_Now_ I'm pissed -- Omnia battery died while charging via USB (?!?!)

[Guest Ratbat]

batt is on 2 bars, volt says 3.775, i've now put it on usb, i'll reply in a a couple hours with new readings

[Guest Confucious]

There was a problem with the C500 in that it wouldn't charge from a PC via USB if the PC was NOT connected via Activesync.

This was solved by connecting two of the opins on the USB cable (4 & 5 IIRC)

I'm not sure if this is relevant for the Omnia as the charge light comes on it would appear to be charging - maybe it just uses more power than it charges at - eg if it charges +1 but uses -2 the net effect is still a drain of -1 if you see what I mean.

Anyone tried http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-downlo...meter-v1-0.html ?

Edited September 24, 2008 by Confucious

[Guest Ratbat]

batt is on 2 bars, volt says 3.775, i've now put it on usb, i'll reply in a a couple hours with new readings

well, it's now on 3.94 volts after being plugged in with activesync.

i did note something odd tho, the batt said 100%, but the 02882 said it was on 4 bars, after a while it was 5 bars, charge light was still red, so it seems that the batt indicator is crap, usb will charge it, but not as well as the mains.

i'm gonna drain the batt and give it a full charge, see if that gives a more accurate reading.

[Guest FlorianO]

Hmm, I wonder if we can just split power pins from USB connector to supply both "usual" USB and "charger" power pins, to make proper sync-and-charge cable...

Hmm, I wounder if this cable is made in such a way: http://www.thepocketsolution.com/PSI-46064...arge+Cable.html

They specifically claim it will both sync and charge (and with separate wall-usb plugs too).

And why exactly didn't Samsung wired the cable like this to start with ?

I've checked and it's true -- both of the USB cables I have (the stock one and an extra) have other pin wirings, and do not charge when plugged into wall-to-USB adapter (rated 1Ah).

I wonder if that cable could charge the battery from an USB port too. IOW it's the wiring of the supplied USB cables at fault.

Edited September 24, 2008 by FlorianO

[Guest Ingvarr]

Well, I can at least partially answer why cables are wired in such a way.

By default, device can draw not more than 100Ma from usual USB power pins, unless it can explicitly negotiate with USB host for more power allowance.

Obviously, if USB charger is used (without any USB host functionality), device will not be able to communicate with it, so it has two choices:

1) Draw max current anyway (and break USB standard and potentially cause problems, even burn-out of some less powerful USB hosts)

2) Draw only allowed 100Ma, that will obviously do little good for charging.

To circumvent this, there are so called "USB Battery Charge" specification. According to it, USB *chargers* should short USB data pins, therefore providing simple means for the device to detect, that its connected to charger and not to usual USB port, and that it can draw max current without actually requesting for it.

But the question is wheither Samsung actually implemented USB battery charger detection. It may be that your usb charger is not shorting data pins correctly, but I strongly suspect that Samsung is in fault here. Obviosly if they would implement correct USB charger detection, they wouldn't need *separate* pins on their cable for dedicated charger.

Edited September 25, 2008 by Ingvarr

[Guest lastnikita]

I have an USB cable that WILL charge omnia, while it won't synchronize... I can open it if needed.

I think it won't charge completely via active sync, right, but it's still charging.. maybe up to the 80% fast charge thing ?

best when suspended, but it's hard to keep it that way ;)

and the batt. gauge is still not accurate and has a weird behavior. well I guess it won't take much time for samsung to fix all that.

edit: just used that cable again, and while the led have been staying red for hours with usb (and battery already charged), it turned green immediately with that cable.

so active sync charge is working, but just won't turn the led green (I hope it's not still trying to charge at that point).

ps: I'm on DXHI1 rom, I had H2 from HK before and active sync charge did not work at all.

Edited September 25, 2008 by lastnikita

[Guest dan_ep82]

i have a 2 day old omnia and i tried to charge it via usb last night, all i noticed is that it got much hotter than on mains charge!

[Guest taril]

Everybody forget to charge Windows Mobile PDA with usb.

[Guest zagzag99]

Checking voltage while charger connected is useless, it wont report correct one (it's not the battery voltage in any case, as battery voltage should be about 3.8)

Voltage should be checked before charger was connected and then after charger was disconnected. If it will go up, the battery received some charge.

I don't get a green indicator on the power button.

I get a steady red one.

The voltage monitor does show increase in voltage (3.813 -> 3.851) after about 6 minutes of charge.

Measurements were taken before USB plugged and after unplugged.

If that means something.

[Guest Jokes On You]

I have had my Omnia charge while on usb.

