View the updated project log on my personal site, XodusTech.com As many of you know the Motorola Razr has a built in mini-usb jack. Allowing for standard cables to plug into the jack to transfer settings and to charge the phone. However some providors such as Verizon have locked the jack requiring that special drivers be used to allow the phone to charge when plugged into a computer. The reasoning behind this escapes me. This also means that if you bought a standard USB car charge adapter for other devices it will not work with the Razr. You have to purchase the charger specifically for the Razr. Since I own a horde of USB devices having a special charger for each device simply will not do. I recently was given a brand new wall charger for my phone, as such that opened up the idea of using the old charger as parts to build a car / universal charger for my phone. Read on to learn how I turn the Left into the Right Here is the completed cable, With standard usb plug on one end and mini-usb on the other Now you may be wondering, why not use a USB cable with these plugs on it already. And to answer that may take some explaining. If you simply input 5 volts into this Razr you will get an error stating "Unauthorized Charger". This is a problem since it complicates the way the phone charges. However something interesting that I found out about the usb cable coming from the wall charger is that it has 3 wires. Black (ground), Red (+5v), White... The function of which I can only guess was to authorize the wall charger for use with the phone. Interestingly enough if you simply connect the black and red wires to ground and a +5v source respectively the phone starts to charge and gives no error for "Unauthorized Charger". There is something about the cable that comes connected to the wall charger that is different than a regular mini-usb cable. My only guess is that two or more pins are connected on the end mini-usb plug to signal to the phone that the cable is authorized. Sort of a failsafe should the charger fail to signal. Simply cutting away the white wire is all you have to do. Now we can build a cable with a standard USB head to allow its use to charge on ANY desktop and ANY car usb charger. Neat huh? At the end you get the sweet success of the charging banner on the Razr. Note: In case you didnt read any of the text in the post and are wondering why I did this. It is because to use a standard USB-A to USB-MINI cable you need to install the Motorola Drivers on the host pc. If you tried to use the cable in the car, the phone would not charge. That is the purpose of this cable. To allow Universal Charging. Also this cable could be used to charge other devices with usb-mini jacks that charge via usb. Thanks for taking a look
Are you sure about that. Every single Razr. Because some of them produced by cingular (mainly GSM) do not require the drivers at all to charge. Keep in mind how extensively diverse the Razr line of phones are. Just one example is mine has a 1.3mpx camera. While the cingular version has a .3mpx camera.
I'm not completely sure, but my razr won't charge on my desktop at home without motorola phone tools installed and on my macbook pro it would charge when I plugged it into my mac when booted into os x but it wouldn't charge when booted into windows on the macbook pro until I installed the motorola software. ___________________________________________________ To make that more clear: Code: no drivers installed driver installed home built desktop running windows doesn't charge charges macbook pro booted into windows doesn't charge charges macbook pro booted into OS X charges N/A
Interesting info. What type of Razr do you have. Can you try to see if the phone charges when no os is booted at all. ie: at the post screen? If I get a chance I will try my phone out on a Mac and see if I can produce the same results.
I don't know what model it is. I will try it sometime soon on the screen that lets you select which drive you want to boot off of. (The mac doesn't really have a 'post' screen to speak of.)
Yeah, I second the notion of RAzr not charging on XP machine wiht out Phone tools. The PC would not see my phone, but did see a USB device and I didnt think about trying to charge it either, but I would have noticed the battery symbol flashing. After I got a hold of Phone tools and the drivers installed did it start charging. I have a cingular Razr.
Thanks I just wanted to thank you for your posting. Recently my verizon V3c (2 years old) started displaying "unauthorized charger" even though I am using the Motorola charger that came with it and has always worked. I cut back the insulation and saw red, black, and yellow wires. So I cut the yellow one and it works now! That was easy.
I wonder if this would work on my new Sanyo S1? It is pretty new to the US carriers and all I can find is a wall charger. Now I'm thinking again. John
I have the same problem you had. However, I have the origanal USB mini cable. Maybe I am not understanding what you did, but I have plugged my L6 into several gneric USB chargers and it does not work. It only works on my PC with the drivers running. I don't think the difference is just in the cable, else it would work in from any USB power source. Could please give more detail as to exactly what you did with the cables? Or with the 3rd white wire?
