Charging battery while using TomTom 6 in the car - Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General

Hello everybody,
i wonder if any of you encountered the problem of not charging the battery in the car while using TomTom 6. It happened to me many times and it's quite annoying because at a certain point the phone will go off and it will need to be charged while off otherwise it will not work.
Since it happened in different cars it does not depend by the charger but has to be a software problem either of WM or TomTom.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
Panco

Buy a decent charger with at least 2A.

2A? 1A should be more than enough...
(I'm not sure you'd be able to find a 2A USB charger as the USB2.0 spec requires connectors to be rated at 1.5A tops so if there was such a beast I personally wouldn't touch it)
Mathew

Do a careful inspection of the USB connector on the phone and the car cradles/leads - my money is on a piece of cloth/fluff etc breaking the charger connection.

Today, I tried using CoPilot (with a live internet connection going for Traffic updates), with bluetooth switched on (so that I could connect with my Parrot kit in the car), and the phone on charge.
On the journey back home, CoPilot was running (and on the screen) whilst I was on a call via the Parrot. And yet, the battery was still getting charged properly! I was actually impressed that the charging would work automatically once the cable was inserted - my MDA Pro needed the display to be off before I could see the red charging light come on and for the phone to start charging.
FYI, the charger was a cigar_lighter_adapter-2-USB_cable type.
I've got an MDA Compact IV with the original ROM (but TouchFlo tweaks, etc).
So, I'd say either there's something wrong with your adapter, cable, or indeed TomTom is using a lot of juice!

panco said:
Hello everybody,
i wonder if any of you encountered the problem of not charging the battery in the car while using TomTom 6. It happened to me many times and it's quite annoying because at a certain point the phone will go off and it will need to be charged while off otherwise it will not work.
Since it happened in different cars it does not depend by the charger but has to be a software problem either of WM or TomTom.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
Panco
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it does this with most GPS SW and the problem is heating preventing battery charging to avoid the battery to catch fire, especially with the the phone placed in the windscreen with the sun on it. At night the issue is no longer an issue. So when you have a break for coffee let the phone have a break too to cool down and recharge.

Or mount it infront of an air con vent

Nuri58 said:
No, it does this with most GPS SW and the problem is heating preventing battery charging to avoid the battery to catch fire, especially with the the phone placed in the windscreen with the sun on it. At night the issue is no longer an issue. So when you have a break for coffee let the phone have a break too to cool down and recharge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank for your post, i think you got the point with something (the heating of the battery+gps) preventing the battery to recharge; i'm convinced of this because the problem is not always present but it comes at certain conditions.
I'll try to let the diamond cool down at regular intervals and not to position too exposed. I also noticed that it's advisable to first connect the phone to the charger then after some minutes run the tomtom otherwise the problem is likely to happen.
Thanks to all.
Panco

There are many tool available to show you the internal temperature of the device - the battery monitor 'Batti' is one such tool (and it's free).
Give something like that a try then you'll be able to see if your problems bear any correlation with temperature.
Mathew

Im experiencing the same with Garmin, yes, it was hot...first I thought the cigarette-to-usb-adapter was not strong enough....
Will try to keep it cool

You need a USB car charger with at least 1A, as said in previous post, but with any USB cable the current limiting will be lways be 500mA.
Only the original Diamond cable will allow you to charge with currents over 500mA. To measure the charge current you can use several programs, like my TodayWarrior (as it is a plugin you will need to disable temporarilt Touch Flo or use Second Today).

It's not heating of battery, but just that when Using tomtom, with backlight, Full GPS usage, phone on and that VGA screen just pulls more than your charger can bring
Got the same issue, and yes, as said before, get a heavier charger.

I have the same problem using IGO8.
First point, using Full GPS in car will consumme a lot of energy.
So it's better to use a 2A/5V charger (5V is the important thing ... And for your information, HTC is selling 2A car charger for their last phones ...)
Second point, the GPS chip is badly placed in the phone, behind the battery.
So yes, when the GPS is used for a long time, it makes the battery hot and the phone stops the battery charging ...
The point is to use a good car craddle, one that lets the phone "breath" (one that doesn't cover to much the rear of the phone) ...

beemerTPPC said:
You need a USB car charger with at least 1A, as said in previous post, but with any USB cable the current limiting will be lways be 500mA.
Only the original Diamond cable will allow you to charge with currents over 500mA. To measure the charge current you can use several programs, like my TodayWarrior (as it is a plugin you will need to disable temporarilt Touch Flo or use Second Today).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The input sideon car chargers inclusive of HTC is 500 mA at 12 V and the output side 1A at 5V, which is what the phone requires and all car chargers I have do. But the important thing about ion-lit batteries is that they require very controlled charging conditions (contrary to the older Metal or Cadnium). E.g. If the battery is completely flat (2 V or below) it is extremely hard to recharge and will require several hours in the charger while building up the voltage to about 3.2V, only then normal charge will start. Sometimes the stand-by consumption of a phone makes it imposible to recharge it while in the phone, and requires an external recharger. This may explain the observatiobn that it is better to wait a couple of minutes before starting TT after connecting to the recharger to ensure correct initial charging.
Riel said:
It's not heating of battery, but just that when Using tomtom, with backlight, Full GPS usage, phone on and that VGA screen just pulls more than your charger can bring
Got the same issue, and yes, as said before, get a heavier charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the way to get a battery to explode, but fortunately the phone will not allow charging to take place and adding more amps will possibly increase heating and just worsen the situation. But correct as more power the device draws as hotter it gets and as sooner charging stops.
As Nani says there is an element of disign problem (cannot be a surprice to HTC that people actually will like to use the Navigation also on long drives), so if placed so it can cool will defenetly help. So will dimming the display to the minimum.

