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Warning! Don't use Firewire charger.

millerrh said:
Wow! Great explanation. Makes a lot of sense.

But Dylan, you bring up a good point as well. Would Apple really design the iPhone (or any iPod with the standard connector) to be damaged by older power supplies? I would doubt it. That would be horrible negligence on their part. But they do specify "USB power" in the manual. So you never know.
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I don't know that I would consider it negligence. All iPods have been able to charge/sync via USB some also do Firewire. Since there the dock and many 3rd party peripherals use the standard Dock connector it made sense to stay with that connector and since every new iPod comes only with a USB cable they might have figured that that should be a clue to not use a firewire cable/interface.

I'm not saying that it was designed not to be able to do Firewire but it might not have even been considered. Of course it could just be a standard rate of failure as well. Until Apple officially releases documentation that says a FireWire charger is OK, I'd probably avoid it just to be safe. Of course I only have a 4G iPod (one of the last to still include a FW interface) so it makes no difference to me.

Ideally the USB only connector should have some sort of keying that would make it impossible to hook to a FW dock cable but not vice-versa so that older FW compatible devices can use the new cable but new non-FW devices can't plug into the older cables for their protection. But of course then people would complain that their older USB cables don't work...
 
atszyman said:
I don't know that I would consider it negligence. All iPods have been able to charge/sync via USB some also do Firewire. Since there the dock and many 3rd party peripherals use the standard Dock connector it made sense to stay with that connector and since every new iPod comes only with a USB cable they might have figured that that should be a clue to not use a firewire cable/interface.

I'm not saying that it was designed not to be able to do Firewire but it might not have even been considered. Of course it could just be a standard rate of failure as well. Until Apple officially releases documentation that says a FireWire charger is OK, I'd probably avoid it just to be safe. Of course I only have a 4G iPod (one of the last to still include a FW interface) so it makes no difference to me.

Ideally the USB only connector should have some sort of keying that would make it impossible to hook to a FW dock cable but not vice-versa so that older FW compatible devices can use the new cable but new non-FW devices can't plug into the older cables for their protection. But of course then people would complain that their older USB cables don't work...
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I guess I'm using the term negligence loosely. What I mean is that at my company (electronics packaging) if we made a product that used the same connector as another product and product A's accessory could damage product B, we'd be in trouble. We will always use a different connector or provide some sort of keying or provide some sort of fuse or hardware trick that would be able to handle the fault conditions without damaging the board. Apple deals with customers that are much more prone to do stupid things than our target customer so I would imagine they have to be even more careful about these types of things.
 
millerrh said:
I guess I'm using the term negligence loosely. What I mean is that at my company (electronics packaging) if we made a product that used the same connector as another product and product A's accessory could damage product B, we'd be in trouble. We will always use a different connector or provide some sort of keying or provide some sort of fuse or hardware trick that would be able to handle the fault conditions without damaging the board. Apple deals with customers that are much more prone to do stupid things than our target customer so I would imagine they have to be even more careful about these types of things.
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I can see that being a problem but given the market penetration of USB and the small likely hood that people will be using FW on their iPhones, considering you cannot sync via FW. Apple may have made the decision that the component price for the less tolerant components would offset the repair/replacement costs for the few iPhones that didn't work with the FW cable. I'm guessing that there is probably some sort of fuse setup on the board that would prevent any massive damage to the phone but I wouldn't put it past Apple or any company to leverage existing hardware by using the same connector but reduce cost by going to lower tolerance components.
 
I find that my iPhone CPU is easier to overclock when I charge it with the firewire cable, plus I get faster speeds on EDGE as well.

Now that you've called BS (since I completely made that up), the difference might actually be those using a wall-based firewire charger compared to one that is hooked to a laptop firewire connection. I've used my firewire cable to charge before, but it's hooked to the desktop Firewire port, which may be more tightly regulated to 12V compared to a wall wart that puts out an unloaded 30V+ until enough current it drawn to drop the circuit down to 12V.

