USB Fast Charge mod
- Thread starter sruel3216
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I checked out that app but I don't see anywhere that it gives a readout of the charging amperage. Am I just missing it?
I did a bunch of trials using the diy method...
with auto bright and data i got 420mA, min bright almost the same, airplane mode 525mA. These are leading me to believe my usb port just aint puttin out.
I want to thank Chad for his work here and report back some of my technical data I have been able gather while testing. This was gathered with electrical test equipment and is accurate unlike the current widgets.
For the Touchstone Mod users:
Prior to Chad's kernel modification the Galaxy Nexus was only able to draw ~430 mA through the Touchstone. For some power users, this was not enough to keep up with heavy usage that included Navigation, 4G, and streaming music simultaneously. Reports had the phone either just barely maintaining its charge % or even slowly losing a couple % points per hour.
After applying Chad's kernel modification the Galaxy Nexus is drawing ~650 mA. An improvement of ~50%! Now the bad news: 650 mA is not as much as you can get from an appropriate wall charger. The limitation at 650 mA appears, in my opinion, to be the Touchstone itself. The Touchstone's supply voltage drops to 4.5V when drawing ~650 mA and the phone stops trying to pull more. This is a limitation of the amount of energy the Touchstone was designed to transfer.
The real question, is if 650 mA is enough to charge the device under the power user conditions I described earlier. Hopefully it is. I do not live in a 4G area so I hope you will all test and report back here.
Thanks again Chad!
For everyone else as well:
To everybody unfamiliar, unless there some undocumented functions to directly read charging current there is no accurate way to read current from apps or widgets. They all make estimates that are only at best, ball park good and only when looking at a long enough time period. Seriously, you won't get within 300 mA. The only way to accurately measure charging current currently (to the best of my knowledge) is to make physical measurements using test equipment such as a multimeter with an ammeter. The current you actually pull from any source will likely fluctuate depending on the limit of current the source is rated for ( and even then, the actual numbers will probably be quite different) and the voltage the source can maintain while supplying that rated current. Do us a favor and don't post the currents your widgets and apps are reporting... they are not accurate and provide little to no information. They may let you see that you are in fact drawing more current than you used to on "USB mode" but that is about it.
For the Touchstone Mod users:
Prior to Chad's kernel modification the Galaxy Nexus was only able to draw ~430 mA through the Touchstone. For some power users, this was not enough to keep up with heavy usage that included Navigation, 4G, and streaming music simultaneously. Reports had the phone either just barely maintaining its charge % or even slowly losing a couple % points per hour.
After applying Chad's kernel modification the Galaxy Nexus is drawing ~650 mA. An improvement of ~50%! Now the bad news: 650 mA is not as much as you can get from an appropriate wall charger. The limitation at 650 mA appears, in my opinion, to be the Touchstone itself. The Touchstone's supply voltage drops to 4.5V when drawing ~650 mA and the phone stops trying to pull more. This is a limitation of the amount of energy the Touchstone was designed to transfer.
The real question, is if 650 mA is enough to charge the device under the power user conditions I described earlier. Hopefully it is. I do not live in a 4G area so I hope you will all test and report back here.
Thanks again Chad!
For everyone else as well:
To everybody unfamiliar, unless there some undocumented functions to directly read charging current there is no accurate way to read current from apps or widgets. They all make estimates that are only at best, ball park good and only when looking at a long enough time period. Seriously, you won't get within 300 mA. The only way to accurately measure charging current currently (to the best of my knowledge) is to make physical measurements using test equipment such as a multimeter with an ammeter. The current you actually pull from any source will likely fluctuate depending on the limit of current the source is rated for ( and even then, the actual numbers will probably be quite different) and the voltage the source can maintain while supplying that rated current. Do us a favor and don't post the currents your widgets and apps are reporting... they are not accurate and provide little to no information. They may let you see that you are in fact drawing more current than you used to on "USB mode" but that is about it.
