[Info]Making/Using a Factory Cable

SikYou · Dec 15, 2011

There is a lot of information floating around about the factory cable but there doesn't seem to be a thread dedicated to the topic. I bricked my device today so I need to make a factory cable. I tried making a cable but I f'd up the soldering job so I am awaiting delivery of a breakout board. I just wanted to gather some information here on the topic because there seem to be a lot of bricks popping up around here. So for now I am going to post what I know and ask a few questions here and there so that I can get my cable done and hopefully help someone out along the way.

When I started messing around with soldering a jumper from pin 1 to pin 4 i melted the connector, blah, blah, anyway, I screwed it up. Hopefully I will have more luck with the breakout (see below).

From what I understand, using the cable is a simple a plugging it in so I guess that part is self explanatory for now.

I got most of my information about the cable and how to make it from here. Lots of good info with pics and diagrams.

Someone in these forums recomended using this breakout board. I ordered 2 of them today so I will let you guys know how it goes when they get here.

My one big question is about the the jumper from pin 1 to pin 4; I read that some people are using a resister and I am unclear as to where the resister is being used and the specs of the resister. Please enlighten me

I might add some pics to this thread just for fun. If you have built this cable please jump in a post any information that might help.

Thanks

BTW-You can buy a cable here but I have yet to see them listed as "in stock"

animefun135 · Dec 15, 2011

I'm interesting to how correctly build this cable...

MayfairDROID · Dec 15, 2011

I simply used a jumper wire. No resistor used. I hear a 1k can be used as a precaution, but is not necessary. Without the resistor, it works like a champ. I turned off the Kindle, Plugged in the "Factory cable", and it went directly into fastboot.

PIN out is as follows on the SparkFun Breakout board:

VCC: RED
D-: White
D+: Green
ID: Jumper RED
GND: Black

SikYou · Dec 15, 2011

MayfairDROID said:
I simply used a jumper wire. No resistor used. I hear a 1k can be used as a precaution, but is not necessary. Without the resistor, it works like a champ. I turned off the Kindle, Plugged in the "Factory cable", and it went directly into fastboot.

PIN out is as follows on the SparkFun Breakout board:

VCC: RED
D-: White
D+: Green
ID: Jumper RED
GND: Black

Thanks a ton! I was looking confirmation that this wod work without a registered.

So I assume you fixed you device or accomplished whatever it was that you where trying to do?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

MayfairDROID · Dec 15, 2011

hahaha...Nope

I didn't have anything wrong, but before I went modding, I wanted to be sure I could get into FastBoot if I messed something up. I have tested and made sure that I had Fastboot commands, so I know it works.

pyrostic · Dec 15, 2011

SikYou said:
There is a lot of information floating around about the factory cable but there doesn't seem to be a thread dedicated to the topic. I bricked my device today so I need to make a factory cable. I tried making a cable but I f'd up the soldering job so I am awaiting delivery of a breakout board. I just wanted to gather some information here on the topic because there seem to be a lot of bricks popping up around here. So for now I am going to post what I know and ask a few questions here and there so that I can get my cable done and hopefully help someone out along the way.

When I started messing around with soldering a jumper from pin 1 to pin 4 i melted the connector, blah, blah, anyway, I screwed it up. Hopefully I will have more luck with the breakout (see below).

From what I understand, using the cable is a simple a plugging it in so I guess that part is self explanatory for now.

I got most of my information about the cable and how to make it from here. Lots of good info with pics and diagrams.

Someone in these forums recomended using this breakout board. I ordered 2 of them today so I will let you guys know how it goes when they get here.

My one big question is about the the jumper from pin 1 to pin 4; I read that some people are using a resister and I am unclear as to where the resister is being used and the specs of the resister. Please enlighten me

I might add some pics to this thread just for fun. If you have built this cable please jump in a post any information that might help.

Thanks

BTW-You can buy a cable here but I have yet to see them listed as "in stock"

A resistor is the "safe" route. Mine doesn't have one at all and woks flawlessly. You just need a resistor large enough to simulate a short to the device. I imagine anything above 250k would be more than enough.

But as I said before I have used mine more than most people probably have while testing TWRP, I don't have a resistor and it works fine.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

pyrostic · Dec 15, 2011

Was just thinking. If you used a female breakout board with a male breakout board you could essentially ground the male boards ground to the male boards vcc. And the female boards ground to the male boards ground as well.

This way you could leave vcc hanging (capped of course) from the female source (computer) side.

Aditionally you could put in a dual pole switch between ground from the the target (kindle side) and vcc on the target side that would toggle between ground on the target side and vcc on the source side. Essentially eliminating the need for two cables and letting you switch from a factory cable to a normal cable with the flip of a button.