Related

Kaiser stops charging with HSDPA when it overheats (+)

Ok, I've been trying to get to the bottom of this problem for a long time.
I've got unilimited HSDPA GPRS on my Tilt, so I tether to my laptop. Kaiser is connected through a 1Amp powered USB hub to a laptop. Tilt was just lying on the desk, and I noticed several interesting things:
1. If Kaiser is at 100% charge - the green light (power) will stay on for a long time, about 40-60 minutes.
2. If Kaiser is NOT at 100% charge, it will charge (orange light) but won't reach 100%. It will stop charging in about 20-30 minutes.
3. If I put Kaiser on a cup, so that there's nothing under it and air moves freely all the way around the Kaiser - I get around 40-60 minutes of charging even when battery is less than 100%. If it is 100%, I can get up to 1.5 hours or so.
4. Whenether it stops charging - I notice that the back of Kaiser gets pretty high.
5. Every 40-60 minutes the charging light comes on again and charges for about 10-20 minutes (gives couple % to battery), then comes off again.
6. BatteryStatus app shows:
6.1 When charge light is ON: + some MAh, don't remember exact number, but it's like 10 or 20.. very low charge
6.2 When charge light is OFF: full battery drain, -400 or somewhere around there (can't remember). It seems that power flow through USB port just stops, disconnects.
7. I see same results when using car charger and stock AC power adapter.
8. Traffic definitelly affects it. If I just have HSDPA on and not using it - it charges fine, it seems. When I start using up the traffic (download files, watch TV, etc) it starts to heat up and stops charging after some time.
It seems to me that the problem with Kaiser stopping to charge when using HSDPA is caused by heat. There must be something on the hardware that turns off charging if the processor/MB/hardware is overheating. I guess charging the battery generates more heat than using the battery, or why else would it turn off charging when overheating?
Just thought that this, perhaps, would be interesting to some developers or people who have the same problem. Maybe someone can put Kaiser in front of a good fan and see what kind of result does that give - maybe it will keep charging.
Assuming that this is true, I don't suppose a fix is possible. Except for, perhaps, switching to slower connection (not applicable in my case) or putting kaiser on a bag of ice.
DarkDvr said:
Ok, I've been trying to get to the bottom of this problem for a long time.
I've got unilimited HSDPA GPRS on my Tilt, so I tether to my laptop. Kaiser is connected through a 1Amp powered USB hub to a laptop. Tilt was just lying on the desk, and I noticed several interesting things:
1. If Kaiser is at 100% charge - the green light (power) will stay on for a long time, about 40-60 minutes.
2. If Kaiser is NOT at 100% charge, it will charge (orange light) but won't reach 100%. It will stop charging in about 20-30 minutes.
3. If I put Kaiser on a cup, so that there's nothing under it and air moves freely all the way around the Kaiser - I get around 40-60 minutes of charging even when battery is less than 100%. If it is 100%, I can get up to 1.5 hours or so.
4. Whenether it stops charging - I notice that the back of Kaiser gets pretty high.
It seems to me that the problem with Kaiser stopping to charge when using HSDPA is caused by heat. There must be something on the hardware that turns off charging if the processor/MB/hardware is overheating. I guess charging the battery generates more heat than using the battery, or why else would it turn off charging when overheating?
Just thought that this, perhaps, would be interesting to some developers or people who have the same problem. Maybe someone can put Kaiser in front of a good fan and see what kind of result does that give - maybe it will keep charging.
Assuming that this is true, I don't suppose a fix is possible. Except for, perhaps, switching to slower connection (not applicable in my case) or putting kaiser on a bag of ice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does the Batterystatus app read in all above situations?
Since I exchanged my Kaiser, I don't feel the unit getting hot anymore. The previous unit used to get v.hot using wi-fi and 3G/HSDPA - Possible fault?
smads said:
What does the Batterystatus app read in all above situations?
Since I exchanged my Kaiser, I don't feel the unit getting hot anymore. The previous unit used to get v.hot using wi-fi and 3G/HSDPA - Possible fault?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Scary... I experienced this for the first time last night. Was streaming some vid from my tversity server whilst on the mains charger. All of a sudden my Kaiser got extremely hot. I immediately stopped streaming and let it cool.
I don't think it stopped charging though but I guess it makes sense that it would be protected against overheating.
The only thing I can suggest is try charging with .5 amp... not actually sure that it would charge too well at that though, especially if you're giving it a good workout at the same time.
DarkDvr said:
Ok, I've been trying to get to the bottom of this problem for a long time.
I've got unilimited HSDPA GPRS on my Tilt, so I tether to my laptop. Kaiser is connected through a 1Amp powered USB hub to a laptop. Tilt was just lying on the desk, and I noticed several interesting things:
1. If Kaiser is at 100% charge - the green light (power) will stay on for a long time, about 40-60 minutes.
2. If Kaiser is NOT at 100% charge, it will charge (orange light) but won't reach 100%. It will stop charging in about 20-30 minutes.
