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Home made car charger discharges!

Hello:
I built myself a car charger a while ago and it all seemed to work fine. A couple of times however my unit has 'died' after a particularly long journey in the car. I have recently discovered that it was actually getting flat enough to turn off and not turn on until charged; even though it was indicating it was charging.
Further experiments have revealed that if the battery in nearly full (eg 84%) and I use my car charger, the percentage of battery full increases over time indicating it is indeed charging.
However; if the battery is quite empty eg 24% - over time the battery charge decreases until the unit turns off, and needs to be attached to the mains to charge it - even thought it still indicates it is charging!
Soehere in the middle of the two battery states ( 84% - 24%), my charger seems uable to charge my XDA for some unknown reason, I suspected it could be due to current drain - a flatter battery may need more current to charge which the charger cannot provide, but the same situation occurrs even if the unit is turned of and therefore taking very little current from the car charger - obviously leaving nearly all the current available to charge the battery.
Any ideas why this should happen? I am completely stumped - I do not wish to buy a charger as my charging system also incorporates a connection to my GPS unit, and no commercially available chargers provide this at a reasonable price.
Any help or suggestions much appreciated.

BTW: The PDA will only charge if at least one of the pins 16,17,or 18 isconnected to ground and at least one of the pins 20,21 or 22 are connected to +5V. Otherwise, though the XDA may say it is charging, it will actually just drain the battery.
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icarusbop,
Have a look at the charger I made for my XDA II, for use with the in-car kit I also made. The schematics are on my web site - follow the link from my signiature below.
This charger works 100%, and the state of the battery has no effect on charging performance. Mind you, it is capable of supplying > 2 Amps which is sufficient to fully charge the battery while watching movies, and the screen brightness turned all the way up. Charging times are the same as using the plug pack supplied with tyhe XDA II, if not a tad quicker.
The only draw back is the heatsink required for the +5 volt regulator. For the smallish one I have chosen (for the car kit - see pic on my site) it is capable of 2 Amps, but with a larger heatsink (see the first attempt pic of this charger) a full 5 Amps is easily achievable over extended use. It all depends on how much juice your set up requires.
Hope this helps.
Recrem...

I have the same issue but I have an original car kit which was working fine. After I upgraded to 2.06.00WWE i noticed that although when plugged into car kit it says charging, it actually discharges. Although I like this version, I'm in the car quite a bit and need the device to charge, and am thinking about rolling back to the latest rom from the club imate site.
It appears to be a software issue more than a hardware issue....
:?

update,
I've discovered that if charged to atleast 90% when plugged into car kit then it charges.
at some level below this (don't know where yet) it discharges.
welcome to the twilight zone

I haven't tested this with my car kit, and haven't noticed any problems when I had SE installed, although my wife said that her device wasn't charging while in the car, and when she got home after a fair drive, her battery was indeed flat!
I rolled back from 2.02 + 2.06 merged SE to my origional ROM of 1.66.00.WWE purely because some problems became more and more evident - like being unable to connect to ActiveSync unless I reset the device numerous times, and spontaneous hard resets. I have all the same software on my device now with the origional ROM and no problems...
We will be moving this week, and it would be a good test for my ROM and charger to see if it charges when below 90%....
Recrem...

microphone
Hi, did you manage to get the mic working on you carkit? I cannot get the mic working when connected with pins 1 and 5. sound output is working however!
Thanks,
Rob Boerman

Did you design and build your own car kit, or did you follow my design from my web site? I am curious if anyone has used the info I have posted there...
Haven't had a chance to try the mic. I only know it will require a good pre-amp to get it working, and I have been too busy to build one yet - perhaps when I have settled down into our new home after this week-end...
Recrem...

let me know
If you find time this weekend let me know
cheers,
Rob Boerman

All
Just to give my two-pennies worth...
I bought a USB cable when purchasing my O2 XDA II from the O2 shop. When using this cable, if the existing charge is below 85% then the device discharges when connected, however, if it is above 85% then it charges quite happily.
Get this.. if I use my USB CRADLE to charge (in the same USB port etc..) then it charges from below 85% without any problems whatsoever!
Is there a possibility that the USB cable and the USB cradle are wired differently? Are we missing a trick here?

