Charger/Power supply only detected in USB mode @Archos JR ??

[ta]

Hi,
Since a few months I have charging problems with my AJR.

With almost empty batteries, the device is unable to boot to the installed Rockbox 2.4, which is installed on the HDD and flashed. The solution which had worked until now was to start the AJR with F1+ON, and quickly connecting the charging cable after that, which resulted in booting the original Archos firmware. In that mode the AJR could charge its batteries until they where full or at least full enough for booting Rockbox.

But now it seems that these problems have reaches a new level...

When the batteries are almost totally empty.
In "normal" mode, starting the device with F1+ON and connecting the charger lets the Archos firmware screen appear. The status bar is filled until the 4th field, then suddenly the boot screen of Rockbox appears.

After that
- Sometimes the HDD spins up, then the directory screen appears, displaying a message "battery charging". But it seems that the charger is not detected, the plug icon in the status bar is missing. The backlight is flickering, then slowly disappearing. After a while, the display is fading away, only leaving the green LED on. Sometimes

-Sometimes it seems that the HDD doesn't spin up. The device hangs on the Rockbox boot screen, backlight flickering and disapperaing. After that the display fades away. I managed to display a debug screen. The voltage started at 3.5 V and decreased in short steps to ~3V, then the display had faded completely...

But i didn't gave up.

I started the unit with holding F1+ON, and added the charging cable quickly. I waited until the 4th field of the AJR charging screen was filled, and then I established an USB connection very fast...

RESULT: AJR in USB mode (Archos FW) and charging its batteries!

 

only problem: Laptop displayed a problem with USB mass storage device.

After a while I finally decided to unplug and re-plug the USB connector.

Result: Boot screen of Rockbox appeared, and Rockbox switched immediately back to USB mode after reconneting to USB and continued charging the batteries. I suppose that the device used some of the power previously charged by the Archos FW...

And: The AJR appeared as HDD in Windows Explorer!

The good thing is: The AJR can be recharged and used as a portable HDD, and probably as a portable player.

Problem: I need a full functional USB connection to a real host (PC) to recharge very empty batteries?! That's a bad thing because I sometimes use the device standalone on parties or on holiday trips. So it should be possible to recharge it without having to use a laptop or something...

Has anybody an idea how to solve that problem?

Is it the hardware or the software?

Could an upgrade to Rockbox 3.1 (from 2.4) solve it?

Is it a problem to flash rockbox and have an additional installation on the HDD?




Upgrades of my AJR: 120 GB Fujitsu HDD, 4x Sanyo Eneloop Batteries

[dreamlayers]

I have a V2 Recorder.  I installed Rockbox in ROM (by flashing BootBox and then a custom RomBox build).  If I plug in the charger (not USB but the round plug), Rockbox starts from ROM and goes to the charging screen, without spinning up the hard drive.  This uses very little power so it can run even if the battery is very low.

You could experience the FS#7631 bug but charging should work regardless.

Even if batteries are so low that you cannot charge, you can always remove them and charge them in an external charger.

I wonder if you are having problems with the battery connectors.  The wiki has repair instructions.