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!
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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.
Samsung should release a nice dock stand for these watches. I hated the Galaxy Gear 'photo frame' cradle. I am not very keen on the new 'snap on' cradle for the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo.
I do not mind either cradle for occasional data transfer/connection, but for daily charging, why can't they sell the charging cradle they give to retailers to display the watches..
It sits on the counter, you take the watch off and just sit it into the cradle. There is a small magnet inside that pulls your watch into place and keeps it firmly connected to the two charging pins. It's already been designed and manufactured, now just make them in both white and black and offer them for sale. I'll take two.
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Another angle of the retail cradle.
Give it some time
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Anyone tried to build their own?
The default charger cradle is shockingly cheap and tacky and within months wears down to the point that it doesn't click on
If its not covered under my warranty just going to attempt to make something out of it
I just received the Gear 2 Neo as an early Christmas present last night I would certainly like to have a charging stand.
Hello guys,
Few weeks ago i read about connecting standard wireless qi usb adapter to phone itself. I mean, connect 2 stripes of cables to 5v and ground on motherboard, so usb would be still avaiable. Do you know where on motherboard those pins are ?
cortex69 said:
Hello guys,
Few weeks ago i read about connecting standard wireless qi usb adapter to phone itself. I mean, connect 2 stripes of cables to 5v and ground on motherboard, so usb would be still avaiable. Do you know where on motherboard those pins are ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, I'm trying to find out too. I did a mod that way with my NOTE1. Mostly likely near the USB port, but I afraid it'll affect the NFC , because NFC is on the Cover. And the coil 's pcb must be extremely thin.
I would gladly get rid off nfc anyway, as I don't use it. Voltometer is on its way to me, so any time soon I'll try to update the thread
news pliz??
thanks..
Can wireless charging be used when case is still on the phone?
sshark said:
Can wireless charging be used when case is still on the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
current Qi is good for 7mm i believe...which is plenty of space for most cases. it wont pass through metal though, and I'm sure some materials hinder that more than others. I used a couple different cases on my nexus 5 and was able to charge with all of them.
The Qi chargers are 12V I believe. I modified a car charger to fit the adapter for the Qi wire. I had to solder it to the 12V wires in the car plug. The 5V would not charge it.
You should be able to find 12V power coming out of the power supply.
Do you guys think they'll make a Qi charging adapter? The contacts would connect to the pins on the underside of the witch and the charging coils could just be covered by a black sticker. It could be like the S4 inserts for Qi charging. Wouldn't add bulk either. What do you guys think?
Daistaar said:
Do you guys think they'll make a Qi charging adapter? The contacts would connect to the pins on the underside of the witch and the charging coils could just be covered by a black sticker. It could be like the S4 inserts for Qi charging. Wouldn't add bulk either. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm surprised a Chinese company hasn't done this yet. Qi receivers are easily thin enough and making a charging dock like a normal watch base with a Qi coil on top would be simple enough I think. There must be a reason this hasn't happened. I'd buy it for sure. I can't stand the stock charging cradle and I'm not spending $35 for a spare one either. That's highway robbery. I'd like to see this happen.
The hardware needs to support it, but I am willing to modify hardware given to tools and instructions.
I'd buy one for sure. I'm an avid QI user with a charger bedside, couchside, in home office, work office, and the QI car charger for my Note 3.
Please make this!
After one month, the Pebble Steel charging cable head is broken. One of the two pins has snapped off.
Has anyone else experienced the fragility of this thing? If not, please be mindful of this vulnerability and store the cable away carefully to protect its pins.
Hi, I experienced this issue, but I found a work around to fix it. I basically transplanted a pin from another charger I had, cut i down and just jammed it i the missing pin slot and it works.
I can send you pictures if you want.
Show meee
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