My charging issue has deteriorated to the point that it dosn't charge at all in the car kit, it does charge in the pc usb hub and on mains. I down graded to 1.72.00WWE last night and tested it in the car kit this morning and it still discharged, so the software appears to have nothing to do with it.
I think the earlier statement by indecided may yeild results:
"The PDA will only charge if at least one of the pins 16,17,or 18 isconnected to ground and at least one of the pins 20,21 or 22 are connected to +5V. Otherwise, though the XDA may say it is charging, it will actually just drain the battery."
I will pull my gear apart this weekend and test it out. Possibly I've got a bad connection.

davidberrysmith said:
I think the earlier statement by indecided may yeild results:
"The PDA will only charge if at least one of the pins 16,17,or 18 isconnected to ground and at least one of the pins 20,21 or 22 are connected to +5V. Otherwise, though the XDA may say it is charging, it will actually just drain the battery."
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Click to collapse
[Theory] The pins are quite thin, it's hard to think you can push 2+ Amps thru one of them without melting it down (at least the insulation). Maybe this is the problem: if you need a big loading current - like when the battery is below 85% - and you don't have more than one pin pair connected to +/- 5V the phone is not charging, although it may say so.
Solution: connect ALL three of pins 16-18 to GND and ALL three pins 20-22 to +5V.
[/theory]

Solved my problem,...
pin 22 had come away from the circuit board. So I sweated it down and just for good measure sweated down all other connections as well.
Put the phone back together and threw it in the car kit, charge ingreased from 78%.
time to upgrade the os again.
:wink:

david... perseverance does pay off... cool.

Charging

Is there any way to get my X7510 to be more efficient at charging?
It seems recently that even from the straight charger it's taking almost all incoming power to run leaving next to nothing for charging.
USB Sync has always been like this, but straight charge used to be quite quick.

Are you using the original charger that came with it?
I've also found that the Flint is much more fussy about charging than any other device, including the previous X7500. USB charging takes an age, especially if the device is left on. My 'power pack' emergency charger hardly charges it at all, despite being able to fully charge my Advent 4213 netbook. My Diamond's wall socket charger hardly charges it at all, despite being technically the same spec as the Flint's one.
My original charger, and my Brodit car cradle both still charge mine pretty well- the Brodit will charge it up from 50% to 100% in about 1 hour, even with SatNav operating.
With my external power pack, or if I can only access a USB charge, I now use a screen-off application (built into PocketPlus) to keep it turned on, but on a very low battery drain.

Yes, it's the original charger. It appears to have had a knock though, the plug is a bit bent. I wonder if that's damaged something :-/

Can you guys recommend a small portable power recharger that works well with the X7510?
I would be taking a long flight soon and I would like for my X7510 to last the trip.

I can't really suggest anything because neither of my 'emergency packs' work properly with the X7510.
Perhaps you could check with the airline whether they have 'in-seat' charging/power facilities? Some have a powered USB charging socket and some have proprietary connections, but might have a suitable adapter?

Car holder/chareger for Desire

I ordered the below car holder/charger for Desire after reading good reviews about it. Ordered it noon time and it was delivered in the next mornings post!! It fits nicely in my car, feels robust enough that I feel my Desire is in safe hands. And it charges the phone while driving! It comes with several plugs including mini and micro USB.
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/trailblazer-universal-car-charger-and-holder-p22954.htm

I have the same one, plenty of adapters etc but found out after ordering it i cannot use it in my car because the design and where the socket is, is in a bad place. If it was in a good place i would use it all the time, well worth having and i rate it highly (btw cheap build but it works!)

Did you try to use the car charger with Google Navigation and GPS and 3G Data turned on?
People say there is a problem, with 'cheap' chargers, that they don't provide enough power to use and charge the phone at the same time.
I have bought a car-lighter to USB adapter (max output 1000mAh) but it doesn't do the job, phone is still discharging battery, even if plugged in.

I drove a bit with Google nav + GPS + 3G on... to me it seemed to charge well = the charge at the end wasnt lower than when started using navigation. Will try it on longer trips to make sure though... will post here what find out!

zonkkk said:
Did you try to use the car charger with Google Navigation and GPS and 3G Data turned on?
People say there is a problem, with 'cheap' chargers, that they don't provide enough power to use and charge the phone at the same time.
I have bought a car-lighter to USB adapter (max output 1000mAh) but it doesn't do the job, phone is still discharging battery, even if plugged in.
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Click to collapse
This happened to me, had all of the above on + bluetooth and after a 40 mile drive phone had not charged at all but at least it had not discharged either , I thought maybe I hadn't seated it right and its the trailblazer I'm using

[Q] got a generic charger....it says-5v 500mah,original is 5v 1a(amper)is this ok?

it says- output :5v 500mah
the original says-output:5v 1a(amper i guess)
will this screw up the battery?

chances are no, considering it is half what htc recommends you charge it with, either it will charge it very slowly (half the current of the original) or the voltage wont provide enough to kick the phone into charging mode and nothing will happen (i.e. the charger "wont work")

Thanks for the help

It'll work, but as panyan said, it'll recharge much more inefficiently than with a 1 amp charger.

