[GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD/Palm Touchstone-No soldering on phone!!

[ohiomoto]

WARNING: This mod requires you to partially disassemble your phone. By doing so you may cause damage and/or void your warranty. It it unknown what would happen if you used the USB cable while the phone is charging on the touchstone. I'm not responsible for what you do to your phone.

Just finished the mod and it was so EASY!! No permanent modifications or soldering on the phone was required and the mod can easily be reversed.

This modification allows you to charge your Galaxy Nexus on a Palm Touchstone charger in any orientation, in the car, in the office, by the bedside. Just place the phone on the Touchstone and it will charge. The phone is held in place by magnets (not yet known if this will interfere with NFC). When it's done charging, just grab it and go! The battery door is fits perfect and remains removable and because there are no wires involved there is no wear and tear on the phone's USB port which means it won't be broken when you need to root and ROM it! Ha, ha...

Note: If you don't feel comfortable taking the phone apart, you can make a nice stand by just adding the magnets to the back cover.

The Guide
Tools:
Screwdriver
Guitar picks
Razer blade and scissors
Soldering iron and solder (I promise we wont be soldering on the phone!)

Parts:
Palm Touchstone Charging Dock
Palm Pre AC USB Wall Adapter + Palm PRE Charging USB 2.0 Data Cable
Palm Pre Touchstone Back Cover
Copper Foil Tape (Conductive Adhesive): 1/4 in. x 36 yds. or look HERE for more copper tape or HERE.
Rare earth magnets (optional but strongly recommended!)
Double sided tape

Note: nsurg found the magnets and tape on eBay for less than I paid. (Most of us don't need 36 yds. of copper tape.) I would also recommend calling VZW for the Palm items. If they have them they will FedEx them to you and bill your account. Might be worth the phone call if the price it right.

BEFORE YOU START!!
Please review this guide and the links:
High WAF Inductive Charging Mod -- Awesome, must see! I did two Fascinates using this guide with a slight change to the soldering point on the usb port. (You have to solder on the right side.)
Samsung Galaxy Nexus Teardown -- We only need to get to step 6. Not too difficult, but you'll need those guitar picks. I got mine for a couple of bucks at a local music store.
Galaxy Nexus inductive charging mod -- Fenris_Ulf is that man! After seeing the iFixit teardown back in November, I knew this mod was going to be easy and safe. But, I didn't know which pin to inject the power too. Now I do and I didn't have to buy a dock to find out. Nice!
Other helpful tips and information found this thread -- If anyone has more to add, I'll either put that information in the gid or link you post in this link to post #4. And don't forget, a picture is worth a thousand words.

EDIT: Qubex has posted a link to a thread that will possibly get the Galaxy Nexus charging in AC mode when placed on the touchstone. http://forums.androidcentral.com/ve...ithout-soldering-post1629818.html#post1629818

Okay, lets get started.

First, remove the conductive coil from the Palm Pre battery cover. It will peal off, but be careful that you don't damage the coil. You've saw the High WAF video, you can do it like he did but I found it easier to use a thin piece of plastic that I cut out of some packaging. Just work it under the stickers and coil. Take your time. You don't want to mess this up. Also, you will notice a small piece of black foam near the bottom of the cover. We will be using that later.

Next, place the battery cover (you can used the extend battery & door or the stock battery & door) on the Touchstone and use the magnets to hold it in place. Center the door side to side. The camera hole should be right at the edge of the Touchstone. Just slide the door around and the magnets will align themselves.

NOTE: Because the battery door on the Galaxy Nexus isn't rubberized like the Palm door, and because I'm going to use my phone with a car dock, I'm using the stronger magnets here. The stronger magnets will pull to different parts of the charger depending on which side you place down. Mine are placed towards the out edge of the charger, but you can use either side. If you place them closer together make sure you still have room to place the coil in the center. This isn't an issue with the standard metal discs Palm used.

