Charge your device´s battery without your device!

I tried to charge my wizard (HTC 8125, HTC from now on) through a self-powered hub. The hub, however, was also feeding some other stuff. I wouldn't think that that (literally) cheap hub actually passes current from ANY source (not just the adapter) to other devices. So, my battery was totally drained

I happily picked my HTC and happily tried to power it on several hours later. People thought that I was just carriying a nice toy since it didn't power on

I tried a thousand and one things, but nothing worked. (I tried even what someone suggested: to plug in the charger while the battery was still out, and then place back the battery)

I know that li-ion batteries are very much affected by discharging (tip: as a matter o a fact, the lifespan of your battery will increase if you keep your device plugged to the charger as much time as possible) But it wouldn't be permanently damaged by discharging it only once. The conclusion is evident: the problem is the HTC. Somehow, the power is software-managed in these kind of devices, and (really inconveniently) only powered by the battery; so, when there is no charge at all, the devicen can't do anything, not even charge the battery!

OK, now, the interesting part, HOW DO YOU FIX IT, man of the weird nickname?

Hold your horses, take into account:

(1) This won't be very specific to any device, since mine is a wizard but I am pretty sure that this will work to many of you who have posted. Just stay cool and try to understand well what I wrote. I will enumerate the objectives and after each one I will explain how I achieve it; the explanation is what may vary

(2) This worked for me, but it doesn't mean that it will work for you. Most of the time, we drain our batteries; but some of you might have a defective motherboard or charger, or some other problem

(3) Since this is not an official procedure, something may get damaged in the way (999 out of 1 will only fry their battery, since we will not be touching the device, phew) and I won't be responsible for that! 99 out of 1 would occur from not following the instructions correctly. But don't worry, it is straight foward. (Read before doing anything, just in case)

If you agree, let get started!

For this recipe, you will need

DISMANTLING THE BATTERY

(1) Remove the wraps of the battery:

Mine was nicely wrapped by a sticker. That was the label, it is a sticker on which all the info is written: voltage, capacity, manufacture date, model, blah, blah, blak. Take it away

(2) Access the poles of the battery

Inside, my battery had two parts: a C-shaped plastic piece, which is engulfing the other part: a metalic-coloured rectangular piece.

Through the C-shaped plastic piece you can see several gold-coloured metalic plaques (6 for me. I thought I could use them, but why six? It's too large a number. Let's continue). Now, remove that plastic piece (mine was easily removed by lifting the "upper" and "lower" sides of the C while pulling it apart from the silver-rectangular piece)

The C shaped plastic card was hiding the protection circuit (all well prepared li-ion battery has one) and dividing two larger plaques into four (two, each). So, the real number is 4 plaques, more reasonable. The POLES of the battery are those two larger plaques.

(3) Guess the polarity of the battery.

Here is where the voltimeter plays its part. Try all the plaques, for personal entertaiment. You get the highest voltage from the linking of the two larger plaques, right?

Write it down, boy. This is the most important data

(4) Guess the polarity of the selected charger's exposed wires.

Cut the negative cable longer, or paint it yellow, or anything you want. But make sure that the polarities of both the battery and the charger will be CLEAR to you. No mistakes are allowed.

CHARGING

(5) Start charging

OK, this is basically the same than charging your car's battery with a buzzing box (also called car battery charger).

ATTENTION: First, security for your battery: place some tape between the poles of the battery. The wires MUST NOT touch neither the protection circuit of the battery nor any other plaque beside the corresponding one

Connect and secure with tape the negative cable of the charger with the negative pole of the battery.

(6) OK. Now the battery is charging. During the first minute pay REALLY CAREFUL ATTENTION to the temperature of the battery. If it starts getting hot, Disconnect the positive cable (which you are supposed to keep in place) INMEDIATELLY, for it will continue to get hot for some seconds after disconnecting. This means that you guessed wrong a polarity. Anyways, now invert the cables (put each cable where the other was) and "Start from point (5)"

If after one minute the battery doesn't increase its temperature, you can secure the lose wire with tape and go get a drink or a hot dog.

Side note: There is a third possibility: you might have not connected both cables properly. The battery won't get hot, but it won't charge, either.

(7) After Thirty minutes, you should have enough charge as to power on your device.

Deattach the wires, remove the tapes (and any left over of tape filth or glue or whatever), reassemble the battery and secure it with tape. The original sticker is no longer dependable.

(8) If the PDA doesn't power on...

You probably didn't correctly connect the wires to the battery poles. Keep the wire-plaque assigment, just reconnect them, ONE AT A TIME. Other way you might mistake one for the other

Tip: The wires may be too thin and you might fail in connecting it with the plaques. Coil up some wire until you get a pellet forms at the end of the wire. The pellet won't miss the battery plaque as easily as the cable.

Sorry, now, go back to step 5.

(9) If the PDA did power on

¡Congratulations!

Cheers!