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You are assuming (1) the charging curve is linear and (2) the percentages are accordingly assigned linearly. Do you have any information to back up these assumptions?
Your method may not be valid unless you are certain about these assumptions. For example, most gas gauges in cars are not linear like you would expect them to be either.
Yes, please refer to this post. This is why I said it will be most accurate below 50%, as you can see the graph is linear below 58%.
Now if we could only figure out a way to track percentage changes with the screen off...
I am using the franco kernel app from the market(paid to support the dev) and I am not able to see the touchstone charge at AC, it only charges at USB. Is there something I am missing?
Did you enable FFC by entering a terminal screen and entering "FFC" ? Your plea for help is a little sparse on details my friend.
FFC? Seriously...don't recall seeing that anywhere in the thread but what the heck I tried it, got an error.
More details. I am running stock Android 4.04 on the SGN, I installed the Franco Kernel updater, verified, my kernel is currently set to 3.0.8-g21f62ao. I also performed the touchstone mode....when charging it only goes at usb speed not AC.
In the Franco Kernel updater app I checked the fast usb charge box but my phone still charges at usb not AC... I am using the charger that came with the phone so I know that it can charge at higher the 500ma...thanks in advance for any help in this.
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You need to flash Francokernel first, it should list your current kernel as 3.0.8-franco.Kernel-MS1 or nightly, depending on what you chose. Right now it looks like you're running the stock kernel.
Ok figured what my issue was, appearantly when I upgraded to 4.04 I lost root...didn't even think about it. I had assumed I was still rooted. After that was resolved using the franco kernel updater it just auto flashed the kernel. I could have manually did it but the app makes it so much easier. Thanks for the help in advance guys
Just wanted to report - I obtained an MHL cable this week and tested it out (with a 1 A micro USB charger) yesterday playing a 22 minute episode. I disabled auto brightness, and used RootDim to drop the brightness down to "2". Under these conditions, the battery level remained more or less constant. At higher brightness levels the battery went down when playing video. So it does seem that dropping the brightness could be enough to prevent depletion.
I haven't tried any mods but I'll consider it
So how do we do it?
Ok, so how can we modify our MHL adapters to accept 1A? Thanks to you and Chad for your efforts in making this phone amazing.
Ok, so how can we modify our MHL adapters to accept 1A? Thanks to you and Chad for your efforts in making this phone amazing.
You have to cut out the battery lead from the MHL adapter. You then splice in the battery lead from a separate USB cable.
In my situation I had a double outlet USB charger so the ground was common. I suspect if you did not have a common charger that you should also cut the ground out of the MHL adapter and splice that in with your separate USB cable. This combination is untested on my part. Again, it should work.
You can then dead end the leads entering the MHL adapter, battery and ground only.
Red is battery and black is ground. In the end you will plug in a USB charge cable into a wall charger. The other end goes right into the MHL female micro USB port. This powers the MHL adapter. The modified USB cable is then plugged into the wall charger too. Since this cable is spliced into the leads which enter your phone, you get full AC charging with this mod. Just remember the the leads that enter the MHL adapter are dead ended.
Almost sounds like it'd be easier to create a separate charging cable with USB pass through. That way you don't harm the MHL adapter. As long as the charging pass through cable had all 5 wires, you should be good to go.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
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You have to cut out the battery lead from the MHL adapter. You then splice in the battery lead from a separate USB cable.
In my situation I had a double outlet USB charger so the ground was common. I suspect if you did not have a common charger that you should also cut the ground out of the MHL adapter and splice that in with your separate USB cable. This combination is untested on my part. Again, it should work.
You can then dead end the leads entering the MHL adapter, battery and ground only.
Red is battery and black is ground. In the end you will plug in a USB charge cable into a wall charger. The other end goes right into the MHL female micro USB port. This powers the MHL adapter. The modified USB cable is then plugged into the wall charger too. Since this cable is spliced into the leads which enter your phone, you get full AC charging with this mod. Just remember the the leads that enter the MHL adapter are dead ended.
