CRACKED, USB Charging with NO Driver's
 

Hi all,

Thought i would share my solution to charging the Blackberry from a USB port (PC or USB portable Charger) without DRIVERS!!!!

I could not work out for the life of me how the 2 drivers triggered the PC USB port to charge the Blackberry until now. They trigger a "turn on" supply to pin 2 of the USB cable which the Blackberry Unit sees and turns on its on board charging circuit.

I played around with some spare USB cables, resistors, power supplies and have found a solution to charge the BB from any USB port (PC) or from any portable USB charger.

The secret is this......are you ready......all you need is a bleed resister across pin 1 (positive) and pin 2 (white core of USB cable) and thats it. Your BB will charge without the warning message and with the lightning bolt.

For some pics click here

too much trouble just hit cancel on the install and it will still charge

What value resistor did you use, and how did you decide on that value?

That's all very well, if it's your PC you're using...

I am always over at a different persons house ... and I can't expect them to put stuff on their computer. It would be nice to have a cable that "just works".

its still going to ask you to install even if you change the pins.

cool informaton but i will use the "hit cancel on the install and it will still charge" if needed

Yes it will but you don't have to carry the drivers around with youand most of the time if your plugging into a different PC then your own its to charge. The other point I made is that the cable allows you to charge from any portable USB charger ie cigarette car charger etc as most only have supply to pin 1 & 4.

I have as well but on newer machines, my kids vista PC worked without the need of drivers but the older XP's didn't. Its all about how the PC operates the port.

In the end i used 2.2M ohm from trial & error.

opps double post

I dont carry the drivers around with me.. as i said when it trys to look for drivers i just cancel and it charges anyway

and i said it depends on the PC some work some don't

works on everyone I have used

Same here, and none of them run Windows, all linux - I just plug my phone into any old linux server in the server room or one of my workstations. It'll charge at 100mA just fine except take a lot longer, you only need drivers to bump up the current to 500mA for the normal charging rate.

BTW - the drivers don't "trigger" the device or vice versa. When the BB is plugged in and the drivers are installed the drivers recognize a device ID (actually, I'm guessing a manufacturer ID since that's what we use on linux) and adjust the current to 500mA. If there are no drivers then the current stays at 100mA and you get that on-device popup, which an ESC key will dismiss and charge continues.

In the case of a modern (2.6.21 and up) linux kernel the driver is actually a kernel module (berry_charge.ko) that does the current adjusting, source is in the kernel tree if you're curious. As far as I know it only works with non-SD card devices that pop up with channel 1; newer devices with SD cards need to use the bcharge tool from Barry, as it understands the devices are on channel 6 (then reset to 4) and not on 1. I just run mine without the tool right now and hit ESC on the device and let it charge at 100mA.

OOh, I take that back! I just peaked at the 2.6.23 code and the support for newer SD devices is in the code:

Linux/drivers/usb/misc/berry_charge.c
(lines 029, 030)

Been thinking about this, and I think why your pin 1 - 2 bleed wiring works is that it feeds more juice to the BB out that pin (right?) and mimics the idea that the PC increased the current. I wonder what mA are coming out of it...got a meter?

Well I disagree, I did some bench testing using a desktop supply and the Blackberry.

• With the BB plugged in with only pins 1 & 4 connected (positive and negative) to a regulated power supply, the amp meter registered 91mA until the the lightning bolt disappeared and the current went to 0mA. The power supply i used can deliver 15A consistently if required.

• With the BB plugged in with pins 1 & 4 connected (positive and negative) to a regulated power supply, the amp meter registered 91mA until the the lightning bolt disappeared then after you momentarily trigger pin 2 with a positive feed the current draw went to 556mA and stayed constant (without pin 2 connected "the trigger").

• Therefore the BB unit turns on its internal charging circuit and its not the PC turning on 500mA

If you don't agree can you explain how the BB draws 91mA via pin 1 & 4 but then 556mA after pin 2 see a positive feed?

The above answers yout question, no additional current is drawn via pin 2 as its only a momintery connection (for the test). As you can't easily trigger pin 2 "on the road", a bleed resistor does the next best thing without effecting the BB or PC/USB Charger.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I like this and I am going to try this myself! Just to do it.

Is this hardware fix needed anymore? Not sure but I applaud the OPs efforts.

What is the normal output of a usb port? The charging circuit controls the draw to a max of approx 500ma. That is why you can use a charger that sends 2000ma because the charging circuit will not allow anymore. The charging circuit can't tell the USB to send more current. If a typical BB uses 500ma and the usb port only sends 100ma then that is all the BB can draw upon. I may be wrong been a long time since i dealt with electronics

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I think its only 100ma until something tells the USB port to give more current. That is why it says insufficent power to recharge device when the BB desktop is not installed. When it is, the software recognizes the device and ups it to 500.

Yup, it's 100mA by default for all ports (1.1 and 2.0) unless something (Windows driver, Linux kernel module, OSX....module? what do the OSX people call their stuff) takes control and increases the flow. I'm still trying to noodle out how this pin 2 trick works in relation to what I know of the code and working with the linux guys which is all software based... I wonder almost if it's "dual mode" in that one mode is for the charger (which relates to the pin2 trick here) and one is completely software driven. It sounds semi-reasonable...