[Guest goodbrand]

does this not depend on the USB port you use though...

if you plug into a USB 1 or 1.1, you have sync but no charge capacilty, but on USB 2 you can get some charge?

Just a though, I have not tried to use the USB data cable to charge mine yet...

[Guest Ingvarr]

With latest firmware it will indeed charge using USB port, as long as you use standard boxed in cable.

The charge will be slower and charge light will never go green, but it adequate enough to keep you phone topped up. I was doing this for month now, never used a wall charger, and everything is working just fine.

I havent yet seen a single third-party cable that does USB charge though.

Edited November 13, 2008 by Ingvarr

[Guest FlorianO]

Hello again Ingvarr,

With latest firmware it will indeed charge using USB port, as long as you use standard boxed in cable.

The charge will be slower and charge light will never go green, but it adequate enough to keep you phone topped up. I was doing this for month now, never used a wall charger, and everything is working just fine.

I havent yet seen a single third-party cable that does USB charge though.

Is the boxed in cabled wired differently than 3rd party ? In an earlier post you linked to this: http://www.thepocketsolution.com/PSI-46064...arge+Cable.html cable. Did you tried it and it doesn't work ?

And most importantly: Which firmware do I need to get "trickle USB charge going" and does this version (otherwise) improve the battery lifetime (e.g. while on a full, wall charge) ?

I'm still on DXHH1 since I do not take re-imaging lightly (I'm actually _using_ my device for work, flashing a new ROM takes me a good part of a day to reinstall everything back plus syncing a rather big Outlook Inbox...)

Thanks,

Florian

Edited November 14, 2008 by FlorianO

[Guest Ingvarr]

I've got the tipExchange cable from Gomadic.com, which apparently tries to do a "better then default cable" thing - to power both "wall charge" pins and "usb charge" pins from USB.

But this in fact causes USB charge not to work at all (it displays a charging indicator, but phone is slowly losing charge instead). Maybe this one will be resolved hovewer, as Gomadic people are really helpful and I've sent a original USB cable for them to check so they can correct their tips for Omnia.

I suspect that other third-party USB cables are doing the same thing - I guess this layout was changed slightly from other Samsungs with similar connector, or Omnia just introduced that "feature" that causes charge not to work at all if both wall and usb charge pins are powered.

The firmware version I use is DXHI1, very good for battery life too.

Edited November 14, 2008 by Ingvarr

[Guest ji3m]

I just picked up an external battery pack at radio shack. It is a Lenmar Powerport unit, 7500 mah !! and is real sweet to the touch. Its power output is a usb (big one like pc) and comes with a few tips but not the samung omnia 20 pinner. However, i tried using my samsung data/charging cabe but the phone refuses to recognize the battery.

I have 2 samsung usb data/charging cable but neither works.

The battery pack works just fine with my Moto-q with the mini usb connector.

The omnia works/syncs/charges just fine with a pc.

It would appear that voltages on the the two usb data/signal lines coming from the battery pack are incorrect for the omnia to recognize the pack.

The omnia charges just fine with an Igo charger and the right tip.

I tried slicing open a short usb extension cable i have to see what the voltages were-

i would think a couple of resistors on the data lines would convince the omnia it was connected to a charger but i have no idea what they should be. The battery pack puts about 2.5 volts on the usb data lines but my experiment almost ended in disaster when the omnia suddenly refused to connect at all. I thought i destroyed the phone. Anyhow, after warm starting the omnia and rebooting the pc all seems well again.

Anyone have any idea just what the omnia is looking for to make it recognize the battery pack? It really is a sweet very high capacity battery pack, $39 bucks and more convenient and cheaper than an extended or spare battery. Would really like it to work.

I have e-mailed Lenmar but they dont seem to sell a cable specific to the omnia- i guess they assume that the Samsung data cable would work.

I made a diagram of all the various ways the i910 will charge with different cables, etc. Very weird and annoying.

I got a second usb charging/data caqble from verizon. It has a block in it to allow the wall charger to be plugged in, i guess to charge faster than usb. It works, but if you disconnect the usb from the pc but leave the wall charger plugged in it stops charging.

The 20 pin connector is an absolute nightmare, full of weirdness. Chargers have smarts or dont- It's making me crazy (an im a 30yr EE) . Rant.

Anyhow, the best clue is that the IGO charger works with the 129 tip. How it does this i dont know.

I am temped to buy another SAMSUNG ac charger and cut it apart and hook it to the usb battery pack.

But then I dont know where the smarts are in the samsung AC unit- in the wall wart or in the tip? Enough with smart wires.

All this to save 2 holes in the darn thing.