3. If I put Kaiser on a cup, so that there's nothing under it and air moves freely all the way around the Kaiser - I get around 40-60 minutes of charging even when battery is less than 100%. If it is 100%, I can get up to 1.5 hours or so.
4. Whenether it stops charging - I notice that the back of Kaiser gets pretty high.
It seems to me that the problem with Kaiser stopping to charge when using HSDPA is caused by heat. There must be something on the hardware that turns off charging if the processor/MB/hardware is overheating. I guess charging the battery generates more heat than using the battery, or why else would it turn off charging when overheating?
Just thought that this, perhaps, would be interesting to some developers or people who have the same problem. Maybe someone can put Kaiser in front of a good fan and see what kind of result does that give - maybe it will keep charging.
Assuming that this is true, I don't suppose a fix is possible. Except for, perhaps, switching to slower connection (not applicable in my case) or putting kaiser on a bag of ice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try without that 1Amp powered USB hub to a laptop....
1Amp is max i gues... so maby it's giving less, so it take a long time to get from 80% to 100% and yep lot off heat....
smads said:
What does the Batterystatus app read in all above situations?
Since I exchanged my Kaiser, I don't feel the unit getting hot anymore. The previous unit used to get v.hot using wi-fi and 3G/HSDPA - Possible fault?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't use it anymore, but before, if I remember correctly, it showed around small charge (+) when light is on.. then, when phone stops charging it used to drop to full battery drain, around -400 MAh or something like that.
So you got a new Kaiser and it doesn't heat up when using HSDPA? Really?! Have you tried using HSDPA for a long time (actually using the traffic like tethering, MobiTV, etc..)
SatScan said:
Try without that 1Amp powered USB hub to a laptop....
1Amp is max i gues... so maby it's giving less, so it take a long time to get from 80% to 100% and yep lot off heat....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see exact same problems when connected to a AC power supply that it came with. Same problem when using car charger.. and same problem when powering by USB without the AC adapter.
Here's my theory... Lithium ion batteries have on-board microprocessors to protect the battery and device from damage. If the battery gets hot the processor will shut down the charging to prevent damage. No matter what tweaks you do to the device or modifications to the charger this on board processor will override and shut down charging if it deemed it was necessary.
-Jay
DarkDvr said:
I don't use it anymore, but before, if I remember correctly, it showed around small charge (+) when light is on.. then, when phone stops charging it used to drop to full battery drain, around -400 MAh or something like that.
So you got a new Kaiser and it doesn't heat up when using HSDPA? Really?! Have you tried using HSDPA for a long time (actually using the traffic like tethering, MobiTV, etc..)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I said the replacement didn't get hot - read uncomfortably hot - It does get warm, but only in the same way it does when taking a long phone call. My first kaiser used to get extremely hot when charging which indicated a short somewhere. All is well now though.
I hope you can get this sorted though - are you able to get a replacement?
smads said:
No, I said the replacement didn't get hot - read uncomfortably hot - It does get warm, but only in the same way it does when taking a long phone call. My first kaiser used to get extremely hot when charging which indicated a short somewhere. All is well now though.
I hope you can get this sorted though - are you able to get a replacement?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, I see.
Yeah I think I'd be able to... but mine doesn't get "extremely hot".. it's just.. warm to very warm. It seems normal for me, don't think it's heating anymore than it should.
Have anyone had this problem with 3G (not hsdpa)? Cuz if it happens in 3G as well - that means another reason to be pissed at HTC - they've design kaiser in such a way that you cannot charge and use HSDPA at the same time.
This problem can be easily recreated and a result from other user would tell if it some device or not.
HSPDA with streaming music while charging = warm
HSPDA with streaming video while charging device = Extremely hot
At this point the USB charging will shut off for whatever reason. I just wondering why the phone is putting out that much heat and can it cause problems since I am starting to stream video via HSPDA while charging a lot.
DarkDvr said:
Ahh, I see.
Yeah I think I'd be able to... but mine doesn't get "extremely hot".. it's just.. warm to very warm. It seems normal for me, don't think it's heating anymore than it should.
Have anyone had this problem with 3G (not hsdpa)? Cuz if it happens in 3G as well - that means another reason to be pissed at HTC - they've design kaiser in such a way that you cannot charge and use HSDPA at the same time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe we finally figured out why they included the option to disable charging when connected to a PC..
XSIVSPD said:
