Hi there...
i cant charge my XDA anymore. First i thought it was the battery, so i bought a new one...a 1800mAh...but still .. no chance to charge...i tried the cradle and an additional sync cable that i bought. i think the charging circuit might be dodgy, but i cant say for sure....any ideas? Sync works perfect btw.
Charger?
Charger works?
maybe its charger not battery fault?
Well i tried 2 different ones...one of them is USB sync and charge...the other one the standard cradle.
the XDA itself works perfect....but the battery will run out soon....
What it says when i try to upgrade the OS is that i should plug in the power...so the phone wont reckognize that power is connected.
i have no idea what to do. i think the guy who owned it before killed it by using a non-original powersupply. he charged it with 1,9A. Might be too much and fried some stuff...strange that everything else works.
im stuck in a RS Upgrade now that i cant finish. not enough power...
pretty expensive piece of trash.....
i hope someone out there has an idea
I took the XDA apart and measured the components while having USB Power connected....apparently there is a SMD part called FO, made of transparent material, could be a fuse. input on that part is 5V but there is no voltage on the other side...so it might be broken.
i wanna try to brigde it, but im not sure what excactly this FO part is.
its close to the power/data connector....
i would be thankful if someone could tell me what it is....
I bridged the FO with a lil wire....now the XDA charges again...
but i will keep looking for a new FO...want to do a proper job...
if anyone want pics, i made some of the part and the solution...
cheers folks, another problem solved
aquasesh said:
I bridged the FO with a lil wire....now the XDA charges again...
but i will keep looking for a new FO...want to do a proper job...
if anyone want pics, i made some of the part and the solution...
cheers folks, another problem solved
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Excellent work!!!
The O in FO is really a zero: "Fuse zero". If you open it again, could you make a few pictures so we can all see where it is. This may help quite a few others who have a non-charging XDA... You shouldn't be too worried about it, and unless you can read the writing on the SMD part, you won't know the rating of the fuse to replace it with. Detailed photos might help someone here identify the proper fuse.
XDA Charge Fault
I too have the same fault. Can you show where exactly this FO fuse is on the board please? Thanks very much for your time.
Hello... thanks for the praise, but it was more a shot in the dark and i was just lucky. Fortunately i made some pics straight away. Unfortunately i hade trouble with the macro and the focus...but i guess i have some pretty nice shots.
Anyway...you can see where i soldered and what the part looks like.
Sorry for the bad soldering...but its just temporary
XDA Charging Fault
Thanks for those great pictures. I eventually found the F0 fuse you described. I put a multimeter over it and found there to be continuity!
My charger is of a USB type and kicks out 4.9volts. Do you think this is enough to charge the xda?
It is a Brando sync charger and was only cheap. I haven't got a 240volt charger cos i brought it off ebay.
Do you think that if i bridge the wire out like you have then maybe it might charge?
From the looks of your picture the F0 fuse looks ok (no broken link) this is why i ask!
Thanks for your time and well done!
I found that you have to make sure you measure minus on ground...otherwise it wont work...just pick one of the lil round ground points or the thick copper border surrounding the PCB and hold the minus of your multimeter on that.
you might see that the input of F0 has 4,7-4,9V, but the output has 0V.
if thats so you have to either replace or bridge F0. you can do that like i did...or you solder it out and just bridge the contacts.
My F0 has no broken link either...
The battery itself is a 3,7V battery type "35H10008-80"...i replaced mine with a 1800mAh which gives me 10,5h of PDA fun or 2 weeks standby...so you USB charger will do just fine...i myself charge it with USB....did the USB Cradle mod...but the charging over USB takes longer because the USB provides only 500mAh instead if the 1000mAh of the original charger....
as soon as i find out what F0 actually is (specs), i will post it...and of course replace mine...
i hope thats enough information....
Soldering...
aquasesh said:
as soon as i find out what F0 actually is (specs), i will post it...and of course replace mine...
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Click to collapse
Excellent pictures, and thanks for posting them.
The soldering job itself. Well... Ehm... How do I say... My estimate is that with your present skills the risk of future damage by not having a fuse there is smaller than the risks of further damage if you go in there again.
Soldering wires becomes way, way easier if you first tin the ends of the wire before trying to solder the wire to anything else. After tinning the ends, you can clip them with wire cutters so that they're only as long as you need them to be.
