Registered: Jul 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 75

Is Visorphone charger a hazard to my VDX ?

This may have been a coincidence, but, I was disconnecting my Visorphone charger, and bumped the connector into the bottom of the Visor, where it plugs in. The screen of the Visor got all these little squares all over it. So I attempted to turn the Visor off and on, no change. I did a soft reset, no change. I did a hard reset, and the little squares changed into a series of vertical bars. Tried another hard reset, and the bars went away. Took the batteries out for an hour or so, now nothing on the screen, or any sign of life. I had removed and reinstalled the Vphone at some point, but nothing seems to help. Is it dead ? Did the charger fry it, or was that a coincidence ? I'm without Visor AND cell phone now ! Arg !

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 216

Could be fried :(

If when you say "...and bumped the connector into the bottom of the Visor, where it plugs in." you mean that you partly removed the charger cable and then it reconnected to the Visor HotSync connector lined up as normal then I'd say that it was a coincedence.

But if you mean the you had the charger cable fully removed from the Visor, and when it slipped it bumped into the HotSync connector in a rotated fashion where some of the cable contacts made contact with the HotSync contacts on the Visor, but not in the normal pin alignment, then you likely fried the Visor.

This could happen because the charging voltage on one pin of the charging cable is about +6V. If this touched any other pin on the Visor side besides the VDOCK pin then the +6V could fry either the microprocessor or the USB chip (or both) in the Visor.

Sorry for the grim info. Hope your Visor is still under warranty.

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Conway SC USA
Posts: 92

I make it a habit to unplug from the wall first.

__________________
LARRY

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 75

My bad

I called Handspring tech support. After having me try a soft reset, they asked a silly question - had I replaced the batteries ? Of course not, they were still showing more than half charge the last time the thing worked. So I put in new batteries, and voila ! It's alive.

I'll take the advice of unplugging the charger before disconnecting it from the Visor though...

I'll also keep more batteries on hand !

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 216

D'oh!

quote:

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Originally posted by DirtyVicar
I called Handspring tech support. After having me try a soft reset, they asked a silly question - had I replaced the batteries ? Of course not, they were still showing more than half charge the last time the thing worked. So I put in new batteries, and voila ! It's alive.

I'll take the advice of unplugging the charger before disconnecting it from the Visor though...

I'll also keep more batteries on hand !

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 75

just my brain that was fried...