Maybe we finally figured out why they included the option to disable charging when connected to a PC..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just thinking that on some systems it might have interfered with craptive sync. I never guessed that it was because of direct charging issues.
Do you still have problems if you are plugged into the OEM charger, and not a USB port or hub?
-Jay
Jay2TheRescue said:
I was just thinking that on some systems it might have interfered with craptive sync. I never guessed that it was because of direct charging issues.
Do you still have problems if you are plugged into the OEM charger, and not a USB port or hub?
-Jay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. I tried tethering through WiFi (successfully), and same result. Maybe even heats up more, since now there's one more module to power up.
Somebody told me some time ago that iPod charger fixes these problems... can anybody confirm that?
DarkDvr said:
Yep. I tried tethering through WiFi (successfully), and same result. Maybe even heats up more, since now there's one more module to power up.
Somebody told me some time ago that iPod charger fixes these problems... can anybody confirm that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Kaiser would get hot with a teathered WiFi data connection, but I don't think it ever stopped charging on me.
-Jay
message deleted
Jay2TheRescue said:
My Kaiser would get hot with a teathered WiFi data connection, but I don't think it ever stopped charging on me.
-Jay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm.. sorry, but, are you sure? Try tetheting through a powered USB and.. I dunno.. do a big download or something, play an online game.. do something traffic intensive.. it should stop charging.. if it won't - hell, please let me know!
con_ritmo said:
i have an att tilt with the stock rom minus the bloatware.
when i installed battery status (basic version) i noticed that my charging became extremely slow. with the ac charger after the battery status install...it registered +350ma, then it fell to +110ma and wouldn't go any higher, no matter if i soft-reset or not...sometimes it was simply 0. i tried usb connection, ac connection, it didn't make a difference. the charging crawled along slower than i had ever seen it. 39%...40%..........41%. i had enough and i deleted battery status and softreset.
when i rebooted the phone, the battery immediately read 100% (from 41% before the reboot)!!!! and the charging was back to normal.
so my suggestion is to see if removing battery status...and see if that helps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's really bizzare.. I had BS for a long time and never seen any problems, actually.. I just reflashed and haven't installed BS on it (I have no need for it now). We'll see if it makes any difference.. I hope it does.
DarkDvr said:
Hmm.. sorry, but, are you sure? Try tetheting through a powered USB and.. I dunno.. do a big download or something, play an online game.. do something traffic intensive.. it should stop charging.. if it won't - hell, please let me know!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never got teathering to work through USB. I'd either teather through WiFi or BT with the a/c charger plugged in. I'd imagine teathering through WiFi would be the worst. Most times I teather I'm just reading email, visiting various forums, and on rare occasions I'm downloading music. I'll have to try later and see what happens while I download music over a teathered WiFi connection...
-Jay
My Kaiser was absolutely baking last night.
I have a stuck pixel so was using a video that I found somewhere that you play on a continuous loop. The phone wasn't completely flat when I started playing the video but within half an hour or so the low batt notification popped up so I stuck it on charge (supplied mains charger).
I was connected to wifi but wasn't actually doing anything with it (video being played from sd card), in fact I wasn't even using the phone, it was just sat on the side charging and playing the video.
About an hour later I came back to the phone to find it was extremely hot. So hot the heat had travelled right through the phone body and even the screen was hot to touch and the battery was still flat so had clearly stopped charging.
I immediately switched the phone off and removed the battery, even then it took an age to cool down.
I don't know whether to get on to Orange for a replacement... I don't think it's right that it should get that hot.
This has been discussed before but some nice new information is coming out in this thread that ties a few things together.
The Lithium battery does have an onboard charging management system that will stop charge if the battery overheats but also if this heat is combined with high current drain. This should be at a precise point but I have experimented with three types of battery and get very different results between the three AND also between batteries of the same type.
The best performing battery seems to be the latest Samsung (P/N 35H00086-00M) with the external 'X' shaped heat spreader on the back that connects to the four earthing points in the battery compartment. Ealier batteries and some 3rd party batteries have this earthing spreader covered with potting compound or even omitted.
One other item I have found, a 1A rated USB port does not give a continous 1A output. Most ports are only rated at 1A surge and will only give out approx 600mA continuous before IT'S own thermal management system cuts off and kills the USB completely, this is probably the cause of comms loss by some people.
Nice informative thread DarkDvr.