In this particular case, I would have tinned a tiny and much thinner piece of non-insulated wire, cut it to the length of the fuse, held it in place with something and quickly touched the ends with the soldering iron.
For jobs like this, if you have the luxury of a temperature-regulated soldering station, you may want to experiment how low you can set the temperature to still melt the particular type of solder used on a board, and use the smallest tip you have.
(No worries, I was absolutely lousy at soldering until I had a true electro-wizard as a roommate for a few years.)
Thanks for the advice...im really lousy, my old man is electronic engineer...he would kick my ass if he would see what i've done..lol
well...i guess i have to open it again and redo the whole process...but maybe i just wait til i get a new F0 and solder that in...i soldered some SMDs in the last weeks, so i hope i wont srew that up...
can someone tell me what this F0 is, and how can i find out what specs it has?
XDA Charging Fault
Thanks aquasesh for your help it looks like that's where my problem lies!
Cheers ,
MJ
Related
Hello,
the folllowing thing happened to me :
- at a certain point i couldn't charge my xda anymore, and so the battery went down. no light appeared when connecting to the charger. and i couldn t start the xda anymore off course.
- i read the articles about the fuse which could be hit; and because i couldn't reach the spare fuse for the external battery, i simply soldered a solder bridge in the place of the fuse, as someone mentioned in another topic. i put everything together, but still, totally dead : no lights.
- now i don't know if this xda is totally lost or if i can do something about it. it could also be the charger which is broken. it doesn't get warm when i put it in the 'wall'. how can i check this ?
- if anybody has hints about what to do next or just trow the thing away, you could make my day ! many thanks in advance.
thomas.
You could try a usb sync charge cable, it maybe the battery has died completely also. Did you test the fuse before bridging the connection? Have you tried using the hard reset button, this is in the hole next to the headphone socket.
- i don't own such a cable, but maybe i can find it somewhere, as the qtek 1010 is not very widely spread in belgium, i could search over the internet instead of a shop.
- i did not test the fuse before removing it and soldering the bridge. which is probably quite stupid of me. the hard reset button didn't do anything and still doesn't.
- the battery could be dead also, but should'nt i see a light flashing when i insert my charger ? so my 'forecast' is that it could be a charger issue.
- maybe i could test it with someone elses charger here in belgium. i live in ghent, so if anyone is from near my place, i am willing tot travel to test your charger. i won't steal it, but then i can buy a new one over the internet. :wink:
if anybody has other testing methods for the charger, please let me know.
a simple question : should the charger get hot when plugged in ? because mine doesn't and i don't know if it ever did.
thanks for your answers ! and hoping to reanimate soon.
The charger would normally feel warm when plugged in.
err my charger's pretty cold actually...
Mine is too now that I checked but it gets warm while charging, my ipaq charger is warm when plugged in and not charging, any idea why this should be.
Can anybody help me with the following ?
i'm quite stuck in the thinking concerning the problem ...
is there anybody in europe who has a tech experience with the qtek 1010/xda and thinks he could arrange the problem i mentionned above ?
or is there anyone who knows such a person, because he had the same problem.
I want to let someone look at it, with, off course, a possible compensation in money. Is there anyone who could tell me how much this more or less could cost ? [because i am a student and use the phone mainly for testing purposes]
Thanks in advance !!! t.
Maybe a friend at college has a simple voltage tester you could use to test the charger output, the charger I have has a removable adaptor at the end of the lead, with this removed you are left with a simple barrel type connector which is very easy to test. If you cannot get a replacement charger and yours is faulty, send me a pm, and I will post one to you.
Anyone in europe who can repair my xda 1 ?
Hello,
i'm still stuck with a broken xda, as described above. Is there anyone in europe who has spare parts of the xda and is willing to repair this item ?
It would be great if anyone could help me. Please let me know what arrangments can be made. I am living in Belgium, Ghent.
thanks in advance.
thomas
Testing powersupplie
Hi!
I don't know if this could be helpfull, anyway: If you still think this is a charger-problem, then you could modify your cradle as described in the wiki. http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=WallabyCradleMod
And another thing as well. I noticed that the main charger is making a loud fuzzing sound when connected to power, so I guess that if your's silent and cold, it might be broken. (Which is not too problematic as it can be easily bought on eBay.)
What power-connectors do you use in Belgium? I have a spare-adapter that I'm not able to use as it does not fit in the Norwegian connectors...