Actually... It will charge the phone exactly as charging via USB, as USB is limited to 0.5A.

Yep, it will charge your phone just fine @ USB charging speed, I have a similar charger.

And some of you forgot to mention that the phone will struggle when for example you will play games or use gps. Charge will be insufficient and instead charging it will slowly discharge while using it.
Sent from my Desire HD uing XDA App

Well yes and no, in normal usage it will charge phone, but when you use your phone the way that you would drain the batty in two hours, then it will discharge.

Hey... Yeah if the charger is a car charger then it may not charge fast enough if using GPS software which can drain the battery fast. 1Amp reccomended for faster charging... other than that should charge fine but just slow like USB charging (which has a max of 500mA).
One question guys... I bought a car charger from ebay listed as for HTC phones. It looks like a cheap knock off product with a glowing blue HTC logo when used in the car. The device is rated at 2Amps. Now from what little I know about electronics I've been told that AC/DC Plug packs with more Amps are ok and the device just only uses what it needs. I'm not however familiar whith battery charing when you have a higher rated Amps charger... Would the battery on the phone just be greedy and "ask" for the full 2Amps? Would this then put strain or be dangerous by charging the phone too quickly?
Secondly while we are on the topic of electronics... I'm trying out a super cheap ebay battery supposedly rated at 1600mAH (I know these rating are usually fake). I've noticed the HTC battery is around 4.17V when fully charged. This battery charged up to 4.2V fully charged... Is that dangerous for the device?

2 amp is better, correct me if i am wrong. So the output is 5V and 2A, is that mean the power is 10W every hour ?

2 A charging current (if the phone takes in that much) will damage the battery in a long term use.

It is incredibly unlikely that the phone will discharge the battery faster than it charges unless you're doing something very wrong, e.g. Running a console emulator while downloading a large file over HSDPA with WiFi enabled (but not connected) and using GPS navigation with screen brightness at maximum!
Screen and background services take approx 150mAh, and I doubt radio will take much more than that combined. That puts drain 200mAh less than USB charging, 700mAh less than direct charging.
FYI: There's a spec for USB charging of mobile phones from supported USB ports which can pull up to 1500mA.

DeathJester said:
It is incredibly unlikely that the phone will discharge the battery faster than it charges unless you're doing something very wrong, e.g. Running a console emulator while downloading a large file over HSDPA with WiFi enabled (but not connected) and using GPS navigation with screen brightness at maximum!
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Hmm... not sure for Desire HD I haven't tested GPS with SatNav software using current widget... I do know that I'm pulling well over 200mA just with basic use at home with Wi-Fi on and GPS & Bluetooth off and I kill all backround apps. I do know that I've been in the car and seen TomTom app on my friend's jailbroken iPhone 3G (or 3Gs) and with the GPS on and not doing anything intensive... we were actually travelling down a long straight highway, the phone was chewing more battery than the car charger could charge, so he switched off GPS.
Ah also guys no need to worry about the 2Amp charger... It sh*t itself on the 3rd car use and no longer works at all. Junk! I also noticed on the 2nd car trip that opening Android SpareParts the charge is displayed as USB Charging not AC Charging so yeah I believe that the car charger was only a standard USB (max 500mA) power output and not 1Amp let alone 2Amps. Annoying how false advertising or labelling is part and parcel with cheap Chinese products.I was meaning to test the charger's output with Current Widget (which is what I'll do for my next car charger) but the charger crapped out and was useless before I got a chance.
One thing I did notice from looking at a log using Current Widget while charging my phone on the A/C charger in standby, the charge tapers off the power output the more the battery is charged. To get an accurate idea of if the car charger is going to be outputting 1Amp I'd be sure the phone battery is down to 40% (or in the 40s) then with all other stuff switched off I'd run a log on Current Widget and turn the screen off for a few minutes. You should have a reading of around +700 to +800mA if the car charger is rated at 1Amp.
Be wary of the cheap Asian knock of car chargers with the coil spring cord and the HTC logo that lights up blue.... Not worth the 3 or 4 bucks they sell on ebay for.
There's a spec for USB charging of mobile phones from supported USB ports which can pull up to 1500mA.
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Click to collapse
There's commonly those double USB cables for laptop hard drives so yeah I can see that if the USB ports are actually giving you the full rated maximum of 500mA you can get 1Amp output with this kind of cable but 1500mA?!? The only way I'd see possible for this is either you have a tripple USB cable connected to 3USB ports that are all outputting the full 500mA (and that's if a triple cable even exists or lets say you solder another one onto a double cable) or you have a USB AC/DC charger or some other USB port/hub you've rigged up which provides more than the USB standards of max 500mA per port. How else is this possible?!? Has the max power output of 500mA changed since USB 2.0 standards?