Has anyone been able to find the actual Samsun specs on the charing system, pinout,whether they conform to the new USB independent charging schems (shorting D+,D-). ?

Edited January 21, 2009 by ji3m

[Guest IMAPper]

I guess most proper way will be using monitor *#0228# menu

It reports the current battery voltage. So if voltage not raised after "usb charge" - it did not charge. Well, as long as this voltage is reported correctly and bug is not actually at this part :)

Sorry, maybe I'm dense, but how exactly do you access this feature? If I dial *#0228# or #0228# or any similar combination on the phone keypad and call from my i910, I just get a message from Verizon saying that the call could not be completed as dialed. What am I missing?

[Guest dwallersv]

I guess most proper way will be using monitor *#0228# menu

It reports the current battery voltage. So if voltage not raised after "usb charge" - it did not charge. Well, as long as this voltage is reported correctly and bug is not actually at this part :)

Anyone know the codes to get to this screen on the Verizon 910?

[Guest dwallersv]

well, it's now on 3.94 volts after being plugged in with activesync.

i did note something odd tho, the batt said 100%, but the 02882 said it was on 4 bars, after a while it was 5 bars, charge light was still red, so it seems that the batt indicator is crap, usb will charge it, but not as well as the mains.

i'm gonna drain the batt and give it a full charge, see if that gives a more accurate reading.

Can't address what sounds like a crappy battery algorithm in the software.

However, for a LiIon cell like that in the Omnia, full charge is 4.2V. The cell will be damaged if charged beyond 4.235V. It should not be dishcharged below 3.6V to maximize life (charge cycles). Damage will occur below about 3V.

There is no "memory" effect with LiIon chemistry, and it's okay to charge it up to full charge again and again when only partially discharged. In fact, it's a good idea. The phone clearly has a "smart" charging circuit in it, so it's just fine to keep it topped off whenever you can, so long as you're using it. For a battery that will be stored (i.e. experience no load) for more than a week or so, it should be stored at a 50% (3.8V) maintenance charge. Storing LiIon batteries at full charge or fully discharged will diminish their usable life considerably.

[Guest Bob Hobelman]

However, for a LiIon cell like that in the Omnia, full charge is 4.2V. The cell will be damaged if charged beyond 4.235V. It should not be dishcharged below 3.6V to maximize life (charge cycles). Damage will occur below about 3V.

At this moment I'm charging from usb. The voltage is between 4.231V - 4.238, do you know if this is a problem or is it normal?

Bob

[Guest ji3m]

I just picked up an external battery pack at radio shack. It is a Lenmar Powerport unit, 7500 mah !! and is real sweet to the touch. Its power output is a usb (big one like pc) and comes with a few tips but not the samung omnia 20 pinner. However, i tried using my samsung data/charging cabe but the phone refuses to recognize the battery.

I have 2 samsung usb data/charging cable but neither works.

The battery pack works just fine with my Moto-q with the mini usb connector.

The omnia works/syncs/charges just fine with a pc.

It would appear that voltages on the the two usb data/signal lines coming from the battery pack are incorrect for the omnia to recognize the pack.

The omnia charges just fine with an Igo charger and the right tip.

I tried slicing open a short usb extension cable i have to see what the voltages were-

i would think a couple of resistors on the data lines would convince the omnia it was connected to a charger but i have no idea what they should be. The battery pack puts about 2.5 volts on the usb data lines but my experiment almost ended in disaster when the omnia suddenly refused to connect at all. I thought i destroyed the phone. Anyhow, after warm starting the omnia and rebooting the pc all seems well again.

Anyone have any idea just what the omnia is looking for to make it recognize the battery pack? It really is a sweet very high capacity battery pack, $39 bucks and more convenient and cheaper than an extended or spare battery. Would really like it to work.

I have e-mailed Lenmar but they dont seem to sell a cable specific to the omnia- i guess they assume that the Samsung data cable would work.

I made a diagram of all the various ways the i910 will charge with different cables, etc. Very weird and annoying.

I got a second usb charging/data caqble from verizon. It has a block in it to allow the wall charger to be plugged in, i guess to charge faster than usb. It works, but if you disconnect the usb from the pc but leave the wall charger plugged in it stops charging.

The 20 pin connector is an absolute nightmare, full of weirdness. Chargers have smarts or dont- It's making me crazy (an im a 30yr EE) . Rant.

Anyhow, the best clue is that the IGO charger works with the 129 tip. How it does this i dont know.

I am temped to buy another SAMSUNG ac charger and cut it apart and hook it to the usb battery pack.

But then I dont know where the smarts are in the samsung AC unit- in the wall wart or in the tip? Enough with smart wires.