Good luck with the phone!
Same Problem after plugging in my ipaq 3970 gps reciever
I got the Same Problem after plugging in my ipaq 3970 gps reciever, anyone got a clue where to go with this??
iPaq pinouts...
The pin-outs is not the same on the xda and the iPaq, so power in the wrong direction may have damaged the mainboard. And that would be differcult to repair I think!
I know this isn't a new topic and I've read lot's of posts about similar problems, with various causes and fixes, but my x10i isn't charging at all. Neither through the wall charger or through the usb. When I look into the charging port I can see that one of the little metal pins is bent right up, so I've decided to try and replace the charging block.
I got a charging block off ebay, but I'm no expert when it comes to soldering & electronics, but since the phone is dead anyway I have nothing to loose.
As far as I can tell when I look at the original one, there doesn't seem to be any signs of soldering in the first place, although the connections are all so tiny that it's hard to tell.
So am I right in thinking that the charging block doesn't need to be soldered at all, and could I get away with just gluing it to the board, and if so what would be a suitable glue for this kind of purpose.
Thanks ...John...
j0hn0n1 said:
I know this isn't a new topic and I've read lot's of posts about similar problems, with various causes and fixes, but my x10i isn't charging at all. Neither through the wall charger or through the usb. When I look into the charging port I can see that one of the little metal pins is bent right up, so I've decided to try and replace the charging block.
I got a charging block off ebay, but I'm no expert when it comes to soldering & electronics, but since the phone is dead anyway I have nothing to loose.
As far as I can tell when I look at the original one, there doesn't seem to be any signs of soldering in the first place, although the connections are all so tiny that it's hard to tell.
So am I right in thinking that the charging block doesn't need to be soldered at all, and could I get away with just gluing it to the board, and if so what would be a suitable glue for this kind of purpose.
Thanks ...John...
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Click to collapse
i have the same problem with my x10 but i have warranty but whilst i was waiting for them to collect it, i cut my usb lead up and stripped the black and red cables back obviously positive and negative and took the battery out and wedged each cable on the phone connector with the battery my battery had a plus and negative signs on it so was easy 2 work out, it charges the battery but it doesnt come up as charging on the phone it will still blind red lights but doesnt turn off, you have to keep and eye on the charging levels on the phone status do not let it go over 99% as this method dont tell the battery to stop charging, also this is not full proof and could break your x10 if not dont correctly,but as for your question the usb port does need to be soldered good luck
j0hn0n1 said:
I know this isn't a new topic and I've read lot's of posts about similar problems, with various causes and fixes, but my x10i isn't charging at all. Neither through the wall charger or through the usb. When I look into the charging port I can see that one of the little metal pins is bent right up, so I've decided to try and replace the charging block.
I got a charging block off ebay, but I'm no expert when it comes to soldering & electronics, but since the phone is dead anyway I have nothing to loose.
As far as I can tell when I look at the original one, there doesn't seem to be any signs of soldering in the first place, although the connections are all so tiny that it's hard to tell.
So am I right in thinking that the charging block doesn't need to be soldered at all, and could I get away with just gluing it to the board, and if so what would be a suitable glue for this kind of purpose.
Thanks ...John...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi John,
I fixed my friends USB port, you will need:
"helping hands" (a tool for holding small things with a magnifying glass)
0.5mm or 1mm Soldering iron
Hot glue
Under the magnifying glass, there you will see the 5 pins the usb port was solderded onto. You will need to put a little bit of solder onto each pin and onto the board.
Hold everything together with the helping hands, and just tick the soldering blobs with your iron. This will connect all the points. Do not solder for to long, or you will bridge pins or remove the solder.
Continue until all 5 is connected. Solder the 2 points on the side (holds the USB port, you could do this first if you don't have the helping hands)
plug in cable, use multimeter to see if there is current by you battery pins.
Voila.
If no power then you have to follow one of those fixes online where you have to bridge the doide and the V+ port.
Thanks for the info, like I said the phone is dead anyway, so I can't really make it any worse (That's what I keep telling myself anyway).
It the parts were a lot bigger, I probably wouldn't be bothered as much, but if I do get it wrong, I'm hoping I can take it off, remove the solder and just start again. (hopefully)
I think I have a good idea now of what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'll probably have to wait till I get a new soldering iron, as mine is a little bit too big.
Thanks ...John...