Active Power Regulation FTW!
 
The dock connector has different pins for the +5V from the USB adapter, and the +12V from the Firewire adapter. See this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector

Since the Firewire adapters do charge the iPhone (I use mine daily), the iPhone must be able to charge from EITHER pin.

All current Dock connector iPods can also be charged from either adapter (not sure about the ones < 3G and USB...).

I would assume the auto adapters with built in doc adapters use the +12V firewire pins, since that is the native voltage in US cars. Maybe they use the +5V pins also. it probably depends on your auto adapter.

YMMV, but my experience has been that both USB and Firewire adapters work fine, and should not cause any problems, since Apple would not have wired up the +12V connector in the iPhone if it wasn't OK to charge from it...
 
aross99 said:
The dock connector has different pins for the +5V from the USB adapter, and the +12V from the Firewire adapter. See this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector...
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Well based on that I rescind my comments about being wary. If it was as simple as not hooking up the 12V pin, or routing it to nowhere on the circuit board then there is no reason that a FW adapter should cause any harm to an iPhone. If it wasn't able to handle 12V then Apple really f'd up by routing that pin anywhere.
 
aross99 said:
The dock connector has different pins for the +5V from the USB adapter, and the +12V from the Firewire adapter. See this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector

Since the Firewire adapters do charge the iPhone (I use mine daily), the iPhone must be able to charge from EITHER pin.

All current Dock connector iPods can also be charged from either adapter (not sure about the ones < 3G and USB...).

I would assume the auto adapters with built in doc adapters use the +12V firewire pins, since that is the native voltage in US cars. Maybe they use the +5V pins also. it probably depends on your auto adapter.

YMMV, but my experience has been that both USB and Firewire adapters work fine, and should not cause any problems, since Apple would not have wired up the +12V connector in the iPhone if it wasn't OK to charge from it...
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So if this is the established pinout and it doesn't change at all, why is it that sometimes line out works with some accessories on the iPhone and with other accessories it does not? Apple has done something fishy with this phone.
 
millerrh said:
So if this is the established pinout and it doesn't change at all, why is it that sometimes line out works with some accessories on the iPhone and with other accessories it does not? Apple has done something fishy with this phone.
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Those who don't work are probably vastly in the minority and it may simply be a standard component failure rate. Basing any type of number of failures analysis based on how many post problems on the internet is sketchy. Most satisfied customers, or people that it just works for don't usually post, write blogs about it or see out the claims to disprove them.
 
atszyman said:
Those who don't work are probably vastly in the minority and it may simply be a standard component failure rate. Basing any type of number of failures analysis based on how many post problems on the internet is sketchy. Most satisfied customers, or people that it just works for don't usually post, write blogs about it or see out the claims to disprove them.
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Actually, many accessories just don't work. Like the Belkin Auto Kit.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=149006

I think something is designed differently between accessories and/or iPhone and iPods that causes some accessories to not work. I still would like to figure out what it is though. Cause it makes no sense to me why some line-out accessories properly port the audio out and some to not.
 
millerrh said:
Actually, many accessories just don't work. Like the Belkin Auto Kit.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=149006

I think something is designed differently between accessories and/or iPhone and iPods that causes some accessories to not work. I still would like to figure out what it is though. Cause it makes no sense to me why some line-out accessories properly port the audio out and some to not.
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My bad, I thought you were talking about the FW charging, not 3rd party accessories.

Another dock pinout

It could be that some accessories use the TX or FW data ports for getting audio out of the iPod/iPhone and that these are the ones that don't work. I was unable to find any information on the iPhone dock pinout to see what might be different.
 
millerrh said:
Actually, many accessories just don't work. Like the Belkin Auto Kit.
Click to expand...

Well, if you go to the BAK threads, there is one (I'm not looking it up for you) that points to older models of the BAK working, but newer models not working. Belkin claims that there has been no change...

