Brodit Active PPC Holder for Ipaq 200 Series

bohunk49 · 04-03-08, 10:32 PM

Here are some pictures of the Brodit holder in my Frontier. As you can see it charges from the mini usb. It works great in both portrait or landscape, though I probably shouldn't watch movies while I'm driving. The holder location is great for gps navigation.

Theemed · 04-04-08, 02:13 AM

The main reason you shouldn't watch movies while on holder is not just that it would impair driving, but that the miniUSB power input wouldn't be even by far sufficient to sustain the battery load so the show would end real quick during long trips :D Same should/could be for TomTom/whatever navigation software. They should've really used a sync connector instead.
Me, I'm getting the cheapest "naked" holder at the closest chinese dealer, and use the current cigar/USB adapter attached to a hub for charging all the car devices included this iPAQ, at least until I find the time to mod a USB cable to use sync connection.

bohunk49 · 04-04-08, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by Theemed

The main reason you shouldn't watch movies while on holder is not just that it would impair driving, but that the miniUSB power input wouldn't be even by far sufficient to sustain the battery load so the show would end real quick during long trips :D Same should/could be for TomTom/whatever navigation software. They should've really used a sync connector instead.
Me, I'm getting the cheapest "naked" holder at the closest chinese dealer, and use the current cigar/USB adapter attached to a hub for charging all the car devices included this iPAQ, at least until I find the time to mod a USB cable to use sync connection.

not true, i just took a trip to seattle using the iguidance gps software linked via bluetooth to the holux 236 receiver you see in the pic and my ppc was fully charged when i got home 6 hours later and the 211 was on the entire time. I had the same result with my previous ppc, a pocket loox 720, using navigon 2005 with a Brodit pda holder. They're expensive holders, but they're the best.

04-04-08, 07:32 AM

I hadn't heard of them. I have an "universal" holder from the time of my Axim called Lobster Mount. It has a suction cup holding it. It is uglier than sin, but that thing in 41 degree heat outside (that would be in the area of 106F) and in the coldest part of winter has never fallen off the window. Very modifiable. No chrger and no speaker, but it holds like the devil!!!

Theemed · 04-04-08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by bohunk49

not true, i just took a trip to seattle using the iguidance gps software linked via bluetooth to the holux 236 receiver you see in the pic and my ppc was fully charged when i got home 6 hours later and the 211 was on the entire time. I had the same result with my previous ppc, a pocket loox 720, using navigon 2005 with a Brodit pda holder. They're expensive holders, but they're the best.

Then I stand corrected about the power consumption.. but you see, my comment wasn't related to the holder itself, but to the fact that it featured miniUSB charging, which is limited to a max of 200mA inbound (device limitation), usually inadequate to sustain higher load applications. Probably the application you use has a low payload on battery.
But definitely TCPMP would drain more battery than miniUSB charge can replenish, that I confirm after several personal tests.
The best charging cable I've seen in shops is one which has both miniUSB and sync connectors going into the device, hence doubling the power sources.

JakeRich · 04-04-08, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Theemed

CLIP...
But definitely TCPMP would drain more battery than miniUSB charge can replenish, that I confirm after several personal tests.
The best charging cable I've seen in shops is one which has both miniUSB and sync connectors going into the device, hence doubling the power sources.

Curious, I used TCPMP just last night with miniUSB power only and the 211 actually caught up on power to the point where the charging LED turned green and stayed that way. Maybe you have something else drawing power?

Do you have a link for the charging cable you referred to?

Theemed · 04-04-08, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by JakeRich

Curious, I used TCPMP just last night with miniUSB power only and the 211 actually caught up on power to the point where the charging LED turned green and stayed that way. Maybe you have something else drawing power?

Do you have a link for the charging cable you referred to?

My TCPMP works with files right off my desktop, probably it's heavy on resources. Also, when I'm watching movies, it's from my CF, so... ;)
And well, I think I took the link off one post in here, don't really remember where, I did a quick search but couldn't find it. Bah.

