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Friday, October 13, 2006

Add a USB port to your Cell Phone




First i want to say, i am not responsible for any damage to your phone, expressed or implied, simply because this is a diy tutorial. USE THIS TUTORIAL AT YOUR OWN RISK!

That being said, let's get on with it.

I want to thank pinouts.ru for having a vast amount of information regarding pinouts for many items. hopefully you will be able to find the information you need.
I also want to thank bitpim.org for having the software needed to access my phone. With it you can transfer your phone book, pictures, and even custom made ring tones, along with other stuff.

I did this hack for two reasons, first, i didnt want to buy a usb cable for my phone. call me "cheap" but i did not see a reason to spend $30-$50 on a cable that i wouldnt use that often. second, theres no reason for me to spend $15/month for internet access on my phone, when i am only spending $10/mo for service. but still i wanted the freedom to take pictures with the phone and still be able to get the pictures off of it.



What you will need:

  • a camera phone ( I used a Samsung A620/VGA1000)
  • a mini usb connector (pulled from a dummy Blackberry)
  • 80-pin ide cable(or other small wires)
  • solder, soldering iron
  • a little tape for insulation
  • dremel or something to cut the phone shell
  • magnifying glass or some way to make your soldering easier
  • a lot of patience, massive amounts
i had an old "dummy" Blackberry, you know, the "for display only" kind. so i took it apart and found many useful electronic items in it.

de-soldered the usb jack to use in my phone

then take a 80-pin ide cable, or whatever small wire you use for such projects, and strip the ends
carefully solder the wires to the jack. on mine i wanted to use the red wire as my the #1 pin for easier wiring, but when i double checked it, i wired it backwards, so now my red wire is the #4 wire.
once you get your usb cable ready we move to the fun part

you need to disassemble your phone and find a location to put the usb port. i think if you have an older phone it should be simple to find a spot. mine was in place of the carrying strap, which i really didnt need.


slowly cut out the space you need to install the usb port. take your time, especially if its the only phone you have. i was lucky that i had a second, non-working A620 i could try it on. just in case it didnt work i would still have a working phone.

heres a picture showing before and after the modification of the shell.

this is the fitting stage. keep trying to get the usb jack to fit. trim a little here and there, bend the tabs on the usb jack, just do what you have to to get it to fit. but keep in mind you want this phone functional when your finished. dont just get the usb jack to fit, you need to do a mock assemble, a "dry run", and put the phone back together to make sure everything still goes back together.


now as far a the phone goes, realize that everything is tiny, and to work on it you need tiny things. i had to modify my soldering tip (just used a wheel grinder on it) to work on this project.

this is why i ground it down. (those three connectors in the foreground connect to the battery pack), pretty tiny, eh


sorry about the pictures, its difficult to snap a clear shot while holding a magnifying lens.


it took me about an hour and a half to solder 4 wires. 1 1/2 hours! the reason is that i took my time. and this is what i found out that will help you out on yours:

put enough solder on the wire just to change its color. copper to silver. if you have a "blob", no matter what size, its too much. do this to all the wires before you start, because its a real pain trying to do it when some of the wires are already soldered


when you are finished connecting the wires, apply a little tape to help hold it in place and it help with insulation also. as you go to assemble everything take your time, you got this far, dont break something because youre rushing to get it back together.



i took this picture to show that it still functions. hope yours comes out just as nice or better


do more research:

  • find out all the information you can on your phone to see if its possible to do this
  • gather pinout information, schematic, diagrams or look for someone else that done it on your style phone
  • i found out that i needed a certain winXP driver for my phone to be recognized, do the same for yours
  • its always nice to have a backup, ask friends, family, coworkers if they have any non-working or unused phones that you can practice on before attempting modification on yours
  • as always -have fun!-


Click here to see how to get the same benefits without cutting up your phone

25 comments:

Ondra said...

What optics do you use to do the "macro" with circle around ? Is that old lens ripped off an old all-metal huge film camera like I did :) ?

computerguru365 said...

the lens i used is the "eyepiece" from the camcorder in the previous post -"DIY Infrared Security Camera"
i just held it up to my digital camera lens and had the camera set to "close-up" picture taking.

Anonymous said...

from the usb port, where on the circuit board u connect the other end?

Anonymous said...

in n6600 where do you connect the wire in the board inside the phoe??

computerguru365 said...

There are so many types of phones that if its not on pinouts.ru or cant be found with GOOGLE then you might want to get a different phone.
I just connected mine inside the phone on the "backside" of the connector- see pictures

teemoneyy said...

I am at a serious loss here...i have been tying to pull the pictures off my Samsung A620/VGA1000 off and on now for about 2 years...i have bitpim, and a USB, i have downloaded a driver that bitpim told me i would need but when i connect my phone it still tells me no phone is connected.So far you're the only one i've come across that might be able to help me and give me some acctual feedback. I was just wondering if you could help me out and tell me how you managed to synchronize you're phone to bitpim, or help me figure out what i have been doing so wrong. Thank you so much! i hope to hear back from you!

computerguru365 said...

@winsor23

give this page a look over and see if it helps you:

How to add Ringtones

-there should be some helpful info about communicating with your phone. I dont remember having any issues getting the picture off my phone but, if you need more help email me at my gmail address listed in my profile

teemoneyy said...

Okay Thank You so much..I'll work on it with that website you gave me, although you may be hearing from me through an email. If you wouldn't mind telling me where you got your USB? I just picked one up at radio shack for the time being..although i need to return it. haha it was quite pricy..and my family needs christmas gifts.

Anonymous said...

Do you know where I might get a wiring diagram for this phone model?

Anonymous said...

How can you tell what those abbreviations mean on pinouts.ru?



Like Dtr and stuff.

Unknown said...

sure is nice how the new samsungs come with data cables and have mass storage device modes so that you don't have to do this anymore. Example: SPH-M500

Anonymous said...

Whoa, cool, but why do this? Buy an iPhone and hack happy!

Anonymous said...

Hi dear,
Thanks for giving such useful information to mobile users. Can it be useful for all gsm mobile phones and do you not think that it need a expertise in this field?

Satellite Phones said...

This just made my day much brighter. Thanks a lot. Something else I across was this http://www.ustronics.com .Take a look!

Unknown said...

USB ports are necessary for synchronization with your phone. Adding a USB port might be difficult. Still you can get some useful help online.

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Anonymous said...


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Gadget said...

Wow! thats great, adding a USB to cell phone would be much convenient to transfer data instantly.


Mobile Phones

Jay Parmar said...

There are a few phones with usb connections on them and when I need a new phone I will only buy one with a usb connection. My cell phone, MP4 player and gps/pda all have usb connectivity without the proprietary adaptor. All of my vehicles have a usb charger in them so I can charge any of devices with same charger. If more people would only buy devices that can connect via usb without an adaptor the companies would stop making all the dumb proprietary connections. It is all about profit for the phone manufacturer and inconvenience for the consumer. My first question about every great new cell phone is, can it connect via usb without an adaptor? If the answer is "no" then it is not a great phone and I don't need the discuss any other details about that phone. Visit mobile phone recycling for more information.

Mobile AntiVirus said...

Thank you for post useful information of Add a USB port to your Cell Phone.

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