All this to save 2 holes in the darn thing.

Has anyone been able to find the actual Samsun specs on the charing system, pinout,whether they conform to the new USB independent charging schems (shorting D+,D-). ?

Well I found a solution to my problem (above). All logic says , that without real data, the only known good way to charge the omnia is with the AC adapter (spec'd at 700ma). So I picked up a second one for sacrifice. With good fortune, there are only two wires coming from the wall wart to the omnia tip. This means that only power and ground and any special smarts or wiring must be in the connector head. I measured the voltage at about 5.3 volts. So then I cut off a reasonale length and spliced it with the A side connector from a spare usb cable. I can now couple the battery pack to the omnia getting a fuill charging rate. If you can find a micro usb Female socket you could also make a simple USB charger (i have a house full of these from other phones) to omnia patch cord. There might be something on E-bay but trust is the problem here. Toatl cost $20 for the AC adapter and an old usb cable end. Minor soldering skil;l required.

[Guest lostingps]

Well I found a solution to my problem (above). All logic says , that without real data, the only known good way to charge the omnia is with the AC adapter (spec'd at 700ma). So I picked up a second one for sacrifice. With good fortune, there are only two wires coming from the wall wart to the omnia tip. This means that only power and ground and any special smarts or wiring must be in the connector head. I measured the voltage at about 5.3 volts. So then I cut off a reasonale length and spliced it with the A side connector from a spare usb cable. I can now couple the battery pack to the omnia getting a fuill charging rate. If you can find a micro usb Female socket you could also make a simple USB charger (i have a house full of these from other phones) to omnia patch cord. There might be something on E-bay but trust is the problem here. Toatl cost $20 for the AC adapter and an old usb cable end. Minor soldering skil;l required.

My MIO A701 charges from USB perfectly.

I went throught this exact issue with my Omnia and ultimately returned it, I have one question for you though,

What happens when you want to use the phone as a GPS in the car and charge it from the cigarette lighter?

Don't want to burst the bubble and I am glad you have found a way to charge it from usb but the fundamental flaw of this phone is it charging capacity sucks. The GPS for example draws more than the battery can handle so you will never have a charged phone when you are driving.

This is the sole reason why I returned my Omnia. I use other PDA's and they have no issue charging the same type of battery from both the USB on a PC and a Car charger but the Omnia fails. Not sure about the new XPERIA or Touch hd as I am looking to get one of those since my Omnia was returned.

The reason it wont charge when it is low is the phone has a protection mode to protect the battery. The protection mode disables charging while power is in use and the battery is critically low and something is consuming alot of power such as GPS, Bluetooth, Active Synce etc etc. The protection mode disables the power source what ever it is to stop the phone from being charged as it can harm the battery. You will find this protection will disable any charger type such as AC Adaptor, Cigarette , USB if you are draining the battery like running the GPS or similiar and the battery is low your charger will cut off or not charge. The way to get around is disconnect the cable whatever it is, reboot the phone and plug your cable back in. This is what happens in the car to me, the GPS is on and the charger can not keep up so eventually you get a low battery warning and then the charger shuts of to put the phone into protection mode then the phone eventually shuts off. Only if I reboot the phone does it keep charging, it does not fully charge and eventually dies but gets me to my location and leaves with a nice flat battery for the remainder of the day.

Also I noticed the Omnia takes about 4hours to fully charge from a wall socket, if that has more power than USB how long is it going to take to charge from USB or a cigaratee lighter maybe 6 to 8 hours of constant charging only if you are not using a program that is draining the battery. Then turn your gps on if it could do it you may be looking at something like 15 hours to get a full charge.

Finally my MIO A701 while it is not 3G outperforms the Omnia on this level, yesterday I got in the car and it had 10% battery on the MIO plugged into cigarette lighter and turned the GPS on after about 1 hour driving it was at 50% charge, two hours later 100% charge with the GPS going and bluetooth. The device was warm but no way near as hot as the Omnia and charged. Its disappointing that Samsung developed such a good phone but left out the all important part of keeping it charged so we can use the features they included. They call it the "All In One Phone" but I think Samsung left one thing out and that is portability for people on the road and led me to return the device to look for something else. I like the phone and if a fix was around the corner would hang onto mine but the response from samsung was it is hardware design fault and not something that can be fixed by software. Not sure if you have it in your models but in the Australian handbook that comes with the phone it says "The phone will not fully charge or charge at all when the battery is being consumed by another power source" not the exact words but you can see they know about this issue and did nothing to resolve it before launching the phone.

Edited January 25, 2009 by lostingps

[Guest ji3m]

My MIO A701 charges from USB perfectly.

