Reincarnate the battery [Was: GTA02 is now an expensive brick]

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

for me it was always working:

* unplug charger
* take out the battery for a second and place it back
* connect charger and leave it charging an minimal current over the
  night
* power up the phone in the morning and let it charge at 1A if not yet
  charged fully ;-)

I've been going to post about alternative "Chinese" chargers for a while,
but forgotten to do that, so doing it now:

Some time ago I got smth like
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1144
just without transformer, so it was a bit cheaper and ebay and
other website full of similar things

or
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15924
or
http://www.cellphoneshop.net/unbatrch.html

you can find more of the models from different makers at
http://www.chinasuppliers.globalsources.com/china-suppliers/Universal-Cell-Phone-Charger.htm

iirc the one I have gives up to 500mA

So, they cost 2-10$ depending on the model/deal/website and work for most of
the batteries. since FR fails to charge my battery from nokia phone
(don't recall the model), this charger does it fine so I always have a
spare battery available if I need a rapid boot to charge original battery
from FR

It is not that clear from the description how to use this beast. But
there is plenty of youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsxq8SeN3Q

Hope this helps ;-) If you find it useful - please don't hesitate to
update the wiki with this information

Cheers

On Sun, 04 Jan 2009, Lucas Lacroix wrote:

>    I forgot to plug the Neo in last night, and now the battery is
>    completely dead. I cannot even get to the NOR boot. I've tried both USB
>    and the charger. I have tried with and without the battery. No
>    combination of these will get the phone to turn on so it can charge the
>    battery.
>    I'm saddened by the fact that a phone that was supposed to be released
>    to the masses can have such a blatant failing. Not only can it NOT turn
>    on when the battery has little or no charge, the APM service does not
>    turn the phone off to prevent this (note: all OTHER phones I have ever
>    used WILL turn off when the battery gets below some critical level).
>    On top of this, if I ever expect to have a working phone, I have to
>    disable the only feature which should extend the battery life (read
>    that as: OpenMoko has fixed the WSoD problem by replacing it with the
>    BSoD - Black Screen of Death).
>    I have looked at the work-arounds, and none of them have worked or are
>    doable. I refuse to "hardware hack" my phone with an external 4.5V line
>    to give it the initial charge. I also do not have access to a charger
>    that will work with this battery. Lastly, I do not have a second
>    battery.
>    If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open. However, if I'm unable to find
>    a solution, I I cannot say that I will continue to support or recommend
>    the OpenMoko platform or the Neo Freerunner phone.

> _______________________________________________
> support mailing list
> support at lists.openmoko.org
> https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support


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