Charging + TOMTOM = Problem

Hi to all!!.
Let's see if someone out there can give me a reason or a solution for my problem.
This weekend I went on a long trip and I found that if I use my TomTom while charging the Kaiser (regular car charger) at some point the PDA stopped charging and showed the "low battery" icon. The only way to get it charging again is doing a soft reset (with the device unplugged) and then plugging it again.
This is quite annoying since it's impossible to do this while driving since I need the GPS to get to my destination (this is the reason to have GPS, right!?)
any solutions??? I would be eternally gratefull if someone gets me out of this!
Thanxs in advance.
What is the current rating of the charger? When I used a cheap charger made for the RAZR I couldn't keep a positive charge when using GPS and sometimes it would stop charging and I'd have to disconnect and re-connect it. Didn't have to reset though. I suggest you get a higher current charger made for the Kaiser.
marc
I had this problem too and I simply changed the charger. Also, make sure that you see the "charging" icon with the electrical cord displayed when the device is connected.
I've had similar problems using several different car chargers.
When looking at the charger specs, I saw they all had a 1000mA current maximum. When I found a HTC charger for the TYTNII I immediately looked at the specs, and behold: 2000mA max. current
With the HTC 2000mA charger I haven't had any problems sofar. A week ago I drove 3000km using my TYTNII with tomtom and Charging/navigating went fine.
Yes... that may be the issue, I'm not using a cheap charger, I'm using the cheapest charger I could find!!!! jajajaja
And in fact it was done for the V3 RAZR... so... I'll try not to be so mean and buy a good one!.
I will tell you if this worked!... Many thanxs!!
I thought this was just happening to me as no-one posted about it 'til now!
Mine is from mobilefun, supposedly fine for a Kaiser, but i guess it's not.
There's no details on the product page about what current it can draw, but at £7 i think i may need a better one.
Can anyone point me to a site that quotes the rated mA for their products?
It's definitely the charger. I got 2 cheap ones from overseas for about $1 and I use it to charge up my psp and kaiser. The home adapter can't charge up the psp but only the phone and the car adapter can charge up both at the same time with no problems. And its using the exact same cable as well. So its definitely the adapter.
I agree 100% - I bought a cheap charger from eBay, but it would not charge the phone when using TomTom - and barely hold the charge when playing MP3s. I replaced witha genuine HTC charger and everything is fine
Your mileage with HTC original chargers may vary
The idea of using an original HTC charger for some reason seems popular here. The original charger that came with my 'sealed box' TyTN II lasted 4 charges (about 2 weeks as I'd charged by USB cable the rest of the time) before it made a loud click and the light extinguished for the last time. When I called HTC to ask whether a different model of replacement could be provided I was told I would only receive another charger of the same model. Not wanting to have the possibility of regular failures (and this thing did look cheap and nasty), I bought a different charger for £8.95 and that ones been going fine since. The one I now have is shiny and black (matching the TyTN II casing perfectly) and it came with a set of different interchangable 'prong adapters' so I can use it in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia
For a multiband top of the range phone like the TyTN II, why didn't the manufacturers supply these in the first place. My rating of the original HTC TyTN II charger that came supplied with my UK sourced device in Sep 2007 is 0 out of 10
I bought a 300W inverter from Maplin for £20 and use the three pin plug charger that I use in the house...
hmmr said:
I've had similar problems using several different car chargers.
When looking at the charger specs, I saw they all had a 1000mA current maximum. When I found a HTC charger for the TYTNII I immediately looked at the specs, and behold: 2000mA max. current
With the HTC 2000mA charger I haven't had any problems sofar. A week ago I drove 3000km using my TYTNII with tomtom and Charging/navigating went fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you let us know where you got this charger? I think I am running 700mA in the car, which is a SLOW charge... Thanks for the help...
I've bought the charger in a local store, but after some googling, i found it HERE
If you click on the picture to enlarge, you can just make out the max current (2A) on the label.
Using HTC part no. 81551 should give you plenty of results
Well mine also just developed this problem. Drove 130 miles in one day a couple of weeks ago (using Tomtom) and my old tytn 1 car charger worked fine. Then a week ago drove 40 miles using same charger and when I got where I as going I found the battery was almost flat and the phone was really hot! So did a search and found this appears to be a common problem with this phone. (Although I can't understand why it worked fine when I did the 130 mile drive!)
Anyway have taken the plunge and bought a genuine HTC car charge. First off, as others have said, I can confirm that it has a 2amp rating (my other one was rated at 1amp). Went out with it for the first time today for a short journey to a shop to test it using Tomtom. After 5 mins it did the same as my old one, the charging light went off and battery stopped charging. However after my shopping (bought something for my kids who have chicken pox currently!) I went for a 15 min drive and it worked ok, actually charging throughout and increased my battery by about 3% (from 74% to 77%).
So the upshot is - I don't know what the heck is going on - could be that my battery or phone got itself into a mess with the first charger and took a while to recognise the new one - or it could be an intermittent problem!
What I do know is that I am shortly doing a 1000mile round trip and I need it to be reliable - so will do more testing over the next few weeks and let you all know how it goes. Its still under guarantee so any more nonsense and it will go back.
