USB Charger w/ a Lappy

[dogstormer]

Hello All-

I read all of the posts that talked about how great the USB Charger/SYNC cables from EBAY were ... so I decided to take the plunge.

Well, the syncing part works great. However, the charging part sux a**.

The charging ICON doesn't enable, so my CLIE is definately not getting juiced.

My guess ....

1) The USB on my Laptop does not provide enough drive strength to charge my clie
2) Broken cable

BTW, I have an HP Pavillion ZT1260 with a USB 1.1 port - if that makes a difference.

Anyone else able to get this to work with a laptop?

Thanks for all of your help.

[Mikey]

I have one that works fine with a toshy satellite pro, i fact even shares happily with other devices.

Won't charge my ericsson t39m phone though........

[n2ifp]

The USB port should supply a max of 500 milliamps or half an ampere of power. If you go into device manager and look at the USB hub power requirements it'll tell you.

If your running the Clie at the same time, it won't be charging much, additionally, the charging will take almost twice as long to fully charge.

[big_daddy_mpd]

Go to CompUsa, $19.99, off brand charge/sync cable works like a champ! Now I sync my work and home laptops, with my NX-60!

[big_daddy_mpd]

To be specific: http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=301988&pfp=SEARCH

[Unregistered]

hmmmm .... i checked out the compusa one. It seems that wire is long though, isn't there a USB spec on how long the wire can be. ... I think its 3 ft.

I'll think about getting it.

Thanks.

[Unregistered]

Another choice:
Belkin Universal USB Sync Charger for Palm OS PDAs (http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=1979&pcount=&Product_Id=126107)

I just get one in Fry's for $19.99

[Raybot]

Originally posted by dogstormer
Hello All-

I read all of the posts that talked about how great the USB Charger/SYNC cables from EBAY were ... so I decided to take the plunge.

Well, the syncing part works great. However, the charging part sux a**.


In that case the cable itself should be OK ... if I'm not mistaken, if you've got no connection on the USB power line then the Clie shouldn't pick it up at all. Unless of course the cable is connecting the USB power line through but is missing the Clie's charging line (which is a different pin on the Clie end) ... was the cable definately sold as a CHARGE and sync cable?


The charging ICON doesn't enable, so my CLIE is definately not getting juiced.


If you've got a multimeter, hop on the net and look for a pinout of the Clie connector (note that many diagrams label pins 1 through 18 with 1 and 18 being grounds ... there are in fact 20 pins on that connector, the outer 2 are unused). See if you've got continuity between USB power and charge pins on the Clie end of the cable (don't plug the computer end in when you test this).



My guess ....

1) The USB on my Laptop does not provide enough drive strength to charge my clie
2) Broken cable

BTW, I have an HP Pavillion ZT1260 with a USB 1.1 port - if that makes a difference.

Anyone else able to get this to work with a laptop?

Thanks for all of your help.

It's quite possible that the lappy doesn't provide enough power ... tried it in a desktop?

There are in fact 2 standards for USB power, one at 100mA (not enough to charge) and one at 500mA. A 'well behaved' device requiring more than 500mA will initially connect and draw no more than 100mA then signal on the USB data lines that it needs more power and only draws more if it gets an acknowledgement. Unfortunately, the charge-sync cables aren't quite that well behaved and connect the charge pin straight through regardless ... if you're nervous about these things I'd suggest if possible you try the test I mentioned above, if that comes up OK (there is continuity) then it is a charge cable and chances are the Clie is drawing too much current, the supply voltage on the output side of the USB controller on your lappy is dropping in voltage, the Clie is sensing this and shutting off the charge. This shouldn't cause *too* big a problem but I wouldn't want to leave the Clie plugged in for longer than is needed to sync. If the test I mentioned comes up bad (no continuity) then I'd just use it as a sync cable (but then I'd also get worried as to why its marked as a charge-sync cable if the charge pin ain't getting connected) ...


Hope this helps!

- Raybot

[kp*]

I have a Hotsync/charger cable, unfortunately no brand name on it, but I got it at CompUSA. It syncs & charges my NR to my Dell Inspiron 5000e (don't know the power of my USB port, but it's almost 3 years old, so it's definitely doesn't require the latest technology).
I have only been on the road once with my hotsync cable, when I used it for two weeks. It synced perfectly, but it does charge very slowly. I was using my Clie extensively while away, and it was tricky to find enough time to leave it plugged in either my laptop at the hotel, or the one at my office, in order to keep up with the rate at which I was draining the battery. I could have done it overnight, but it would require leaving my laptop on fully awake all night -- and for one thing that sucker is noisy! That was the only drawback I found, but it was worth it to not have to lug those extra cables around.