Hope this sparks some good conversation

.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

teookie · Dec 15, 2011

I built one with the sparkfun breakout board. Piece of cake if you have some soldering skillz. You might melt something or make a mess if you haven't soldered anything before so I recommend practicing on something else first and/or watching some "how to solder" youtubes.

I configured mine with a female header in the pin 4 location, and a 400 ohm resistor coming off of pin 1. If I want to fastboot, I put the free end of the resistor into the female header. To use the cable like an ordinary USB cable, I just pull the free end back out. It's kinda nice to use the same cable for everything.

RE: resistor value. Since any value up to 1K ohm reportedly works, I thought I might as well use one vs just running a direct short. The higher the value of your resistor, the greater the chances that it won't work though. I used the one I did because it was less than 1K ohm, I had it on hand, and it's a higher wattage resistor with thicker wire that fits nicely in the female header.

FWIW, YMMV.

SkOrPn · Dec 17, 2011

pyrostic said:
Was just thinking. If you used a female breakout board with a male breakout board you could essentially ground the male boards ground to the male boards vcc. And the female boards ground to the male boards ground as well.

This way you could leave vcc hanging (capped of course) from the female source (computer) side.

Hope this sparks some good conversation .
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

This will NOT work, as the female breakout boards from Sparkfun does NOT have a breakout trace for pin 4 present. Only the male breakout boards have all 5 pins/traces needed. I've purchased hundreds of both and sold thousands of download mode JIG's for Samsung phones, and was forced to modify the female breakout boards to include a pin 4 trace for special projects of mine. I do not know if they since added the trace or not and its been over a year now since I asked for this feature.

Is there even a market for these factory cables?

EDIT: I know this post used to be how to get a cable from me, but I ran out of the actual cables and never replaced them. With only about one request per week or month I decided to stop stocking the cables. I have everything else though (new micro ends etc) to build a professional one if you want to send a old cable to me.

SikYou · Dec 17, 2011

SkOrPn said:
This will NOT work, as the female breakout boards from Sparkfun does NOT have a breakout trace for pin 4 present. Only the male breakout boards have all 5 pins/traces needed. I've purchased hundreds of both and sold over 1300 download mode JIG's for Samsung phones, and was forced to modify the female breakout boards to include a pin 4 trace for special projects of mine. I do not know if they since added the trace or not and its been over a year now since I asked for this feature.

On the other hand, if there was a market for it, I could manufacture special mini to micro data/charger adapters made specifically for this task. But the user would still need a standard mini usb data cable with all 5 pins/wires present (everyone should have one lying around somewhere).

Something like this could be purchased in bulk and then modified on demand. These are easily taken apart and reassembled. I do this daily 7 days a week so its easy for me.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/394616755/Mini_USB_to_Micro_Adapter_Charger.html

Is there even a market for these though, is my question?

Probably not much of a market. I think most of us are attempting to make our own. I'm sure you could sell a few but I wouldn't quit your day job ;-)

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

SkOrPn · Dec 17, 2011

Deleted

SikYou · Dec 17, 2011

SkOrPn said:
Not really concerned with making money as opposed to just helping. I sell JIG's at only $3.95 plus s&h which just barely covers my cost of materials, so I'm not in it for the money (it never even crossed my mind to try and make money off this stuff). Some people can not make things like this to save their lives, in fact most people can't and that's where a talented ex-electronics tech like myself comes in.

Below are the JIG's I make... Just to show how serious I get with quality and design. They are filled with SureBonder PDR glue, the worlds strongest hot glue according to the glue manufacturers, and I even went as far as logo them. I am thinking something along the lines of the same thing with the Factory Adapter (just without the lanyard). I could make 50 of them and list them on ebay for what I mentioned above and only $2 s&h. But, ONLY if I knew that they might sell. I'm willing to break even, but not lose money... And oh, I'm unemployed at the moment so I have plenty of time on my hands and every specialty tool you can think of...

I'm just bored and love helping people save their devices.... My ebay ratings can contest to that... ;-)

I would buy 1

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

kfuller · Dec 17, 2011

Nice. Mine looks positively nasty (but it works). What I did was buy a cheap 8" usb micro male to usb micro female adapter, cut it in half, stripped the wires back, and twisted them back together. Then simply jumpered the two wires together and taped the whole mess up. The hardest part was getting a meter on the usb micro pins. Had to clip my meter leads to a needle to get to them. Had to wear my glasses too. They are really small and close together.

---------- Post added at 10:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 PM ----------

Oh, and I forgot to point out that the reason for using the usb micro male to female cable is that you are insured of a wire on pin 4 with this approach, rather than an unsoldered pin to test your soldering skills. You will of course still need a micro to the normal usb cable to go from this to your pc, but I already had that on hand.

teookie · Dec 17, 2011

Considering the number of kindle fires that have sold, I bet you could easily sell 50 of those cables on ebay.

