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Car dock charger

Does anyone have pictures of the internals of the charger for the official Nexus One car dock?
The reason I ask is because I'm thinking of buying the car dock and hiding the charger out of view. The problem is that where I'm wanting to put it, there is not enough room to install a 12v outlet alone, much less the outlet and the charger, so I'm wanting to hard wire it all, but need to know how much room the internals of the charger are going to take up to see if it will fit where I want to put it.

i ran into a similar problem to you. I ended up not bothering to pull apart the 5v regulator as it appeared to be glued together. unless someone was very determined to get it apart you you not find anybody who has. I ended up buying a cigarette lighter socket and sticking it and the regulator in my fusebox out of the way.
if this isn't an option you can you any standard microusb charger cable as long as it is rated for 1 amp. I'm pretty sure all 1 amp chargers have the signal pin shorted to the power pin to indicate to the device they can pull 1 amp as opposed to 500ma. If you get one that can be taken apart that would work for your project.
Best of luck with your install! I've hardwired 4 different gadgets into my car and love how clean and tidy everything is. just one cable dangling in my car is too much. please post pics if you get it tucked away as you want, i'd love to see how it works out!

Sounds like space is at a premium. Another option is to hard wire in a Belkin USB charger which is heaps smaller. Then just run a USB charge cable from it to the car dock. Check out the harness I made up in the center bottom pic to get an appreciation of how small it is. Downside is the Belkin Micro USB only puts out 1A as compared to 2A from the genuine charger. So the car dock may struggle a bit.

logger said:
Sounds like space is at a premium. Another option is to hard wire in a Belkin USB charger which is heaps smaller. Then just run a USB charge cable from it to the car dock. Check out the harness I made up in the center bottom pic to get an appreciation of how small it is. Downside is the Belkin Micro USB only puts out 1A as compared to 2A from the genuine charger. So the car dock may struggle a bit.
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I like your setup, I may do something like that myself, but not for the project at hand, but rather just to have a 1amp USB charger for whatever.
Now as for the original project itself, what I'm wanting to do is mount the car dock in my 98 Chevy Blazer right below the review mirror. My Blazer happens to have the Temp. and millage computer readout right above the review mirror mounted to the headliner. There's plenty of places to hook into a switched 12v line in the housing for the millage readout, but as I stated before, it's not enough to house the entire car charger and/or and 12v socket.
I'd prefer to use the original charger that comes with the dock so as to not starve it of power. I'm hoping it's just a small circuit board with wires running to the various connectors. I guess I'll just have to buy it and check it out myself. I don't want anyone to ruin theirs just to satisfy my curiosity, not that I would expect anyone to do that to begin with.

magnetic car adapter?

Hi,
After my battery went from full to empty in less than two hours when using a sat nav app yesterday, I need an in-car charger for the dashboard. I have a micro USB one but the flap on the Z3 makes it annoying. So I was wondering if there were any good magnetic adapters?
I have a 2A USB charger for the lighter socket, so I only need either a USB-magnetic cable, or an adapter that will take a micro USB. Ideally one that exits at the bottom of the phone so it can be routed neatly, rather than sideways which will then need to bend round.
Anyone have any recommendations? How about some pics of how you're set up in your car? (I have an airframe+ vent mount coming today)

the X2 magnetic charger (which just clips on any usb cable) on amazon has great reviews, depending on your case or mount you might have to shave off some of the adapter
proclip / brodit (depending on where you are in the world) offers great magnetic mounts and chargers, some need to be professionally installed, however its been stated in reviews that they fit tight so they might not work with cases, especially bulky ones and they have been known to peel up tempered glass screen protectors
I am in the same boat as you, I want a magnetic charging mount for my car and I spent a few hours tuesday researching options to no joy :|

I've used brodit mounts before but I wanted something a little more discreet than a hardwired solution - which is why I went for the Kenu Airframe+
The X2 seems to get good reviews but I'm not sure if it would be frustrating that the cable would come out sideways (as the phone would most likely be in landscape mode). Although many of the satnav apps I'm trying actually work pretty well in portrait..

if you got it horizontal the cable would be out the top or bottom yeah?
I usually keep mine in portrait
you use waze?

probably would be coming out of the bottom of the phone if in landscape.
don't know what I'm using yet - I have about 8 apps installed and I'm trying them out. Some have demo routes which is helpful, but some need me to use them while I'm driving to test so it'll take a while to settle on one.
I quite like tom tom's look and feel as I'm familiar with their standalone devices, and copilot seems good too. Haven't tried waze or google maps navigation yet, they're next.