yeah there are usb 2.0 ports with more than 500mA power supply.
some companys give some extra juice to their (or often only one) usb ports.
for example: i've got an Dell Studio XPS 16 Notebook here. it has 3 usb ports, 2 with normal 500mA supply and one with 1A (for charging your phone, etc).
DN41

Skyrocket can't function as GPS Navigator?

This weekend I went on a trip and decided to try out using my Skyrocket as a GPS navigator using Google Navigation. I had my phone mounted and plugged in the whole time for about a 2 hour trip. The screen was on the whole time usually at high brightness (it would dim every once in a while.) When I removed my phone from the mount I noticed the power was down to the low 60's, which struck me as slightly odd since it was plugged into the charger the whole time. The next day I tried to use it as a GPS system again, but even as it was plugged in, this time I literally saw the battery gauge draining. When I turned off navigation and the screen the phone would finally start charging.
Is this a common thing or is there an issue with my phone or possibly my charger? Does doing all those things really drain the battery faster than it can charge it? One last note is that I was not in an LTE area during this, or at least not the whole time (I only noticed it was LTE at one time during the trip.) When I saw my battery draining in front of me I definitely was not in an LTE area.

Might be your charger. I'm having no problems using it as my primary driving, hiking and general outdoor GPS unit. When on car charger, it's charging faster then it drains.

I believe my charger is an old Motorola car charger that came with my wife's old dumbphone. It's actually not even a Micro-USB charger, but rather a Mini-USB with an adapter.
This may be a dumb question, but the actual charging port shouldn't be the issue right? I'm assuming those are always the same standard.

Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727

jslanger said:
Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727
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Click to collapse
i second this...my phone won't even charge on some wall chargers, unless 700mAh or higher. let alone do any battery heavy functions like GPS. get something with at least 1a output

I'll try swapping the chargers. I have an overpriced AT&T one that I got for free that is collecting dust.

If the charger has 1A output then it should be OK

I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5

Its the amount of mah your charger is putting out. Not the phone. The charger is not supplying enough power
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

CZ Eddie said:
I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I was looking for a more powerful option, I saw that one on Amazon as well. My only hesitation at buying it was why it was so much cheaper than all comparable options at local stores, or even online...I've heard that the cheapie chargers may not actually output what they say...though for $4 plus shipping, I guess it's not much of a gamble. Let us know how it performs!
P.S.-Pulled up the reviews...not too many positive ones (though 1 or 2 were good): http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Its actually more than just the charger output that is a problem. If the center two pins on the USB connection aren't shorted, the phone will treat it as a USB connection to a computer, not an AC connection from the wall, and only draw a max 500mah. I had bought a 1amp and 2 amp charger for my car and would get the same results as the 500. I started to think it was my car limiting my output!
But I then found an article detailing this problem that I've since lost the link to, but the method worked. Pop open the charger and solder the 2 middle connectors together and all is good.
I don't know why the charger manufacturers don't know this... Or maybe this phone is doing something new? Maybe someone makes a USB-> micro USB with the center pair shorted in cable?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

Just Google "Solder USB Car Charger" and you'll find plenty of tutorials about how to do that. Personally I'd rather just buy one that out of the box works.

Tried out my AT&T charger (which can be found here) and it worked perfectly. Set up the GPS and everything and now it will charge even while doing all that stuff. Thanks for the help

I have the same issue with my SkyRocket. LTE makes no difference. If I'm using Google Navigation or Waze and the Screen is on my charger/phone can't keep up with the battery drain. If I turn the screen off and keep the GPS app running the battery either doesn't drain or doesn't drain as fast.
I've checked my car charger and it's one of those dual usb ones, with a 1 amp port and a 2.1 amp port. It has no indication of which port is which, so I don't know what port I'm using at any particular time. I've tried both and the effects are the same.
Regardless, when the phone is plugged in to that charger the phone reports that it's an AC charger. Supposedly that means I'm getting at least 1 amp, right? So why is 1 amp not enough?
I don't like the car charger you guys suggested because it has the curly cord. I'd rather use a car charger that doesn't come with a cable so I can plug in my own usb cable.
Any suggestions?