In the meantime if anyone has any further info on this please post.
Cheers
Barney
Barneyabz said:
Well mine also just developed this problem. Drove 130 miles in one day a couple of weeks ago (using Tomtom) and my old tytn 1 car charger worked fine. Then a week ago drove 40 miles using same charger and when I got where I as going I found the battery was almost flat and the phone was really hot! So did a search and found this appears to be a common problem with this phone. (Although I can't understand why it worked fine when I did the 130 mile drive!)
Anyway have taken the plunge and bought a genuine HTC car charge. First off, as others have said, I can confirm that it has a 2amp rating (my other one was rated at 1amp). Went out with it for the first time today for a short journey to a shop to test it using Tomtom. After 5 mins it did the same as my old one, the charging light went off and battery stopped charging. However after my shopping (bought something for my kids who have chicken pox currently!) I went for a 15 min drive and it worked ok, actually charging throughout and increased my battery by about 3% (from 74% to 77%).
So the upshot is - I don't know what the heck is going on - could be that my battery or phone got itself into a mess with the first charger and took a while to recognise the new one - or it could be an intermittent problem!
What I do know is that I am shortly doing a 1000mile round trip and I need it to be reliable - so will do more testing over the next few weeks and let you all know how it goes. Its still under guarantee so any more nonsense and it will go back.
In the meantime if anyone has any further info on this please post.
Cheers
Barney
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too have had similar problems. Bought a quality Brodit (Active) car holder with charger and it seems to charge for only about 30s-1min. The orange charge light only stays on for a short while and then then battery runs down!
Interestingly the charge indicator on the screen always shows that the device is being charged whilst connected in the car - even though the orange charge light has gone out. I've posted this in the general area for kaiser and also in the ROM area applicable (Dutty's WM6.1 Hybrid v2 5.2.19716/5.2.19700) in case it may be ROM specific.
Another person reports no issue with the same charger as mine and the same ROM - it's all very annoying because there would seem to be too many complaining about such issues. The output amperage may be the issue but surely the Brodit (which is good quality) charger should be fine?
I will post whan I get this issue solved but I wonder if there is something in the Registry that can cause such issues too - I agree the output limitations are also of relevance (I just cannot believe that this is my issue).
Well I have been using the official HTC charger for a month now without any problems, only thing I would say is that my journeys have all been short (under an hour at most). however using my old charger it would die after a much shorter period so problem does seem to be resolved.
cheers
Barney
Temperature
Hi.
I had the same problem, with a different GPS software. Check the temperature of your device ( you can use a software called " Battery Status ". In my kaiser it never showed me a bubble ( like some other ROM ) that it reached 47C and then the phone automatically stops the charge.
The heat is from actual charging + the sun. I have a window mount and the phone was on it when I was charging. Take all into account and you will see that it will over heat quite fast.
I solved the problem by putting the phone in a shaded place when charging it. It also helped if its next to the vent, but don't cool it to much, because if you do then when you use the AC and you go out, some of the connectors of the phone will get corrosion on them ( SIM, USB, SD etc.) .
Good luck.
There are 2 reasons: The first just got mentioned, overheating by the combined effect of the device heating up itself and other factors like the sun. If the battery heats up too much, the safety system will stop charge, and the battery will then be drained until empty. No soft reset needed, but the device has to be cooled to the appropriate temp and the charger disconnected/reconnected. I was also having that issue when using my older Hermes with 3G sharing over wifi and downloading hard, even with the battery cover removed and the keyboard open the device was heating so much on itself it would cause that. The Kaiser seems to heat less when doing the same BTW.
The second is that when using a common charger (not HTC branded), even if it is rated at 2 amps the phone won't be drawing those 2 amps from it but will limit itself to about 500mA.
The reason is simply that it's being charged from a USB port, and a USB device is not allowed to draw more than 500mA from a USB port. HTC chargers have a chip inside and tell the phone that they are official chargers from which the phone may draw more. Without that identification the phone stays in low current mode.
On the Hermes it was even simpler, if you connected a generic charger it would not charge at all. It would only accept charging from an active USB port it was able to have a communication with, or the original charger.
So, use original HTC chargers when current draw is high. The Kaiser with GPS, full backlight and a GPS program running will draw something pretty close to the 500mA.
I used to be cheap on charger too until I used the battery sucker Dell Axim x51v (612mzh, VGA, BT) on my car. The I brought the 2A ecovell usb charger and my problem solve.
tony.wheeler said:
I too have had similar problems.
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Have you seen this thread yet? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=343951
Looks like that may be your issue. Saw a chap in the phone shop (in High Wycombe) the other day with a TyTN II with faulty USB port. Must be a common thing around the area but as I don't have a car to put a car charger into, it won't affect me!
Original charger
I had the same charging issue and solved it with an original htc charger, cheapest i could find was on Amazon for £12 delivered:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-HT...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1214645330&sr=1-1

