can plug it in both ways, and it needs to have the correct pins either way.
So I managed to probe around for continuity, and found out these are the correct spots.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5118637&d=1603036807
I had to remove some of the plastic on the NFC cover to allow the wires to pass, you can see on the final image the route the wires had to take.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5118639&d=1603036807
As you can see, I also jumped both grounds since it wouldn’t work if I didn’t.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5118633&d=1603036807
The first one is beefier, but it wouldn’t fit since everything on the PCB was bigger, the thing is, they charged at the same rate when tested with a usb type c power meter around 680-700 mah of charging power with a 10 watt wireless charger.
I ended up using this other one which was cheaper, and also smaller, not as sexy, but that’s the price to pay.
https://www.amazon.com/Version-Wire...48&sprefix=type+c+wireless+cha,aps,185&sr=8-3
so all that was left to do, was place a nice thin sticker on my battery (I miss the red battery days) to make it look a little bit better, and close it up with the transparent back cover (also from amazon).
As a side note, I placed a USB C to C power meter, and these little things do seem to have sensors for when the battery is full, so they don’t overcharge or overheat.
So I left it overnight with a 65 watt PD USB C to C charger, and a wall plug power meter, and once it’s soldered in, it also seems to drop down the charging, and it also stops giving out heat when it’s fully charged, so there might be something on the small PCB for charge detection, or maybe it’s the phones own full charge detection and it stops asking for power, since this would be the equivalent of being connected with a cable.
Still, everyone should operate at their own safety and I’m not responsible if you set your house on fire, but I will continue leaving it overnight.
It charges slowly, but I can also plug in my dash charger, and again, it doesn’t overheat, the PCB on the wireless coil receiver seems to be doing something, maybe.