Just wondering has anyone tried/thought about the feasibility of modding a Palm Pre touchstone charger for use in an atrix? would it be extremely difficult to do so?
thantos said:
Just wondering has anyone tried/thought about the feasibility of modding a Palm Pre touchstone charger for use in an atrix? would it be extremely difficult to do so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per post on engadget it's not so complicated
thantos said:
Just wondering has anyone tried/thought about the feasibility of modding a Palm Pre touchstone charger for use in an atrix? would it be extremely difficult to do so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xboxexpert posted a tutorial for this on a nook color here . Looks easy enough and the same method should apply.
Hmmm.. interesting.. only wished someone would have tried previously to know if it'd fit inside the battery cover...
After looking at the iFixIt teardown for the Atrix I'm not thinking this would be a straight forward process.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola-Atrix-4G-Teardown/4964/2
Boards aren't my strong point but it looks as though the +/- may be under the usb connector housing.
mtnecho said:
After looking at the iFixIt teardown for the Atrix I'm not thinking this would be a straight forward process.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola-Atrix-4G-Teardown/4964/2
Boards aren't my strong point but it looks as though the +/- may be under the usb connector housing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Need a better shot, but it looks like you can still hit the resistor between the two ground posts. Going to need some thin wire though.
I am curious to know if anyone will attempt this.
vmiku914 said:
I am curious to know if anyone will attempt this.
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Click to collapse
Don't think I'm going to sacrifice my Atrix to the hardware mod gods. Enjoying it too much and not terribly interested in dropping the money to replace it if it doesn't work out.
I don't know if I will be doing the mod, but these are some of the tips I would follow if i decided to. If I do it I'll post pictures..
1st:
Be sure to use the Palm Pixi's back cover with the smaller circuit board - this one.
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Click to collapse
2nd:
You might wanna consider buying this case since its thicker and you can dig a little bit if the circuit doesn't fit the standard battery door.
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Click to collapse
3rd:
In many phones the metal that keeps the memory card in place is the ground (-).
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4th:
I'm sure there's an easy (+) pin you can solder to - so far i haven't found one, but many people cut a usb plug to fit inside the usb female socket and route the cables somehow (Watch the first video below). You have to remove the cut usb in order to use it with computer, also its quite ugly. The best, but very hard way is to solder the (+) wire directly to where the usb socket is soldered to the phone's circuit board .This I'll leave to a jewelry craftsman, I know, with lots of experience. MAKE SHURE YOU KNOW WHICH PIN IS THE POSITIVE!!! For polarity of the palm pixi's circuit boat refer to the first picture.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know its a bit difficult, but... that's the way it is.
Useful links:
Galaxy S Mod.
First HD2 Mod.
Same mod but with extended battery (Not good looking)
You have probably seen this.
A lot of people forget to do this.
YOU ARE WELCOME!!!
I bought some of the pixi components and will try this out without the requirement of soldering.. I've been thinking.. is there any way to use the leads from the battery as the connection point as opposed to soldering directly to the port? Or is there a voltage regulator that I'd have to go through first...
First, you should try if it's really charging Atrix (batt's percentage going up), because it needs more current than standart phone.
But i'm thinking of modyfing my own, but with less invasive method
I wouldn't take apart my atrix again. I may have killed my first one getting my screen out. Those ribbon cables are a pain, and well, you might not need to remove the flex cables (the black flat ones), but if you do, you are most times pulling up the temp sensor too, and that thing never goes back!!
Just make sure you are good at what you do
Why not solder the the inductive piece to a chunk of mini usb cable first ? Completely non invasive and you'll be able to prove it works before you solder to the phone.
That was what I was considering. Unfortunate that the variances for the attrix are so tight.
mobileweasel said:
Why not solder the the inductive piece to a chunk of mini usb cable first ? Completely non invasive and you'll be able to prove it works before you solder to the phone.
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Click to collapse
If you're going to do that, you may as well just buy one that's already made.
I meant to do that as proof of concept. If it charger, take it apart and hide it under the battery cover.
Does anyone tried the Palm inductive charger with Atrix? Does it really work?
I just got mine in - will try it soon.
Let me ask you guys this...
1) Whats the point of all this?
Really? What is the point? The cool form factor? Bragging rights? It seems like
a big inconvenience for me, especially when you will need to take your charger somewhere.