Theemed · 04-04-08, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by JakeRich

Curious, I used TCPMP just last night with miniUSB power only and the 211 actually caught up on power to the point where the charging LED turned green and stayed that way. Maybe you have something else drawing power?

I stand corrected. Watched a few eps of Death Note on the 214 plugged to a PC's miniusb cable, and battery went from 58% to 60% by the time the ep ended. Quickly switched to the miniUSB of my external 4AA battery pack, and it went from 60% to 54% in a couple of eps. That is quite disappointing, as far as I know AA batteries don't have a capped power output, in fact if you short their ends they die pretty fast. This means the battery pack circuitry is acting like the output hog... looking into it (literally); probably I'll have to short out some resistors. By the way, the battery pack I'm talking about is the one sold by addonsworld.com, made so it fits several appliances (phones, pdas, mp3 players, whatever) by just modifying the output plug.

Edit: I opened the battery pack, and there's a resistor, but it's there just for protection of the power led, which is posistioned in a parallel circuit. Just to be on the safe side, I cut off the led circuit, so that, when the switch is closed, 100% of the battery power goes to the USB output, but that changes nothing. At this point I'm puzzled: the voltage output for the battery pack is 4.8V (1.2*4), so techincally lower than the 5V specification for USB, but how should that matter, as long as the output current is enough to fill the 200mA limit? And anyay, why should 4 serialized AA not be able to output at least 200mA when coupled with an adequate circuit?

Edit 2: I've been digging info about AA batteries and how they have an internal resistance, how the maximum current one battery can output is the same of the maximum current 4 identical batteries in series can output. The solution would be putting them in parallel, so I can double (2 in parallel with 2) or quadruplicate (4 in parallel) the maximum current output.
Being the batteries 2000mAh each, and being calculated that based on the constant drain in 20 hours, that means the ideal output of those batteries is 100mA, it means they stay at half the max input capacity of the 214. I should put two serialized couples in parallel, so I get 200mA, but in that case the voltage would be 2.4V, which is half of the 5V USB potential.. so no idea how good it could charge. I'll try nonetheless to do that by modifying the internal wiring. Hope I do not fry the 214 in the process :D

Edit 3: just put in parallel two couples of AA's in the charger, but the charging led on the device didn't light. As my old ipaq did the same with the battery pack connected, but charged nonetheless, I tried anyway to play a video, but the battery drained 8%, so it wasn't charging after all. I'm going to rewire it to 4 AA in series, even if it's gonna be a pain.

Edit 4: looked at the datasheet of these energizer cells, and over there it appears the max current they can output is 4A (4000mA), so the fact that 4 of them in series are not able to sustain the load of the 214, while the cable coming out of the pc can, doesn't really make sense.

FrinkTL · 04-04-08, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by JakeRich

Curious, I used TCPMP just last night with miniUSB power only and the 211 actually caught up on power to the point where the charging LED turned green and stayed that way. Maybe you have something else drawing power?

Do you have a link for the charging cable you referred to?

I don't used TCPMP, but I was just testing the GPS (using Pharos's Ostia software and i-360 receiver in a Bluetooth dock). When I started my 20 minute jaunt, the battery was at 94%. I asked for directions to Burger King and followed along with the iPAQ pluged into the mini-usb to cigarette lighter adapter. By the time I arrived the charge was reporting as 100% (but not quite to the green light yet). The charge light never even flickered. So I decided to press my luck and open Excel, MS Reader and start playing MortPlayer patched into the car. Same result.

This leads me to believe that I'll be just fine and won't have to worry about long trips with the iPAQ plugged only into mini-USB supplied power with the GPS keeping me from getting lost.

TCPMP must be a pretty significant power hog, because the only thing that can make my charge light go out is when I'm syncing with just the mini-USB connector - no AC adapter plugged in from a wall outlet (Synchronizing pins the CPU for quite awhile).

Near as I can tell I must have been forcing the CPU to spin up to at least 400-500 Mhz. On the Axim X51v, Mortplayer consumed around 200Mhz and I figure another 200-250 Mhz for the GPS software, especially when it's calculating the route (vs. tracking only). All that and the USB stayed ahead of the usage.

