Car charger problem and solution.

[Guest leeston2379]

Just thought I'd let people know this.

I tried charging my TG01 using the supplied sync cable and a cigarette lighter - USB adaptor and found it wouldn't charge. This is a great problem to me as i use Tomtom on a daily basis for work, and didn't fancy my chances of the battery lasting a day with the screen on for about 6 hours solid.

So after much messing around with different chargers and a multimeter i found that the data pins on the USB connector needed to be shorted together for the phone to charge. So after 10 minutes with my soldering iron my phone charges in the car :).

I'm not saying you will need to mod all car chargers but it may be worth checking the operation before handing over the cash.

[Guest Dogmann55]

@leeston2379

I haven't got round to trying it yet but intend using the USB to Micro USB adapter that comes with the TG01 with a Motorola charger that has a USB out lead as have had to wait for my ADVERTISING SPAM case to arrive to be able to use the ADVERTISING SPAM car mount, I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back what happens.

Marc

[Guest Neil5459]

@leeston2379

I haven't got round to trying it yet but intend using the USB to Micro USB adapter that comes with the TG01 with a Motorola charger that has a USB out lead as have had to wait for my ADVERTISING SPAM case to arrive to be able to use the ADVERTISING SPAM car mount, I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back what happens.

Marc

I've found that no combination of the supplied USB adapters and normal miniUSB chargers will work- the device sees them always as 'external' USB devices.

The only current workable solutions are to do some careful (!) soldering or to buy a Mini to Micro USB charging adapter . I bought mine from this link for £4.85 plus P&P- ordered Friday, arrived Saturday and it works! I can now use my Maplin Mini Power pack, my standard MiniUSB charger and my Motorola car charger.

It does add some unwanted 'bulk' but in the car, in landscape mode with the socket on the bottom it works fine. Still didn't work with my car charger with a USB socket, and doesn't have any sound or data channels but good for simple charging.

[Guest leeston2379]

It does add some unwanted 'bulk' but in the car, in landscape mode with the socket on the bottom it works fine. Still didn't work with my car charger with a USB socket, and doesn't have any sound or data channels but good for simple charging.

The car charger with usb socket won't work due to the data pins being allowd to float. They need to be shorted so a bit of soldering inside the charger or strip the cable and twisting the white and green together should sort it (if you twist dont then plug it back into your PC, bad things will happen). Though i realise not everyone will want to mess around in this way. Its a bit disapointing that toshiba overlooked this, as the worst thing my diamond did was ask me if i wanted to activesync or flashdrive as the floating data made it think there was a PC attached.

EDIT:

I've just confirmed this data thing. When my PC is off the 5v rail stays live so you can charge things from the usb ports when its off. My Tg01 charges fine with the PC on using the supplied sync cable but when i turn it off and the data disapears it stops charging, non of my other phones/devices do this, they continue to charge. So i belive you either need valid activesync data or a short on the data line for your TG01 to charge. Odd though it may seem voltage alone is not enough.

Edited July 27, 2009 by leeston2379

[Guest clmnw]

I've found that the Nokia DC-6 micro usb charger seems to be working OK as car charger. I bought it from Amazon UK, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere else as well.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/NokiaA-DC-6-Micro-USB-Charger/dp/B000UR6DB8

Get's recognized as charger and not as data USB cable and works OK (so far, at least it says Charging and the battery indicator progresses towards 100 :).

I still feel that TG01 has some major issues in reporting and managing batteries, but I think this Nokia charger is just fine.

[Guest duffdemon]

Just thought I'd let people know this.

I tried charging my TG01 using the supplied sync cable and a cigarette lighter - USB adaptor and found it wouldn't charge. This is a great problem to me as i use Tomtom on a daily basis for work, and didn't fancy my chances of the battery lasting a day with the screen on for about 6 hours solid.

So after much messing around with different chargers and a multimeter i found that the data pins on the USB connector needed to be shorted together for the phone to charge. So after 10 minutes with my soldering iron my phone charges in the car :).

I'm not saying you will need to mod all car chargers but it may be worth checking the operation before handing over the cash.

I just want to confirm that this method works! I have two car adaptors; one was a simple generic adaptor providing a USB socket. Using either the supplied USB data cable that came with the phone or a third party one wouldn't charge the phone using this adapter. The second adapter was one I bought from eBay that stated it worked with the TG01. Sure enough it did at first but then it started to become intermittent.

I opened both up to do the mod you suggested and found on the one that originally worked the ground wire had broken, but interestingly it had the data pins shorted! So I fixed this and made the mod to the other adapter and both now charge the phone!

[Guest leeston2379]

I just want to confirm that this method works! I have two car adaptors; one was a simple generic adaptor providing a USB socket. Using either the supplied USB data cable that came with the phone or a third party one wouldn't charge the phone using this adapter. The second adapter was one I bought from eBay that stated it worked with the TG01. Sure enough it did at first but then it started to become intermittent.

I opened both up to do the mod you suggested and found on the one that originally worked the ground wire had broken, but interestingly it had the data pins shorted! So I fixed this and made the mod to the other adapter and both now charge the phone!

Glad to help :)

[Guest Antoniuss]

This document confirms what 'you say as described in "Dedicated Charger mode".

Edited June 17, 2010 by Antoniuss