MacGyver Cell Phone Charging Hack

July 2, 2006 10:11 PM

MacGyver Cell Phone Charger Hack: I'm on vacation and stuck in the middle of suburbia in SoCal with: no car or any store nearby, a working Nokia charger that's useless to me, a Motorola cell phone (t720 pic) that is about to go dead, and sadly, no Motorola charger. Badly in need of charging this guy.

If we assume the voltage is close enough to work, how do I know which of the many pins need to connect to a neg/pos feed so I can try my luck at getting my Motorola phone charged, maybe with paper clips and some luck!?

posted by parma to technology (14 comments total)

it was this kind of thinking that lost my friend lenhart his '83 honda accord which we were driving through mexico. replacing miscellaneous fuses in your car with quarters is never a good idea. likewise, trying to jimmy paperclips into the charging slot of your phone is a non-good idea, for several reasons. namely - the paper clips are likely not rated to handle any appreciable current, and will get hot, melt your phone, and start a fire. ok, fine. maybe not that extreme. but it seems that the likelihood of damaging your phone is high. i recommend waiting until morning and purchasing a legit charger.
posted by casconed at 10:21 PM on July 2, 2006

When my phone dies I just make sure to call in to my voicemail. You can always call back from the landline. Don't know your situation though. But I agree trying to to make it work with paper clips and chewing gum is not a good idea.
posted by The Deej at 10:33 PM on July 2, 2006

Googling provides:

1) Motorola t720 pinout
2) Specifications for the charger of your t720
3) Output of Nokia chargers

Current needs aside, your phone needs 6 volts, around 400mA. Nokia chargers output 3.7volts, 340ma or so. Unless you have any transistors on hand, no. Or you could look for other household AC-DC adapters with similar output specifications as your phone.. and maaaybe try finding the positive and negative leads, and plugging them into your phone as the pinout directs. Although, as casconed above has commented, you might end up frying your phone. IANAElectricalEngineer.
posted by provolot at 11:01 PM on July 2, 2006

ebay or an online store. overnight shipping. bada bing.
posted by jne1813 at 11:02 PM on July 2, 2006

Turn your phone off to save battery power until tomorrow, when you can go to a mall or strip mall where there's a store for your service provider. If it's a relatively recent phone, they should have accessories for it.
posted by limeonaire at 11:13 PM on July 2, 2006

And yeah, you said there's no store nearby. But there has to be transportation of some sort there—a bus, or a cab, or friends you're visiting?
posted by limeonaire at 11:14 PM on July 2, 2006

Do you have a soldering iron handy?
posted by fake at 11:24 PM on July 2, 2006

Nokia chargers output 3.7volts, 340ma or so

The T720 uses a 3.6 volt battery. Assuming the Nokia outputs DC all you need to do is cut off the plug and wire it up to the battery terminals (the phone may not switch on unless the real battery is also connected, and wiring up both at the same time is tricky and possibly dangerous, but it works - I've done it on an old Siemens while stuck on a train and needing to call home).
posted by cillit bang at 11:28 PM on July 2, 2006

Call a cab.
posted by riffola at 11:46 PM on July 2, 2006

At my local 99cent store I bought a 60 min extra charge for my motorola. You can also get the same thing at office depot for five dollars
posted by zackdog at 12:25 AM on July 3, 2006

Try a hotel lost and found or a bar. You might find a bartender with a charger and even if you don't, well, you're at a bar.
posted by geekyguy at 12:49 AM on July 3, 2006

We recently spent a weekend at a hotel in NH. While checking in a man came up asking if they had found his cell phone charger he left in his room. Front desk woman said he would have to check with house keeping for his specific charger but then brought out a milk crate FULL with at least 100 different models/types of cell phone chargers that had been left over the years...might be worth a shot...
posted by Captain_Science at 2:51 AM on July 3, 2006

If the phone has a LiIon battery, wiring power directly to the battery itself will, well, possibly cause fire and explosion. And not like the BS boring stuff you read on alkaline batteries, we're talking explosions like this.
posted by shepd at 10:09 AM on July 3, 2006

I had this kind of issue when I was showing at Manayunk a few weekends ago. I'd always wondered what the hell the point was of those battery powered portable cell charger things. Now I know.

I bought three on eBay for under $20 and have one in my shoulder bag, one in my work/show truck and one in a drawer for when I inevitably lose one of the other ones.
posted by phearlez at 12:32 PM on July 3, 2006