yeah waze is killer, my CO recommended it and ive been hooked since
Its 95% effective when spotting speed traps and errs on the side of caution (sometimes cops wont be there, moved along, already pulled someone over), gives reports on potholes, construction ahead, real time traffic, speed traps, stopped cars, etc. its amazing, my friends and I are blown away.
its only difficulty is when you don't give it a direct address, it can have troubles searching for a restaurant or some such but if you have the street name you're set

mgiraudjr said:
the X2 magnetic charger (which just clips on any usb cable) on amazon has great reviews, depending on your case or mount you might have to shave off some of the adapter
proclip / brodit (depending on where you are in the world) offers great magnetic mounts and chargers, some need to be professionally installed, however its been stated in reviews that they fit tight so they might not work with cases, especially bulky ones and they have been known to peel up tempered glass screen protectors
I am in the same boat as you, I want a magnetic charging mount for my car and I spent a few hours tuesday researching options to no joy :|
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I have an X2 adapter, it's great, BUT it is not strong enough to be secure when under the device. The torque of the cable will cause it to come off when above the device too.
Using a thinner-gauge cbale might help, but then the voltage drop will be too great to keep the battery from discharging.
My personal favorite has been:
Right-angle MicroUSB (this makes a HUGE difference in convenience on the Sony devices, since the cable goes to the right instead of straight down from the mount) - http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Micro-USB-Cable-UUSBHAUB3RA/dp/B001AR4NC8/
Quick charge 2.0 car charger - http://www.amazon.com/Powermod-Charge-Certified--Vehicle-Charger/dp/B00P9UILUM/ - The StarTech cables are fairly thin gauge, so drop too much voltage when charging at 5v/2A to keep the phone charged during Navigation. QC2.0 chargers supply the Z3 with 9v, so the same wattage requires less current, and hence less voltage drop through the cable. (same reason long-distance power lines run in the hundreds of kilovolts...)

Does quick charge work through the magnetic port, or you mean you use the USB Port?

rplumb said:
Does quick charge work through the magnetic port, or you mean you use the USB Port?
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I use the USB port, the magnetic port is too unreliable for a vehicle. The thin-gauge right-angle cables make using the USB port MUCH less of a hassle, but they need QC2.0 for proper charging through such a thin cable. (too much voltage drop for high-power standard-voltage charging)

[Q] magnetic dock in car

I've got a plan to install the sony DK48 magnetic dock into my car.
I intend to fix the dock to the top of the dashboard using velcro (so that it can be removed if necessary). I'll bend some thin black acetal plastic rods and glue these onto the dock to stabilise the phone in the dock. I'm going to solder the charging cable onto the cigarette lighter socket, run the cable behind all the fascia panels, the radio and up to the top of the dash.
Anyone got any advice on soldering a usb charging cable onto the cigarette socket. At the moment I'm planning to use the electrics out of a dismantled USB-cigarette socket, but wonder whether it might be better/neater to solder the cable straight to the socket with correct resistors in place, but I'm not sure exactly what I would need.
Anyone got any other advice?
Hoping to get this done sometime next week and will post photos if it all works.

Whoa whoa wait a minute... Sorry if I am reading what you are saying incorrectly but are you saying you want to consider just solder the usb cable directly on to the cigarette lighter and use some resistors to split the voltage so that you will get 5V at the charger??? If that is the case do not do that! A cigarette lighter is 12V so if you can get the resisters to be 7V that means the charger is 5V right? No! It's not that straight forward. Thing is that yes a cigarette lighter is 12V... but it's not a constant 12V. The voltage is just happens to be whatever it is at the time. It ranges from like 10V-15V depending on if your car battery is low or the car is running. When charging the car battery the voltage has to be higher than 12V. I know in my car it's about 14V when running. So when your car is running the cigarette lighter would be 14 and you would be shoving too much voltage into the Z3. Defiantly don't want to fry that expensive Z3!
So yes you defiantly want to keep the circuitry for the car charger. What the circuit does makes it so that it outputs a clean constant 5V with up to 2.1A of current (depending on the model). It cleans up any spikes that may come from the alternator and has safeties on top of that to make sure neither too much voltage or current will end up in your usb port.
Back to your original question. If you can get to the wires right behind the cigarette lighter (behind/under the dash) you could splice into the wires there. There is usually a lot of space you can shove stuff in there. Get something like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-Female-...ocket-Plug-Connector-Plug-Cable-/271275968209
And just splice it into the wires. Just two wires, cut, strip, solder, tape and done. No disassembling of charger is needed. Plug in your charge to the socket and run it up your dash. Just keep all of that hidden behind all of the panels and no one can tell you even tapped into the cigarette lighter.
Side note: Please please please do not buy a dirt cheap car charger. Like some random $1 eBay charger from China. There is a reason why it's $1. Short answer: the electricity coming out is probably questionable. Also there probably no safety standards. This rule usually applies more to the AC wall adapters (those $1 AC adapters you should avoid like the plague!) but I prefer to live by the same rule. If the electricity coming out of it is dirty then you will be slowly killing your battery quicker than normal. You will start wondering why your battery life is so poor probably like after a year...

