iPhone compatibility

[scottjl]

hey all..

just put together two 1.2 kits, and neither will charge my iphone running the 1.02 firmware. both work fine with an ipod shuffle (gumstick), an aluminum nano, and a 5g video. they also charge up my motorola h700 earpiece as well as a ht820, and two nintendo ds's, and a sony psp. also powered my usb cooling fan just fine!

the r5 resistors are in "pull up". would it work if it was in "pull down"? would i lose the ability to charge other devices?

scott

[adafruit]

OK thanks for the feedback. im really confused as i've personally witnessed it charging this iphone my friend has. i will go back and see if i can figure out whats going on.

[tyler208]

Hi Ladyada,

First, I love the kit. My fiance and I put two together, one for her and one for me. We bot have iPods and iPhones and I thought this would be a good project to introduce her to soldering and electronics.

Your directions were great and she actually had fun (I, of course, had a great time since I normally like these kinds of projects).

However, all of our iPods work great with both minty boosts (both of which were soldered with R5 in the pullup position). Our iPods that we tested include a Shuffle and 2 80 Gig video iPods - all of which charge.

Unfortunately neither of our iPhones work. My iPhone has the most current update (v1.0.2) and hers has an older version (v1.0) since she has not updated her phone in a while.

We never added any extra resistors or LEDs to our minty boosts. Perhaps the one you tested had this feature and somehow that is why you had success charging your friends iPhone? Just a thought.

I hope you will post a solution soon since our iPhones have made our old iPods obsolete and the boosts were really intended for our phones (watching video on long flights mostly).

Nevertheless, great project. We had a lot of fun. If you would like to see a picture of our setup I'll post it to my blog at http://roboresource.blogspot.com/ within the next day or so. Thanks again for a great kit.

Tyler

[adafruit]

OK we did some more fiddling and here is what we determined

Sometimes it doesnt start charging if the iPhone is on and you plug it into the mintyboost. Half the time it did and half the time it didn't

But it seems like putting it to sleep (press the button on the top right corner so the screen goes black) and then plugging it in to the mintyboost will get it going.

So try doing that and let me know if that makes it work

[tyler208]

I tried your suggestion, and every other configuration I could think of, including powering both phones off and back on, plugging in while off, pluggin in while in sleep mode, pluggin in while on, and even rebooting entirely by holding down the power and home buttons. Nothing seems to work.

[scottjl]

I too tried all possible power configurations after your suggestion. None of them get the iPhone to charge. But one interesting finding. With the iPhone off (hold down power, swipe the red bar to turn off), when I plugged it into the boost, it turned the phone back on. It does this same behavior when I plug it into my Mac, though it also immediately starts charging as well.

So it's not that the iPhone doesn't notice there's power on the line, it simply doesn't seem to want to charge.

I'm using brand new standard alkaline batteries.

[skivvie]

Ditto to the above post... except plugging in the minty boost with the phone off does nothing.

It seems like the only variable here is battery type right? If we all have firmware 1.0.2, minty boost 1.2 with R5 in pullup... the batteries seem to be the only thing I can think of that we all might have different...

Bummer man. Finally bought the kit after seeing it was iPhone compatible. Great kit either way though!

[scottjl]

i thought of that and tried several different sets of brand-new batteries i had lying around as well as some nicad, lion and nimh rechargeable i have (all freshly charged). now i didn't try every power combination, but nothing seemed to get the iphone to want to charge, but all worked fine with my 5g ipod.

i don't think it's the minty at all but something with the iphone's firmware rejecting the power.

[Eleventeen]

check with the black probe at ground
the voltage AT each point should be 3V, not between

This is the first chance I've had to check since I got back home.

Both of the middle pins when measured to ground get .26 volts. I have a feeling I've messed up something but I've rechecked my solder points several times over now.

I tried the recommendations and get the same results as everyone else. I've tried three different brand of alkalines (including the blingy titanium ones) as well as rechargables and got the same results. I think it's more a problem with the individual iPhones than the Boost itself seeing as how I have no problems charging anything else including my new Jawbone, (which works awesome, btw.)

Speaking of which...just something to corroborate the theory...the Jawbone uses a USB charging cable that plugs into a wall wart type block, much like the iPhone, but the Jawbone block doesn't charge the iPhone either. I'm betting that there's some digital voodoo going on that is preventing this.

[davehuber]

I appreciate any help offered:

I built MintyBoost and it all checks out on the meter. 5V across the outide pins, 3V on the inside pins.

Unfortunately, iPhone totally ignores MintyBoost.

If i turn the iPhone off , plugging it in will "wake it up" but it does not charge, and will go back to sleep after a little while.

I tried R5 in Pullup, and Pulldown and off, without any effect.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

VERY cool device. I have lots of little gizmos that charge off USB and I am really looking forward to using MintyBoost on long trips.

Thanks,

Dave

[erth64net]

Has anyone tried this yet:
http://www.boxwave.com/promotions/iphon ... /index.htm

[adafruit]

good find. this implies its fixable and its something simple. ill go to j&r and do some retail reconnaissance

[skivvie]

Awesome! Looking forward to your findings.

[redknight4545]

My Solution:

Leave R5 as a pull-up resister (2.5v).
Change R4 to pull-up to the 5v line, not the 2.5v line.
my iphone will then begin to charge this way.

I haven't tested it with any other devices.
My guess is that it would still work for other devices.

[adafruit]

My Solution:

Leave R5 as a pull-up resister (2.5v).
Change R4 to pull-up to the 5v line, not the 2.5v line.
my iphone will then begin to charge this way.

I haven't tested it with any other devices.
My guess is that it would still work for other devices.

cool! let me try it out...it sounds very promising. ill report back today