[Unregistered]

I use one at work (the Belkin cable) on a Dell laptop, and it works fine.

[dogstormer]

thanks for all of the feedback.

I think I might have figured out what is going on.

As noted, the USB supplies only 500mA, so it does charge however it takes so much longer ...

This is what I noticed:

There is an ICON with the standard CLIE launcher (on the top) that displays the battery life. It also has the "lightnng strike" when the CLIE is chargin up.

When the CLIE is plugged into the cradle the "lightning strike" is always displayed. However. when I plug the SYNC cable in the "lightning cable" turns on & off intermittently. It does not enable & disable at a constant rate (ie the lightning strike sometimes appears for 2 sec, then disappears for three, then appears for 1, disappears for 4, etc .....

This leads me to believe that the source from the laptop is not constant.

Anyone else seen this with the USB charger?

Bottom line ... I think I need to get an AC charger.

Thanks.

[DanT]

Mine is definitely due to lack of voltage. I have old Clie that requires 5.7 VDC (new one is 5.2 VDC). My laptop USB provides only 5 VDC at no load, not enough. I saw lightning bolt across the battery icon when I plug the cable to Clie and laptop USB and left the Clie charged through the USB all night. In the morning I saw the same charge level as I had the night before.

[hherbzilla]

I've the Belkin and it works fine with my ThinkPad.

[Unregistered]

I don't have any "hard numbers" to back this up yet, but I've been much more successful charging from my laptop with a trick that occurred to me a couple weeks ago - using a USB-to-PS2 converter (which comes with most USB mice these days), and drawing juice from the PS2 port. It obviously won't *sync* through that port, but for charging alone, I get much faster results than I ever did via USB.

(FYI, I'm using the MiniSync cable from BoxWave, charging an NX60.)

[Earthling]

Hm. I'm sure you've had good luck with this method, but I can't see how it would work any better -- as far as I can tell, the PS2 port puts out a maximum of 5V & 100 mA (http://panda.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/~achapwes/PICmicro/PS2/ps2.htm), which is even worse than the USB spec (5V, 500 mA, IIRC). In any case, I tried it with a PS2 mouse-to-USB adapter plugged into a Belkin sync/charge cable, and for some reason my meter only read about 5 mV. If anyone is interested, you can see my USB results here (http://www.cliesource.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=15593).

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by Earthling
Hm. I'm sure you've had good luck with this method, but I can't see how it would work any better -- as far as I can tell, the PS2 port puts out a maximum of 5V & 100 mA (http://panda.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/~achapwes/PICmicro/PS2/ps2.htm), which is even worse than the USB spec (5V, 500 mA, IIRC).
I believe the difference stems from the fact that the PS2 port is a relatively "primative" interface that happily outputs power to all comers, while the USB port is tightly managed by comparison. For instance, I found this interesting bit in the USB 1.1 spec (http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/usbspec.zip):

"The power source and sink requirements of different device classes can be simplified with the introduction of the concept of a unit load. A unit load is defined to be 100mA. The number of unit loads a device can draw is an absolute maximum, not an average over time. A device may be either low-power at one unit load or high-power, consuming up to five unit loads. All devices default to low-power. The transition to high-power is under software control. It is the responsibility of software to ensure adequate power is available before allowing devices to consume high-power." (emphasis added)

So while it's true that the USB port may support a greater maximum output, it requires specific configuration steps to put it in high-power mode. Since simply attaching a Clie to the USB port doesn't announce its presence to the host (until a HotSync or other active connection is initiated), I assume that a "passive" connection to the USB port for charging purposes is limited to an absolute maximum of 100mA. Additionally, I would expect the Clie to identify itself on the bus as a "self-powered" device (since its USB interface isn't intended as a primary power source), which may further limit power output, even during an active connection like a HotSync.

Anyway, that's at least my hypothetical explanation why USB sync/charge cables seem to universally suck, and why I'm seeing so much better charging performance via a USB-to-PS2 converter. I'm certainly not an EE or anything, but the USB behavior I've seen makes me think *something* must be going on somewhere between theory and practice... ;)

[elf]

Originally posted by kp*
... I could have done it overnight, but it would require leaving my laptop on fully awake all night -- and for one thing that sucker is noisy!

If your laptop can hibernate/sleep, then the USB ports should remain live and allow you to charge the PDA in this mode.

My Vaio laptop charges my sj33 overnight when hibernating. I never shutdown my Vaio, it's either on or hibernating.