Anyways, seems like a lot of work for just the convenience of not plugging in a mini usb cable.
Anyways, good luck and I hope you guys have fun
Perhaps you are right about it.
But whats the point in buying a lapdock or media dock when you can just get a laptop? What's the point in rooting or unlocking your phone? You could easily just leave it stock and most of the functions will work just fine.
Call it a hobby or challenge or a convenience or whatever. I made this thread merely asking for technical help. Not snide commentary that is counter productive.
Hello , When I first Purchased my Evo 3D, I noticed that any usb cable attached to it would never fit snug it always had movement like wiggled alot. I should have exchanged it but didn;t think it would eventually lead to serious damage until now, well, somehow the first pin on the right broke off and checking online with research it apparently is the +5 of the usb. Which basically screwed me.
I don't have much of an issue with no longer having the usb data sync ability since I can just use a micro SD adapter, and I have an External Battery Charger from Radio shack which helps because I can just charge the batteries with that and insert in my evo3d But the issue I have now is I realize i rely on the 4G tethering ability which i use constantly and it has become a pain to have to run and switch over batteries so my wifi tethering can maintain my computers online.,
Anyway so noticed a few evo 4g mods online where the person would solder two wires one to the negative and other to the 5v positive where the usb is located and then shape the wires nicely and make a custom usb hole somewhere else on the phone and eventually have a usb charging ability similar to one of the attached pictures ( for evo 4g of course not for the 3d)
So anyway i would like to try something similar where i can just locate some solid solder points on the phone and wire up two 5v and ground wires and relocate a custom usb slot somewhere else on the phone, Below is also some zoom closeups of the evo 3d board so my question is any advice to where I can solder the 5v and ground to, I am clueless to where and what points i should try the underside of the usb slot is all metal so seems like not able to solder there maybe on one of the little chips or something perhaps
,, thanks for any help
in reference to the attached images:
the one with the 5v writing is for an Evo 4g Not 3d But Im putting this picture i found online just to give a similar idea of what i need to find on the 3d
the one with the wired shell mod us just Another photo online of what I want to do but once again need the solder points
the other two are the best closeup pictures I could find of the 3d which maybe someone can just point out to me the locations by looking at it, I will take clear zoomed in photos if needed when I have access to a camera at home
thanks anyone for your help!
Why don't you just take it to Sprint and have them repair it? They'll do it for free.
Not from I heard. They charge 100 to fix it. And not even sure they would give me a loaner phone in the meantime. Also , I went into RADIOSHACK and showed and.spoke to one of the reps and he.told me.I wouldhave to pay unless I had their extended warrantee.. I noticed a resistor like chip above.and in front of where the 5v pin is.I wonder if I can solder on that
Sent from hell
suddene said:
Not from I heard. They charge 100 to fix it. And not even sure they would give me a loaner phone in the meantime. Also , I went into RADIOSHACK and showed and.spoke to one of the reps and he.told me.I wouldhave to pay unless I had their extended warrantee.. I noticed a resistor like chip above.and in front of where the 5v pin is.I wonder if I can solder on that
Sent from hell
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Call sprint and talk to a supervisor. They will send you a new phone or set up repair for free. Call and hang up twice, then call again to get sent directly to a supervisor.
Unfortunately me being a tinkerer ended up breaking off the ground pin and was not able to get serviced , even tried the supervisor and no go, I tried another radioshack and sprint store and of course they noticed it was opened so screwed me out...
anyway,, I taken some fair quality images of the board surface. maybe a +5v location can be pointed out from the images? thanks again
suddene said:
Unfortunately me being a tinkerer ended up breaking off the ground pin and was not able to get serviced , even tried the supervisor and no go, I tried another radioshack and sprint store and of course they noticed it was opened so screwed me out...
anyway,, I taken some fair quality images of the board surface. maybe a +5v location can be pointed out from the images? thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this is old. But did you ever figure it out? I need a 5v+ location as well. I want to do the inductive charging mod on the 3D.
xkravenx said:
I know this is old. But did you ever figure it out? I need a 5v+ location as well. I want to do the inductive charging mod on the 3D.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Instead of making a new thread, I figured I would add to this... I too am trying to mod mine with inductive charging, unfortunately my hands are a little too shaky to solder to the point that I discovered to be continuous with the +5v on the usb port.
I can't really find a clear picture of the PCB anywhere otherwise I would show you, but its about a centimeter or two down from the top left when you open your phone, run your multimeter through those points and you'll find it.