I'd probably buy one even though I've already made my own. Your's look really nice!

SkOrPn · Dec 17, 2011

teookie said:
Considering the number of kindle fires that have sold, I bet you could easily sell 50 of those cables on ebay.

I'd probably buy one even though I've already made my own. Your's look really nice!

Thanks, but the pictures I posted are of my Samsung Download Mode JIG's, they are NOT Motorola Factory jig's, lol... I ONLY posted pics of my Samsung jig's to show how dedicated I am to making quality stuff for us device flashing junkies. Factory Adapters would not look anything like what I posted, they would just be a Mini to Micro usb adapter with the proper short from pin 1 to 4 (user would have to supply their own standard cable, which most people already have). I have NOT sourced any adapters yet, but I have sent emails to some of my suppliers asking about them. No replies as of yet... I did find a few cables but I do not like cutting products up, I instead like making something that looks like it was produced on a assembly line, lol. Doing the mod to an adapter just seems smarter, as the end result is a clean functional product without any visible damage.

1. I would need to source adapters that are either already un-assembled.
2. Or, can easily be un-assembled and re-assembled.
3. Fairly affordable, 35-50 cents each or something close to.
4. And, be purchased in really small quantities such as lots of 50 to start out with.
5. And most importantly, they must have all 5 pins/wires. MANY adapters do not have all 5 pins on the female side, as pin #4 is simply not needed for most functions. This is why I need to source them first so I can ask questions in regards to pin #4. If the supplier guarantees pin 4 is present on both sides of the adapter, then I can move forward on this product.

I have quite a few emails and PM's for this item already though. Still not convinced its worth it though. How many Kindle Fires have been sold? And how many people actually modify or flash them? lol

EDIT: Let me get this straight. If I try to flash my Kindle Fire and I brick it, I would need a factory cable in order to restore it to functional?

borborpa · Dec 17, 2011

I'd definitely grab one! I don't think you'll have any problem selling out of 50.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

SikYou · Dec 17, 2011

SkOrPn said:
Thanks, but the pictures I posted are of my Samsung Download Mode JIG's, they are NOT Motorola Factory jig's, lol... I ONLY posted pics of my Samsung jig's to show how dedicated I am to making quality stuff for us device flashing junkies. Factory Adapters would not look anything like what I posted, they would just be a Mini to Micro usb adapter with the proper short from pin 1 to 4 (user would have to supply their own standard cable, which most people already have). I have NOT sourced any adapters yet, but I have sent emails to some of my suppliers asking about them. No replies as of yet... I did find a few cables but I do not like cutting products up, I instead like making something that looks like it was produced on a assembly line, lol. Doing the mod to an adapter just seems smarter, as the end result is a clean functional product without any visible damage.

1. I would need to source adapters that are either already un-assembled.
2. Or, can easily be un-assembled and re-assembled.
3. Fairly affordable, 35-50 cents each or something close to.
4. And, be purchased in really small quantities such as lots of 50 to start out with.
5. And most importantly, they must have all 5 pins/wires. MANY adapters do not have all 5 pins on the female side, as pin #4 is simply not needed for most functions. This is why I need to source them first so I can ask questions in regards to pin #4. If the supplier guarantees pin 4 is present on both sides of the adapter, then I can move forward on this product.

I have quite a few emails and PM's for this item already though. Still not convinced its worth it though. How many Kindle Fires have been sold? And how many people actually modify or flash them? lol

EDIT: Let me get this straight. If I try to flash my Kindle Fire and I brick it, I would need a factory cable in order to restore it to functional?

In many cases people are able to restore a bricked kindle because the Factory cable allows one to boot in to fastboot and repair the system or do a factory reset or whatever needs to be done based on what the brick was caused by.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

emelie · Dec 18, 2011

SkOrPn said:
But, ONLY if I knew that they might sell.

I'd buy one.

bsoplinger · Dec 18, 2011

I feel confused. Typical someone says factory to describe an item that comes with a product when you buy it vs. aftermarket. Are you saying that the cable that comes with the fire is somehow special and different from a regular micro USB cable?

Sent from my HTC Flyer P512 using Tapatalk

krelvinaz · Dec 19, 2011

bsoplinger said:
I feel confused. Typical someone says factory to describe an item that comes with a product when you buy it vs. aftermarket. Are you saying that the cable that comes with the fire is somehow special and different from a regular micro USB cable?

This is a special cable that puts the device into fastboot mode when the device is otherwise locked up. It is not a normal cable you would get or use that would come with the device or be orderable from the company. It has only one purpose and would not be used again.

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