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This page is intended to consolidate the information about forcing fast charge mode on the Neos.

Why this may be necessary

By default, the Neos will only draw 100 mA of power from a USB connection.

If the Neo recognizes the connection as a "smart" USB connection (by communicating with the host about power availability) or as a standard Openmoko charger (by recognizing an expected resistance across two of the connectors) then it will switch into 'fast charge mode', drawing 500 mA or 1000 mA.

If the USB charger used is not properly signaling the phone its capacity to deliver 500 or 1000 mA, then you may (at your own risk) use this switch to force that mode (more details at http://quickstart.openmoko.org/#chargerdetection).

This switch is important, since the Neo almost always draws more than 100 mA to operate (I believe even while it's turned off, since the GSM stays powered up by default), so the battery will actually go dead while the Neo is charging!

Neo 1973

There are several ways of forcing fast charge mode:

  • From a terminal or ssh session, execute 'echo -n "fast_cccv" > /sys/devices/platform/s3c2410-i2c/i2c-adapter/i2c-0/0-0008/chgmode'
  • To add a uboot menu entry, see Bootloader commands

I have also written a python script to monitor for slow charge and automatically pop up a gui asking if you want to switch to fast charge. Here are instructions on installing the script.

Neo FreeRunner

The behaviour is pretty much the same as described above for the Noe 1973. There's also a 1000 mA mode for the Openmoko-provided wall charger. Please note, that the sys-fs path changed slightly. It is now /sys/devices/platform/s3c2440-i2c/i2c-adapter/i2c-0/0-0073/

See : GTA02_sysfs#.2Fsys.2Fdevices.2Fplatform.2Fs3c2440-i2c.2Fi2c-adapter.2Fi2c-0.2F0-0073.2Fforce_usb_limit_dangerous for a description of the "hack" on the register used to control power charge from the FR.

Using a script

Here's a nicely packaged battery level and charge state script

http://hdr.meetr.de/neo/openmoko/battery/battery_0.20080721_armv4t.ipk

or

User:Nytowl wrote a python script to control the fast charge states : Power Center.

Power Center allows you to force a Neo FreeRunner into Fast charge modes. It can damage your hardware so be careful with what its plugged into. I'm not responsible if you toast the USB port on your brand new laptop.

copy Power Center into /usr/bin and "chmod u+x /usr/bin/power_center"

copy Power Center Desktop fileinto /usr/share/applications

To enable fast 500 mA charge "touch /home/root/allow_force_500"

To enable fast 1000 mA charge "touch /home/root/allow_force_1000" I don't recommend using this one