I went throught this exact issue with my Omnia and ultimately returned it, I have one question for you though,

What happens when you want to use the phone as a GPS in the car and charge it from the cigarette lighter?

Don't want to burst the bubble and I am glad you have found a way to charge it from usb but the fundamental flaw of this phone is it charging capacity sucks. The GPS for example draws more than the battery can handle so you will never have a charged phone when you are driving.

This is the sole reason why I returned my Omnia. I use other PDA's and they have no issue charging the same type of battery from both the USB on a PC and a Car charger but the Omnia fails. Not sure about the new XPERIA or Touch hd as I am looking to get one of those since my Omnia was returned.

The reason it wont charge when it is low is the phone has a protection mode to protect the battery. The protection mode disables charging while power is in use and the battery is critically low and something is consuming alot of power such as GPS, Bluetooth, Active Synce etc etc. The protection mode disables the power source what ever it is to stop the phone from being charged as it can harm the battery. You will find this protection will disable any charger type such as AC Adaptor, Cigarette , USB if you are draining the battery like running the GPS or similiar and the battery is low your charger will cut off or not charge. The way to get around is disconnect the cable whatever it is, reboot the phone and plug your cable back in. This is what happens in the car to me, the GPS is on and the charger can not keep up so eventually you get a low battery warning and then the charger shuts of to put the phone into protection mode then the phone eventually shuts off. Only if I reboot the phone does it keep charging, it does not fully charge and eventually dies but gets me to my location and leaves with a nice flat battery for the remainder of the day.

Also I noticed the Omnia takes about 4hours to fully charge from a wall socket, if that has more power than USB how long is it going to take to charge from USB or a cigaratee lighter maybe 6 to 8 hours of constant charging only if you are not using a program that is draining the battery. Then turn your gps on if it could do it you may be looking at something like 15 hours to get a full charge.

Finally my MIO A701 while it is not 3G outperforms the Omnia on this level, yesterday I got in the car and it had 10% battery on the MIO plugged into cigarette lighter and turned the GPS on after about 1 hour driving it was at 50% charge, two hours later 100% charge with the GPS going and bluetooth. The device was warm but no way near as hot as the Omnia and charged. Its disappointing that Samsung developed such a good phone but left out the all important part of keeping it charged so we can use the features they included. They call it the "All In One Phone" but I think Samsung left one thing out and that is portability for people on the road and led me to return the device to look for something else. I like the phone and if a fix was around the corner would hang onto mine but the response from samsung was it is hardware design fault and not something that can be fixed by software. Not sure if you have it in your models but in the Australian handbook that comes with the phone it says "The phone will not fully charge or charge at all when the battery is being consumed by another power source" not the exact words but you can see they know about this issue and did nothing to resolve it before launching the phone.

Cant say much about gps since verizon blocks it. But my main use is internet radio while driving - bluetooth to car receiver and continuous wideband access. I use an IGO charger in the car and the phone stays fully charged. In fact i keep getting "charging complete" notifications which are very annoying. I measured the current draw through the IGO cigarette light attackment and after correcting from 12v to 5V , the current into the Omnia at 5 volts was about 750ma which would be the limit of apps running before the phone starts discharging.

BTW, i tried abcPowerMeter but it shows all zeros. Does anyone know of a similar power meter that actually works on the Omnia?

[Guest michaeljmyers]

Someone up above said "I guess most proper way will be using monitor *#0228# menu'". Is there a listing someplace on this site where all these "codes" are listed? There must be lots of them...

[Guest bpivk]

Use the search function for service codes or something similar. There are three topics with lots of functions.

[Guest conocelo]

Well I found a solution to my problem (above). All logic says , that without real data, the only known good way to charge the omnia is with the AC adapter (spec'd at 700ma). So I picked up a second one for sacrifice. With good fortune, there are only two wires coming from the wall wart to the omnia tip. This means that only power and ground and any special smarts or wiring must be in the connector head. I measured the voltage at about 5.3 volts. So then I cut off a reasonale length and spliced it with the A side connector from a spare usb cable. I can now couple the battery pack to the omnia getting a fuill charging rate. If you can find a micro usb Female socket you could also make a simple USB charger (i have a house full of these from other phones) to omnia patch cord. There might be something on E-bay but trust is the problem here. Toatl cost $20 for the AC adapter and an old usb cable end. Minor soldering skil;l required.

Hi there. i also want to charge my Omnia with my baterry pack. i will buy the second AC charger. i already have some USB cable.

You say that the AC charger only has 2 wires..... to witch wires on the USB (donor) cable i have to connect them.?

thanks