Charging Droid phone with Dyno Hub
 

I'm currently on tour and have a problem with being unable to get my Motorola Droid phone to charge from the SON Dyno Hub. Before I left I ordered the dyno hub and EWERKS USB cache battery, and the new wheel and charger were installed by my local bike shop as part of the preparations for my trip. This is not the kind that has an adjustable voltage regulator pn it. As explained to me, is is merely a cache battery that in turn should charge the device. After I left on my tour I plugged the phone into the charger and it immediately powered off. Several repeated tries got the same result. I stopped at a Radio Shack in Ada, OK and the store manager recommended a small backup charger to plug between the eWerks charger and the phone. We tried it and the phone stayed on, so I bought it. But, though the eWerks charger and the extra backup charger both show they are getting the electricity from the hub, the phone just doesn't charge. It doesn't power off any more, but it doesn't charge either. Anyone had a problem with a Droid phone of this nature?

Dont know specifics.. USB , I read standardized at 5v and what 100 Milli amp.. ?

Can you link to the online versions of the service manual,?
then maybe others can read along and interpret the technical jargon a bit.

I have the Droid Razr Maxx ( which is exactly the same phone as the Droid Razr, except it has a larger battery. ) I use the older E-Werk without the cache battery. I can charge the phone, but the output has to be set to 1 amp or more, or the phone won't charge. Does the version of the e-werk you have allow selection of the output current?

Thanks, I have the Razr Maxx too. The guy at my local shop in Mobile told me that he thought the Ewerks cache battery would be sufficient, without using the charger, which he felt resulted in many fried devices due to failure to change the output with varying devices. The output on mine is 1.5 amps, which matched the phone and Kindle Fire for input. In re-reading the specs tonight on the Ewerks cache battery, I think I may need the charger after all, and that the cache battery alone won't work. Here is a link I found on the cache battery

http://www.starbike.com/p/Busch-M%FC...y-461A-4152-en

No, the Ewerk I have does not allow selection of output current. I appreciate your thoughts.

I'm thinking you dont have the E-werk but the USB-werk?
I suspect that the USB-werk is not designed to be used with the cache battery you linked to.
Another potential is checking the cable. Some of the cables provided with the original E-werk had different
pins so although they plugged into some electrical item, they wouldnt charge them. My garmin edge 800 is an example of this. I had to use a specific cable (provided in the E-werks retail box) for my garmin.
Please clarify via the different starbike.com links which E-werk version you have. I'm aware of two different ones. To the best of my knowledge only one is for using with the separate cache battery.
The other is the USB-werk and has no variable voltage/amps.

Original with variable voltage/amps for use with cache battery:
http://www.starbike.com/p/Busch-M%FC...RK-361-3707-en

Cache battery for above/original version:
http://www.starbike.com/p/Busch-M%FC...y-461A-4152-en

New version USB-werk with inbuilt cache battery:
http://www.starbike.com/p/Busch-M%FC...-361BW-5253-en
"The USB-WERK can be connected to a dynamo hub providing 5 V at up to 1 A. An integrated small cache battery ensures that the power remains constant at slow speeds or short stops. That makes the USB-WERK an excellent solution to charge and power USB devices like mobile phones, GPS, MP3 players etc. Comes with a USB cable"

Ah ha! I just remembered after I looked at my setup; I was *not* able to get my Razr charging if I used the micro-USB cable that connected directly to the E-Werk. What I ended up having to do was use the USB extension cable for the E-Werk, and then the second micro-USB cable that has the "normal" USB connector on the other end. My recollection is that there's a resistor in the cable that tells the connected device how much current can be supplied, and the direct cable doesn't have the correct one, so the Razr interprets that as an indication that the charger can't supply enough current. Using the extension cable in line takes care of that problem.

So - perhaps try that, presuming your version of the E-Werk works the same?

Edit: Using the manual at http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/Down...werkmanual.pdf , you would need to use cable #7 along with cable #9.

Sorry for the confusion in terminology, I have the USB-WERK. When plugged into the Razr Maxx HD the phone powers off immediately. The universal portable power cell I bought at Radio Shack after discovering the phone was shutting down when I plugged it to the USB-WERK is an enercell. It's input capacity is up to 5 v and .8 amps, with output of 5 v and 1 amp. When plugged into the USB-WERK and then plugging the phone into the enercell, the phone no longer powers off, but does not charge. The indicator lights on the enercell come on when the front wheel is spinning, which led me to think it is receiving power thru the USB-WERK, but the phone doesn't charge. I have tried it while the phone is powered off and the charge on the phone does not increase, and tried it while the phone is powered on and the battery continues to discharge and not increase.

Does the battery icon at the top of the screen ever actually show that it has detected that a charger is connected? Even though the standard wall charger that came with the Razr is 750mah, I couldn't get a charge indication until I had the E-Werk set to 1A ( and which I subsequently set to 1.5A ). At 1A, it would only maintain the current charge, not increase. I'm wondering if even though the USB-WERK is rated to provide 1A, it's not actually quite achieving that, so the phone won't be getting enough current to charge up.

I seemed to have found a temporary solution with the enercell backup charger I got at Radio Shack. I found that if I charge it from the USB-WERK, I can then use the enercell to charge the phone, but I have to disconnect it from the USB-WERK first. If I leave them connected in series, the phone does not charge. So, I can charge the enercell fully, disconnect it from the USB-WERK, then use it to charge the phone. The enercell was inexpensive, so I'm going to stop at the next Radio Shack I see and buy one more so I can have one for the phone and one for the Kindle Fire. I will continue to play around with the suggestion from mulveyr about the USB cables. Thanks for the responses, have been very helpful.

I wonder if you've made things too complicated.
Look, the USB-werk is not "designed" for you to add another battery pac.
It has a battery built in to it.
I'd bet any money that your issue is the extra battery and the wrong cable combo.
Yes it can charge another battery but I bet with the combo of the other battery and your phone your pulling too much draw (current) from the USB-werks cache battery.
Please try ditching the battery pack (enercell?) and direct wiring your phone to your USB-werk.
Try the different cables (like the one that came with your phone when you bought it.
Let us know