I guess I came here looking for another point..
suddene said:
Unfortunately me being a tinkerer ended up breaking off the ground pin and was not able to get serviced , even tried the supervisor and no go, I tried another radioshack and sprint store and of course they noticed it was opened so screwed me out...
anyway,, I taken some fair quality images of the board surface. maybe a +5v location can be pointed out from the images? thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xkravenx said:
I know this is old. But did you ever figure it out? I need a 5v+ location as well. I want to do the inductive charging mod on the 3D.
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Click to collapse
bronx623 said:
Instead of making a new thread, I figured I would add to this... I too am trying to mod mine with inductive charging, unfortunately my hands are a little too shaky to solder to the point that I discovered to be continuous with the +5v on the usb port.
I can't really find a clear picture of the PCB anywhere otherwise I would show you, but its about a centimeter or two down from the top left when you open your phone, run your multimeter through those points and you'll find it.
I guess I came here looking for another point..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PLEASE PM me.. those fo you with a broken port, I might have solution for you (nothing shady promise just trying to help where I can, I'll explain once I'm PM'ed). The other guy if all your trying is inductive charging sorry LOL
bronx623 said:
Instead of making a new thread, I figured I would add to this... I too am trying to mod mine with inductive charging, unfortunately my hands are a little too shaky to solder to the point that I discovered to be continuous with the +5v on the usb port.
I can't really find a clear picture of the PCB anywhere otherwise I would show you, but its about a centimeter or two down from the top left when you open your phone, run your multimeter through those points and you'll find it.
I guess I came here looking for another point..
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Click to collapse
Hmm thanks. I will try it when I open the phone. The soldering point should be bigger than the micro-usb pin I would hope.
Ok, i know theres a sticky for the GPS dongle but this isnt one of those "Wheres my dongle" or how to sign up threads so i thought it diserved its own thread. If you have questions about how to acquire a GPS dongle or want to say you got yours or whatever this is NOT the place to do it. See the sticky. kthxbie.
Still with me? Awesome! In having multiple primes i have recieved multiple GPS dongles. Since i rarely use one as it is, let alone them all at once i was wondering what sort of tweaks / hacks / mods have people tried (or wanted to try but were too afraid of screwing up their only dongle) that i might do on my extra one?
I already plan on doing a full teardown, taking highres macro pictures of the connector as well as unsoldering the shielding on the PCB and seeing whats underneath. Anything else you guys can think of?
Im not too worried about ruining the device if it means i can try something cool! Lets hear those ideas!
UPDATE: isolated the dock connector. Thus far with my tester these pins are grounded: (back view)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ G _ G
G _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ G
I know theres an official dock connector thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1630300 but im not sure which pins according to that thread match what i have here.
UPDATE 2: removed dock connector, looks like only the bottom row goes to the dongle, not sure yet if any of the top row go anywhere inside the dongle or if it terminates at the connector. Will continue to test.
UPDATE 3: Ok, uploaded my work for tonight, traced a few of the connections just to see where everything is going. There WERE a couple that were coming out the top row, the two resisters on top, that MIGHT be the trigger to tell the prime its connected to an external device? who knows. anyways, its very late here, i will continue to test as i have time and as people show interest.
UDATE 5/5/2012
Ok, been doing some research and testing and whatnot, i have some very bad news. In order to attach any kind of connector to charge the tablet with the dongle attached it would mean soldering a wire to four of the pins on the connector on the TABLET SIDE of the pcb, UNDERNEATH the connector (the really fine pitch pins). Maybe i will have to take a picture to show what is needed.
Suffice to say chances of a mod that can be completed by most people out there is very low. I will continue to try to find a solution.
The red square shows which pins would need to solder the 15v+, the ground could be soldered to any of the grount points. (+5v to each of the three pins or +15v to all three)
Additionally, i have been doing some work on the pinout, trying to clean up the information we currently have. No offence to bjonston115 but his thread is confusing since every source has pins labled differently and there is info scattered everywhere. Bear with me as i try to sort the mess out and make something we can all use
You are so lucky. Wish I had a spare. My main hope is to determine who makes the connectors (if possible), and what pins are used inside that connector, along with how it's mounted.
My desire, is to procure a connector, to add to the dongle shell, and the wiring, so I can permit the tablet to be charged while the dongle is in use.