Good news, anyway, as, after reading a few posts and seeing the charge light go out when synchronizing, I was worried it wouldn't turn out so well.

JakeRich · 04-04-08, 10:27 PM

Originally Posted by Theemed

I stand corrected. Watched a few eps of Death Note on the 214 plugged to a PC's miniusb cable, and battery went from 58% to 60% by the time the ep ended. Quickly switched to the miniUSB of my external 4AA battery pack, and it went from 60% to 54% in a couple of eps. That is quite disappointing, as far as I know AA batteries don't have a capped power output, in fact if you short their ends they die pretty fast. This means the battery pack circuitry is acting like the output hog... looking into it (literally); probably I'll have to short out some resistors. By the way, the battery pack I'm talking about is the one sold by addonsworld.com, made so it fits several appliances (phones, pdas, mp3 players, whatever) by just modifying the output plug.

Edit: I opened the battery pack, and there's a resistor, but it's there just for protection of the power led, which is posistioned in a parallel circuit. Just to be on the safe side, I cut off the led circuit, so that, when the switch is closed, 100% of the battery power goes to the USB output, but that changes nothing. At this point I'm puzzled: the voltage output for the battery pack is 4.8V (1.2*4), so techincally lower than the 5V specification for USB, but how should that matter, as long as the output current is enough to fill the 200mA limit? And anyay, why should 4 serialized AA not be able to output at least 200mA when coupled with an adequate circuit?

Edit 2: I've been digging info about AA batteries and how they have an internal resistance, how the maximum current one battery can output is the same of the maximum current 4 identical batteries in series can output. The solution would be putting them in parallel, so I can double (2 in parallel with 2) or quadruplicate (4 in parallel) the maximum current output.
Being the batteries 2000mAh each, and being calculated that based on the constant drain in 20 hours, that means the ideal output of those batteries is 100mA, it means they stay at half the max input capacity of the 214. I should put two serialized couples in parallel, so I get 200mA, but in that case the voltage would be 2.4V, which is half of the 5V USB potential.. so no idea how good it could charge. I'll try nonetheless to do that by modifying the internal wiring. Hope I do not fry the 214 in the process :D

Edit 3: just put in parallel two couples of AA's in the charger, but the charging led on the device didn't light. As my old ipaq did the same with the battery pack connected, but charged nonetheless, I tried anyway to play a video, but the battery drained 8%, so it wasn't charging after all. I'm going to rewire it to 4 AA in series, even if it's gonna be a pain.

Edit 4: looked at the datasheet of these energizer cells, and over there it appears the max current they can output is 4A (4000mA), so the fact that 4 of them in series are not able to sustain the load of the 214, while the cable coming out of the pc can, doesn't really make sense.

The HP can MAYBE take 4.8v, or even 4.5v but it definitely won't accept 2.4v. Generally there is about 10% wiggle room on voltage, so it is probably ok between 4.5 and 5.5v, but it will be stressed at the lower (and upper) limit. I suspect that the circuits in the HP have cutouts below 4.5v to avoid that stress. Also, at 4.5v your net power is reduced by 10% going in, and that 10% may be the difference between charging and discharging. (Power = voltage * current, so 5v at .2A = 1W, but 4.5v at .2A is only .9W, a 10% drop).

Theemed · 04-05-08, 09:02 AM

Originally Posted by JakeRich

lso, at 4.5v your net power is reduced by 10% going in, and that 10% may be the difference between charging and discharging. (Power = voltage * current, so 5v at .2A = 1W, but 4.5v at .2A is only .9W, a 10% drop).

Gee, thanks for clearning the doubts, you gave a crystal-clear explanation which refreshed my highschool physics training. Dunno if now I'll try serializing another battery with the 4AA's just to prove the theory... still it sounds definitely correct. Even thouth my voltmeter reported an output of 5V from the battery pack, but that was while measuring it with no load. Probably, the voltage output decreases when iPAQ is connected.