Good point about the variable voltage coming out of the car socket. I'll do it the safe way then and use the hardware from a usb/car adapter. The rest *should* be easy.

Just in case anyone is interested I installed the Sony Magnetic Charging dock onto the dashboard of my car. The magnets hold the phone very well, its stable, and hasn't fallen out in 6 months use. I wired a usb cable from the 12 V socket via a 12V - USB adapter as suggested above.
I'm very pleased with the end result and have a neat method of using my phone as a satnav without all the mess of sticking a holder on the window and cables running everywhere. Its also much quicker to place the phone into or out of the magnetic dock than it is to clamp it in a normal holder.

Wireless Charging With Metal Plate For Magnetic Mount

Hi.
Just got a new S6 and I thought I would try out the new wireless charging which I think is great. I installed my metal plate however into my phone case to use my magnetic phone mount in my car but the wireless charging no longer works with this small 1” by 1” plate in the back. I’ve tried moving the plate around and can get the charging to work but if any of the plate is in contact with the coil it gets really hot fairly quickly.
I am able to move the metal plate far enough down in my case that it doesn’t interfere at all with the charging or get hot but then my phone isn’t as secure on the mount.
Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions to get these two things to work in harmony?
I’m not interested in buying a new mount that does both. I’d like to keep what I already have.
In the end if I had to pick one or of the other, the magnetic mount would be my pick.
Just wanted to see if anyone else has the same problem.

I'm with you on that... Having the very same problem...

All I can suggest is using the USB cable with that magnetic mounting plate - given that Qi technology depends on using magnetic induction for charging wirelessly, you can't have that plate anywhere near the charging coil and expect it to work.
Plus, that'll let you use Quick Charge 2.0 capable 12V car chargers.

Qi Wireless Charging

After doing some research I see that the XZ Premium doesnt have Qi charging built in like most other devices. There exists external wireless charging receivers that connect to the USB C port in the device to charge it. Im just curious if anyone has tried it and if so what are your thoughts?
Is it convenient to drop the device on a pad to charge if for around £15/$20? Or is it convenient enough just to continue using USB C?
Also I would like to know if charging speeds differ not that it would matter to me as I charge overnight but im just curious.
Thanks.

That sounds absolutely silly. Unless the plug-in accessory/dongle is actually also a case of some sort, what on Earth would be the point of plugging in an adapter to use wireless charging? If you are going to plug the phone in, just use the cable. Wtf...

Heinous said:
That sounds absolutely silly. Unless the plug-in accessory/dongle is actually also a case of some sort, what on Earth would be the point of plugging in an adapter to use wireless charging? If you are going to plug the phone in, just use the cable. Wtf...
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some of these wireless adaptors have a very slim usb cable and pad so they can be placed in a case having a usb plug in the port all the time will keep dust out but could be annoying if you need to use the port for data transfer. In my experience charging is slower because most of the ones I have seen are rated at about 1A also they have to be placed on the charging pad just right and don't always work if your case is to thick. I use a micro usb one with my old phone worked well with one of those cheap TUP cases with the plastic back with the kick stand but only when I took the plastic back off. Another option is one of the magnetic cables not wireless charging but saves the usb port. hope this helps sorry I cant post links because this is my first post.

Henry. said:
some of these wireless adaptors have a very slim usb cable and pad so they can be placed in a case having a usb plug in the port all the time will keep dust out but could be annoying if you need to use the port for data transfer. In my experience charging is slower because most of the ones I have seen are rated at about 1A also they have to be placed on the charging pad just right and don't always work if your case is to thick. I use a micro usb one with my old phone worked well with one of those cheap TUP cases with the plastic back with the kick stand but only when I took the plastic back off. Another option is one of the magnetic cables not wireless charging but saves the usb port. hope this helps sorry I cant post links because this is my first post.
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I understand your explanation, but it doesn't make the concept any less silly.

Well if it's not built in the phone why would i use dongles or anything else? unless there is a case that has a protection for the phone and wireless charging then i do not see a point on it.

CKkio23 said:
Well if it's not built in the phone why would i use dongles or anything else? unless there is a case that has a protection for the phone and wireless charging then i do not see a point on it.
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Ive read that people use a case and they just place the receiver inside the case since its said to be really thin. Also the cable that plugs in is like a flex cable so you could easily hide the receiver inside a case.

Heinous said:
That sounds absolutely silly. Unless the plug-in accessory/dongle is actually also a case of some sort, what on Earth would be the point of plugging in an adapter to use wireless charging? If you are going to plug the phone in, just use the cable. Wtf...
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My car has a nice wireless charging pocket that you put you phone in. It feels a lot nicer without having to plug in a cable and make a mess out of it. I would prefer using a wireless charging case just to NOT use an extra cable.