When I drive 14 hrs to FL, my battery will run out, mid trip. So far, my only solution is to carry an external GPS to use while the TP charges.
Looking forward to your teardown.
Bob
Images. Took as many pics as i could as i was removing bits n pieces. If you want a picture of a specific part let me know. Pictures uploading, give me a minute or two...
I think a power mod should be straightforward. The dongle shell looks "thick" enough to accomodate a USB female Type A connector, mounted orthogonally. You'd want one with right-angle contacts similar to the one below, so you can let it "bottom out" against far side of the dongle shell. For aesthetics, I'd dremel the opening at the back side of the dongle rather than front, but this depends on your car mount.
The next step is to solder jumper wires from USB's power and ground pins to appropriate pins on 40-pin connector. Since USB adapter for TF101 is same for Prime/300, we can assume pin-out for USB functions is still same. Somebody already posted partial pin-out in another thread.
Soldering to the USB contact isn't a big deal, but to the finer-pitch 40-pin connector would take a bit of finesse.
Note: TF101/201/300 can charge with [email protected]
@pileot: Suggest taking a caliper and measure inner and outer thickness of dongle (ie w/ and w/o the shell thickness).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-USB-sh...ale-socket-Connector-PCB-Socket-/260991770971
unfortunately i dont have access to calipers, far as i can measure outside thickness is about 3/4 maybe slightly less, inside thickness is about 1/8 inches. sorry i cant be more accurate.
im assuming you want to throw a USB on the PCB? im not exactly sure how you want to connect that usb female connector, or what the purpose would be to do so.... Mind explaining just a little more?
Mount: Use dremel to create a rectangular hole (12.5mm x 5.2mm) at the back (or front) of the dongle. Use a short-body USB connector w/ right-angle contact like the previous, and mount it orthogonally, eg perpendicular to dongle facing. I think the short-body one has a length of about 0.5" so it should flush-mount. But if not, having it sticking out a bit isn't a big deal.
Purpose: To charge tablet w/ either [email protected] or [email protected] I would go with the second, since USB car chargers for it are widely available (that's what the iPad uses).
e.mote said:
Note: TF101/201/300 can charge with [email protected]
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I know that the PC USB charge @~500ma takes forever and the TP has to be shut off, but what would the deal be with [email protected]
Would I be able to continue to use it as it charged, or would it need to be shut down too.
I'd probably use a USB 3 connector in place of the pictured USB 2
Thanks for the idea...I never thought of that....now all I got to do is to wait till I get my dongle.
Bob
ahh! makes sense.... sure would be nice if we had a full connector port. Maybe i could make a trip to an electronic component store and pick up some USB connectors.
If you just want to use it for power then dont we just need any sort of connection to the charging ports and the outside of the dongle? It doesnt have to be USB it could be anything as long as you have a male and female connection
pileot said:
unfortunately i dont have access to calipers, far as i can measure outside thickness is about 3/4 maybe slightly less, inside thickness is about 1/8 inches. sorry i cant be more accurate.
im assuming you want to throw a USB on the PCB? im not exactly sure how you want to connect that usb female connector, or what the purpose would be to do so.... Mind explaining just a little more?
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There is a neat tool in Google Play called Smart Tools. Possibly you could get better measurements of the items you want to measure by using the tool, and laying the item right on the screen. I have it installed, and think it was a well done app.
Bob
>I know that the PC USB charge @~500ma takes forever and the TP has to be shut off, but what would the deal be with [email protected]
No idea. That's something you can find out afterward. Having the mod in place won't hurt anything.
My guess is that it should be good enough to at least maintain battery level while on, which would be all that's needed in a car.
>It doesnt have to be USB it could be anything as long as you have a male and female connection.
You can use barrel power connector. But you'd have to make your own power cable, as opposed to using a standard USB cable to connect to the charger. Edit: On second thought, you can use a [email protected] car charger, then get a mating barrel connector.
http://google.com/search?q=12v+1.5a+car+adapter
from what i understand if you have the tablet on and try to charge with 5v it wont even maintain the current battery level. The tablet charges with 15v or something... having a barrel connector would ensure you dont accidentally plug a prime charger into another USB device frying it.