Anyway, back to the task at hand. The difference between the FW and USB adapters is interesting in that how does that play with the travel chargers? My BAK was purchased when Apple was still using FW for syncing, but now gets used for my 5G. There was never any announcement that the older accessories shouldn't be used with the 5G, so I would imagine that the power differences must be compensated for.

Actually, not that I think about it, I wonder if there was a design change that Belkin isn't considering, and that the FW BAKs will line out audio while the USB BAKs won't....
 
My iPhone doesn't charge with firewire. I find it hard to believe it would cause damage. It would be extremely stupid on Apple's part to design a dock connector that can plug into an iPhone but might damage it because its firewire and not USB.
 
skubish said:
My iPhone doesn't charge with firewire. I find it hard to believe it would cause damage. It would be extremely stupid on Apple's part to design a dock connector that can plug into an iPhone but might damage it because its firewire and not USB.
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I wonder if this depends on what Firewire cable you have...there was a time that iPods were Firewire ONLY right? Then there was a time that they were USB AND firewire. Maybe these second cables are able to charge iPhones but the first ones are not.
 
Don't use Firewire Charger

I believe the original post stands correct. For the first time I didn't have my USB iphone charger, and i choose to use my firewire wall adapter charger. Wall -> Firewire cable -> iPhone. (From 3G iPod)

Bad idea. My iphone got really hot. Hot to touch.. close to probably 50 celcius on the back of it. Didn't charge either. I'm sure it messed up the internals as it didn't fully charge for a while. I had to drain the iphone battery and do a normal charge with the iPhone wall charger. Battery is now half life.

I'm not sure how I can explain to Apple so I can get this fixed / repaired / replaced with out me shelling out. Suggestions are welcome.

Again. Don't risk it. Use the USB iphone charger.
 
lawgraphix said:
I believe the original post stands correct. For the first time I didn't have my USB iphone charger, and i choose to use my firewire wall adapter charger. Wall -> Firewire cable -> iPhone. (From 3G iPod)

Bad idea. My iphone got really hot. Hot to touch.. close to probably 50 celcius on the back of it. Didn't charge either. I'm sure it messed up the internals as it didn't fully charge for a while. I had to drain the iphone battery and do a normal charge with the iPhone wall charger. Battery is now half life.

I'm not sure how I can explain to Apple so I can get this fixed / repaired / replaced with out me shelling out. Suggestions are welcome.

Again. Don't risk it. Use the USB iphone charger.
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Play dumb. "All I did was charge it and the battery is at half life. It wont charge any more"

and IF they ask if you used a firewire charger... "What's firewire?"

Trust me, they wont want to spend the time explaining it to you. ;)
 
It could be that some of the batteries don't respond well to being charged at 12V for some reason. But that should mean that any car charger would fail to work on it -- they all charge at 12V, AFAIK, via the same pin as firewire.

FWIW mine seems to charge fine with a 3G iPod's FW charger....
 
I think the OP said not to use firewire with car charger.

Apple firewire wall charger (from an old iPod) works fine for my iPhone.
 
Right, at first, I was going to write it off as a bad car charger or a really high voltage output on the cigarette lighter adapter in the car. But looking at other posts, there are a few people who've had wonky experiences with a FW charger block straight from Apple, which should not be susceptible to those issues. That's why I speculated that maybe certain batteries complain when they get charged at 12V....

AFAIK, the iPhone is not stepping down incoming voltage. The voltage as it's received is applied to the battery to charge it. So it becomes really a matter of whether the battery can be charged at 12V or 14V or whatever, more than anything else.
 
It shouldn't really be an issue with warranty. Unless it states somewhere in the documentation to not use with firewire chargers.

It's a good thing I stumbled on this post though because I was about to use my firewire charger from my old ipod, lol.
 
loudestnoise said:
I just don't understand why people would even use Firewire chargers. It makes no sense. I have both USB and Firewire from iPods, but I don't understand why you would even try it.
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I use my FW charger as an extra charger at the office. I have it used it many times with no issues whatsoever.
 
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