Car chargers bricking Kaisers

What exactly is the scoop on this? Is it that they overpower the charging circuit (everyone says they charge the phones faster)? Is there a way to tell you're about to do damage?
I don't use the car charger that came with my Kaiser, I have several generic chargers which all work just fine. However I noticed that when running GPS, although the charge light was on, the battery wouldn't really charge. It wouldn't discharge either, I put it up to the extra drain on the phone's power system.
The other day though, my phone... stopped charging? I was driving (GPS) and the phone suddenly beeped a critical battery warning, the charge light was off... but the power was plugged in and the charger's power light in the cigarette socket was on. It WAS making a connection to the phone: if I unplugged it the screen would go dimmer, if I plugged it back in it would get brighter. But it still seemed to be running off the battery, which was draining regardless. The moment I got to my destination, it all powered off. Is this a forewarning of darker circumstances to come?
from what I've read you should not be using generic chargers. The amperage could differ. Therefore, if the electricity in your vehicle spikes you could be riding with a paper weight.
In addition, it is common that your device will not charge (nor discharge) while running your gps application. I play monopoly often while my phone is in the charger and my device usually doesn't charge while I am playing.
Also, I think the pinout on generic USB chargers are different. The ones that are for Moto Razr / Blackberry phones dont work to charge the phones ( as I have a work blackberry and tried it) It didnt hurt my phone, however it just didnt charge. I have heard of others damaging but if its not made for the kaiser, I wouldn't try it.
I've never had access to Moto Razr / Blackberry chargers. While I can't speak for those, I know generic USB chargers would have exactly the same pinout as the stock Kaiser charger. The amperage supplied may indeed differ, I think that might have explained my issue above. It was almost like the charge circuit 'gave up' since the phone was demanding as much/more power as it was getting.
CrArc said:
I've never had access to Moto Razr / Blackberry chargers. While I can't speak for those, I know generic USB chargers would have exactly the same pinout as the stock Kaiser charger. The amperage supplied may indeed differ, I think that might have explained my issue above. It was almost like the charge circuit 'gave up' since the phone was demanding as much/more power as it was getting.
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My razr charger works perfect with my tilt.. (MOTOROLLA branded - not generic)
Ditto on the motorola razr charger;Have an old razr charger I use it for travelling instead of unplugging my original;works fine!!
+2 on the Motorola branded car charger...charges my Tilt just fine. Now I'm paranoid, though...
CrArc said:
What exactly is the scoop on this? Is it that they overpower the charging circuit (everyone says they charge the phones faster)? Is there a way to tell you're about to do damage?
I don't use the car charger that came with my Kaiser, I have several generic chargers which all work just fine. However I noticed that when running GPS, although the charge light was on, the battery wouldn't really charge. It wouldn't discharge either, I put it up to the extra drain on the phone's power system.
The other day though, my phone... stopped charging? I was driving (GPS) and the phone suddenly beeped a critical battery warning, the charge light was off... but the power was plugged in and the charger's power light in the cigarette socket was on. It WAS making a connection to the phone: if I unplugged it the screen would go dimmer, if I plugged it back in it would get brighter. But it still seemed to be running off the battery, which was draining regardless. The moment I got to my destination, it all powered off. Is this a forewarning of darker circumstances to come?
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Click to collapse
That is the exact same thing I am experiencing with my Tilt.
Tilt is charging from a generic car-to-USB and USB cable.
I start TomTom.
Charging works fine for a while.
Then suddenly the charging stops and the battery is drained.
I found only two ways to get it to charge again:
1. Turn off device with TomTom charging; hold Tilt against cool air flowing from AC; plug into charger (while still off) ... then the phone turns on and charges.
2. Take out the battery; put it back in ... start phone.
It does seem that either the phone can draw power faster than a USB charger can supply it or the use of wifi and gps whilst charging overheats it. I particularly see this behavior when I'm running tomtom and navizon. The phone seems to remain charging longer in cooler weather or if I point an air vent at it. My current no wifi woes started after an occurrence of just this behaviour the other day.
RAZR chargers don't have enough current and it doesn't keep a positive charge when using the GPS. It says it's charging but ultimately it goes down. Sometimes it stops charging and I had to unplug it and plug it back in. Use a charger made for the Kaiser. The charger from my brother's bluetooth GPS works fine though.
I have a generic USB cigar lighter adapter which I have been using to power mine with no problem. The only way I can see a charger frying a phone is if there is a voltage spike that isn't regulated.
The charger needs to be rated with an output of 5v 2amps which is what the electric charger is rated at. Bought one off ebay for $6. Most car chargers are rated quite a bit lower (400ma).
As the previous post states, some chargers are rated at under 500ma. This is not enough to change the Kaiser... I find that the Blackberry charger works fine, but sometimes takes a very long time to charge as the current isn't quite enough. I have a generic one at about 1000ma and that works fine.
USB from a PC is normally 500ma sustained.
I think there's another thread or 2 about this somewhere. I've been having the same problem with the Kaiser not charging via generic and razr car chargers.
After seeing the other thread I bought an HTC charger from ebay - at least it looks like one and is advertised as one! The sticker on the 'real' HTC charger only says 0.5 amp (same as the others are rated), but charges no problem with TomTom going.
I tried measuring the current using different chargers and PowerGuard and I think there is a definite difference (although not an easy thing to interpret). I notice the cable is significantly heavier on the real HTC charger (also coiled and tends to drag the phone from where I mount it a little). Others have said the pinouts are different too.
I looked for a 2amp charger but couldn't find one (if anyone knows a source?).
It's an intriguing problem but a 'real' HTC charger seems to fix it.
The other thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=406771
There were a range of brodit car mounts with built-in chargers that bricked the kaiser. I bought one and it instantly blew it's fuse. I replace the fuse and it blew my kaiser up instead.
Assuming it was the kaiser I had it replaced, only for the charger to blow it up again.
Since then I contacted dsldevelopments (UK Distributor) who replaced it with an updated model. I have not had any issues after that.
I had this problem (Kaiser not charging in the car when GPS is on) and resolved it totally by getting the offical HTC car charger. Although output is 0.5A it is rated to 2A - my previous generic car charger was only rated to one amp and that would work fine as long I wasn't using GPS but once I ran GPS it just couldn't cope. Definately resolved this problem with the official HTC car charger (got mine of flea bay for £8)
cheers
Barney
I've had no problem with designed-for-Moto chargers and ones specifically designed to charge over USB from a dumb charger.
The problem is that drawing more than 100 mA without negotiating a connection with a PC violates the USB specification. Many manufacturers have gotten around this by finding other ways to signal the presence of a "dumb" charger, telling the phone it can draw more than 100 mA.
In the case of Mini-USB devices like the Motos, Blackberries, and HTC devices, the Mini-USB connector has a fifth pin that is normally not connected. If the charger plug grounds this pin, it signals to the device that it is permitted to draw more than 100 mA without a PC connection.
If you get a charger that does not ground this pin, an HTC device will not charge rapidly, if at all. (Typically only charges slowly when screen is off). This is why you get two cables when you order a single MiniSync from BoxWave, for example. They give you one "Sync and charge from PC" cable (no pin grounded) and one "Charge only" cable (pin grounded for dumb chargers). (If the pin is grounded it interferes with data communications for most devices.)
I use a motorola charger, which is fine if you do not use GPS.
when I use the GPS after some time the battery is very hot and stops load, but if I put the cell in front of the AC, just cools again to load.
I think the problem is due to protection from overheating battery
Belkin Charger
I grabbed a Belkin charger for my KRAZR/RAZR phones and it seems to work just fine, even with GPS running. My official Moto one also works fine with the tilt in GPS mode.
I do notice, though, that no matter what I'm using to charge it with, with GPS it gets hot. Since Li-Ion batteries are supposed to stop charging at a certain temp, it's possible that the combination of a lower grade charger and the heat generated by using GPS/WiFi/Cell at the same time (or any combo of the three), might be the issue.

Car charger too weak?