At that point if we could just get the barrel plug right to the power pins, fitting it in should be too hard....I am really interested iin this because I have 2 dongles coming tomorrow annd planned on hacking one....(I got two because one was RMA and they sent me a new one back 2 serials=2 Dongles)
BSMan1011 said:
At that point if we could just get the barrel plug right to the power pins, fitting it in should be too hard....I am really interested iin this because I have 2 dongles coming tomorrow annd planned on hacking one....(I got two because one was RMA and they sent me a new one back 2 serials=2 Dongles)
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See edited first post. Because the top row does not go to the back of the PCB and i believe thats where the power is, it would be hard to throw a charging circut in there. I am still working on locating where all the pins in this thing go but it is very tiny, even with my finest nodes to test these circuts its very delicate work.
In the mean time, i will upload what i do have before i go to sleep tonight (maybe in another hour or so) so stay tuned!
Okay I will try and keep updated... if we could get a charging circiut in maybe a true car mount might be a project... at least for me, I already have a tablet window mount and with some changes I could affix a modified dongle at the bottom and just slide prime in for GPS + charging (again if we can get it to work)... I get mine today and disassembly will soon follow so I will post anything else I can to help progress
pileot said:
UDATE 5/5/2012
Ok, been doing some research and testing and whatnot, i have some very bad news. In order to attach any kind of connector to charge the tablet with the dongle attached it would mean soldering a wire to four of the pins on the connector on the TABLET SIDE of the pcb, UNDERNEATH the connector (the really fine pitch pins). Maybe i will have to take a picture to show what is needed.
Suffice to say chances of a mod that can be completed by most people out there is very low. I will continue to try to find a solution.
The red square shows which pins would need to solder the 15v+, the ground could be soldered to any of the grount points. (+5v to each of the three pins or +15v to all three)
)
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Okay first off...have we all decided to stay low until we progress, i don't want this thread to die so soon...secondly...though I am sure you have done you research I still must ask, Are you sure? if we can provide any charge to the prime it will at least help a bit...also does anyone one else have other ideas other than charging?...
one idea I literally just thought of so it is not very thought out is, what if we remove the dongle case( as we have done) and integrate it into case.... we will need one of the 40-pin cables to wire onto it but maybe it could fit into some cases.
I will continue to try to think of more uses and mods and will update, meanwhile I hope that we can get some more input
Hmm, you've made quite a bit of progress there. I really wish I wasn't lazy haha, I need to learn to really work with electrical stuff.
So, then the dongle uses some of the pins that would be used for power from the dock? If the dock can pass power without changing the Prime, I should think the dongle could somehow. I mean, only certain pins are used for data right, so the dock and dongle should use the same ones?
Ok, firstly. Yes, im sure. Im sure of the pin placement and based on the best available information scattered around the internet, i know which pins the charger uses and i know where they are located on the dongle. I also know there is very little access to them (as seen in the pictures in OP)
as to integrating the dongle INSIDE the prime casing you would, essentially, be succoming to the same problem the internal antennas have: Metal blocking the signal. Sure its a more powerfull antenna however its encased in PLASTIC not metal, the signal it recieves is a lot stronger and there is less EMI caused by the metalic back plate. Short: Yes you can, no you dont want to.
Finally, the pins the prime uses to draw power are different than the pins the charger uses to supply power. Think one lane dirt road vs a 6 lane highway. On the highway you have dedicated lanes for traffic going in different directions. this is similar to how the prime dock connector works, the prime can turn off power to different connections depending if there is something plugged in reducing the chance of a short, spark, or power drain.
Hopefully this addressed your concerns, maybe when i have apropriate tools handy and a bit of time i may try soldering a connection to the dock connector and see how it functions but as you can see its REALLY tight. I will do my best, no promises.
I also plan, in the near future, to locate more of the data pins, see whats going on, maybe we can make a USB adapter for the dongle and use it in other devices as well! who knows, im thinking it just uses a standard USB interface but it will take more digging.
Subscribed as I see no need for the dongle unless you have enough power.
Though I was pretty sure you were sure I just wanted to ask.... but you did misinterpret my idea, I do not mean the Prime's casing but rather integrating the gps into a case which holds the prime...This is not to say that the gps is big or in the way but just an idea i had to help people with cases and a use for the gps, but since the usb uses different pins that looks unlikely as well i guess...well I will stay updated and if I learn anything I will post.
I would be more interested in adding a power jack of some sort to the dongle. So you can charge while using navigation. I already can not use my dock while plugged into the dongle. We need power!