Has anyone else had an experience with the G1 not charging when on a car charger and running bluetooth and the GPS. I thought I had seen a thread once about this issue, but cannot find it.
I went on a long trip and used my G1 and copilot. After about 6 hours my phone was dead (slower than if it hadn't been plugged in I suppose).
Granted I am using an old HTC Kaiser charger, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it. Is it possible or even likely that the charger isn't putting out enough amperage to overcome the current drain imposed by so many radios running? The charger was also very hot. When I turned my phone off (actually it was off because it was out of power), it charged fine.
pinetreehater said:
Has anyone else had an experience with the G1 not charging when on a car charger and running bluetooth and the GPS. I thought I had seen a thread once about this issue, but cannot find it.
I went on a long trip and used my G1 and copilot. After about 6 hours my phone was dead (slower than if it hadn't been plugged in I suppose).
Granted I am using an old HTC Kaiser charger, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it. Is it possible or even likely that the charger isn't putting out enough amperage to overcome the current drain imposed by so many radios running? The charger was also very hot. When I turned my phone off (actually it was off because it was out of power), it charged fine.
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yes, i know exactly about it...i have 2 G1's and noticed that my generic mini usb charger in my truck only worked on 1 of them, i bought a new t-mobile one and now they both work, its because of the allowed amperage of the charger, the g1 requires more for charging purposes. just go grap u a t-mob usb and ull be back in business.
I've got the car charger from tmobile and on long road trips ill have google maps open following where im going and bluetooth on and connected to a headset and the brightness on max, and the phone charges just fine...well slowly of course.
Sounds like it maybe the charger, but i have no reason why cause you say it charges fine when the phone is off. Maybe try using a different outlet, or a different car and see if it fixes it.
yes veritasaequita,
I, too, think the amperage is too low. It will charge, but not with every radio the device has running (as they will be if you use a sat/nav and bluetooth while driving).
I guess I will grab a charger that is actually for a G1. Thing is, the AT&T Tilt (for which the charger is actually for)is a pretty demanding device as well. Would of thunk the charger adequate.
Most of the generic chargers you'll find online charge at .5AMP. Before buying one, make sure it's 1AMP so that it actually charges as if it were plugged into the wall.

Help! charging question....

does anyone know of any tweak, app or utility that will disable the semi-regular notification telling me that "the usb port I am using does not have sufficient current to charge the device, please close some applications." It comes on whenever I am playing music and then switch over to my gps app. I'm never really in the car long enough and I think the normal warning when the battery gets low is sufficient enough without this thing popping up ever time i open a new app.
Any help is very appreciated. Its an ATT Pure with the last feb 16th energy rom, maxmanila, and sense 2.5
Thanks!
This warning message is to alert you to the fact that you are discharging the battery at a greater rate than you are charging.
It is not to tell you the battery is low although that is what would eventually happen rather more quickly than normal.
In effect the charge circuit is being overloaded and the battery capacity is being drawn down and depending on the usage, will result in increased heat generation which is bad for the circuits and the battery cell.
I gather you are using the device in the car. You should have a USB adapter that gives 1000mAh, at least, and if it's not then the associated circuits and also the wiring, could well be showing signs of damage from heat build up.
If the USB adapter is rated at anything less than 1000mAh I would suggest obtaining a more suitable one because it's not up to the job.
As for disabling the notification it will be a registry tweak if it's possible at all.
thanks for the help.
i checked the car charger,it is rated correctly. this also happens when its plugged into the pc usb port, or a powered hub. the only time it doesnt happen is when its connected to the htc ac adapter. when i am using it in the car, it still charges to full ( albeit slower than normal) even with the tom tom ap, music player, palringo, and bing open. I was aware that the battery will drain, i just want the only warning to be the low battery warning, which i have set to 20 percent, but even in the car, it doesnt ever get that low ( i do periodically discharge it to empty for battery maintenance reasons)
dezaras6 said:
thanks for the help.
i checked the car charger,it is rated correctly. this also happens when its plugged into the pc usb port, or a powered hub. the only time it doesnt happen is when its connected to the htc ac adapter. when i am using it in the car, it still charges to full ( albeit slower than normal) even with the tom tom ap, music player, palringo, and bing open. I was aware that the battery will drain, i just want the only warning to be the low battery warning, which i have set to 20 percent, but even in the car, it doesnt ever get that low ( i do periodically discharge it to empty for battery maintenance reasons)
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Click to collapse
If you have a car charger rated at 1000mAh and it is exhibiting what you say then there is something wrong with it!
USB ports are rated at 500mAh nominal. That is to say the manufacturer of the equipment should make sure that one port will give that output.
It sometimes doesn't work that way and you get badly designed port power feeds across however many ports that you have and if you have more than one in use then the current drops of accordingly. Then it struggles to charge your phone.
Even powered hubs can suffer this way.
When you use a wall charger that all changes and the whole thing works efficiently.
Having your phone under stress like this in your car is not a good thing and neither is periodic discharge. It's just not necessary.
Could you please give me an advice? I'm using my tom-tom charger for my td2 in the car. It says 2A for output while the td2 original wall charger says 1A. Do you reckon is there any problem? many thanks.
If the car charger at 2Ah does not have a "shut down" circuit, or the charging system in the phone does not, then you will, in short order, smoke the battery.
Ok, txs jdwilson. You mean "shut down" circuit as a way the charger prevents the energy pass to the phone when the baterry if full but allows it when more energy is needed? By the way, now i've notice that my tom-tom says input 1A! So, the charger as the "shut down" circuit or tom-tom as in it, or i will have the same problem on my tom-tom, although the charger is the tom-tom original one. Thanks

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