EDIT: Also notice that I am using the extended battery door. I used a razor-blade to trim some of the plastic "ridge" that runs right below the camera opening and between the two upper magnets. I did this so that it does not crush the charging coil. This is not needed on the stock door.

Next, remove two magnets but leave the other two in place so that they will hold the door where you want it. Now place a piece of double sided tape on the door and then put the magnets back in place. The tape will help keep the magnets from sliding around.

Repeat on the other side and then put some tape down the middle to help hold the coil against the door.

NOTE: If using the stronger magnets, be careful not to flip them over when you remove them so the go back on the way you had them. Also, because the stronger magnets are placed further apart, they don't fit under the original sticker like the stock ones did. As you will see below, I used a piece of electrical tape to cover them.

EDIT: For extra holding power add 4 additional magnets (not the Palm discs) the the battery cover as pictured below.

Now put the coil in place and press everything down tight.

EDIT: Notice that I trimmed the sides of the Palm sticker so that it doesn't interfere with the installation of the door.

Works!

Now we need to remove the back cover. First remove the six screws on the back. Then, using the guitar picks slowly work the edges of the back cover away from the glass. BE VERY CAREFUL SO YOU DON'T CRACK THE GLASS!!!! DO NOT PRY ON THE GLASS!!! The class will "pop" right out when you get enough of the back cover pulled away with the picks. Not hard at all really, but take your time.

You can see the three contact points here. We will use the two outside pins.

Place the tape on the contacts of the back cover. You want the adhesive side down here.

IMPORTANT!!! Flip the cover over and trim the sides of the tape as shown. You don't want the extra tape hitting something it shouldn't!! When you are done you can put the phone back together, but keep the the battery cover off.

Note: If you plan on using a dock that uses the pins, you might want to consider cutting back the tape a little and putting a dab of solder on these. The adhesive side of the tape is not as conductive as the foil side. This could cause issues with the dock (or it might not). The solder connection will eliminate this potential issue. Keep in mind if you do solder here, you could still remove the solder with
desoldering wire if you need to. Or you could replace the back cover. I DID NOT solder mine because the foil side of the tape is in contact with the board and that's all we need to charge.

EDIT: Another idea I have is to simply fold the tape here so that the conductive side of the tape will be sandwiched between the contacts when the phone is reassembled. See picture below.

Wrap the tape around the battery opening of the cover. Flip it over get the black foam bit we left on the back of the Palm door. Cut it in half and put one piece on each tab.

EDIT: I found that 3M automotive trim tape works well here.

Now press the tape the rest of the way down and trim off the excess tape.

Now we need to finish the back cover. Place a piece of double sided tape on the side of the phone next to the contacts we just made. Then place two pieces of copper tape with the adhesive side facing up. Use the double sided tape to hold the ends in place.

Now put the battery cover on and wrap the tape on to the back of the cover. We want the copper tape to stay with the cover, not the phone.

Now remove the cover. It should look something like this. The top piece of tape is the ground and the bottom is positive.

While holding the end of the tape in place, peal it back and stick it to the charging coil tab leaving a little room to solder the joint. Then trim the tape.

Note: We need to solder this or else we won't get enough current to charge the phone due to the adhesive on the back side of the tape.

Still works!

Now put the back cover on. Always slide the bottom tabs in first (don't snap them in) and then work up the sides and finish at the top. The cover should fit perfect and if all went well your Galaxy Nexus will charge while on the Touchstone!

Note: It can take up to 10 seconds or more before the phone shows that it's charging. Be patient.

To undo the mod, just pull the coil and tape off the battery door and remove the copper tape from the phone.


Car Dock
This is a great way to keep your battery topped off or charge it while you are driving. You won't have to deal with wires, clips etc. If you need the phone just grab it. When your done hold the phone up to the dock and the magnets will line it up. You'll do this easily with one hand and without having to take your eyes off of the road. With the stronger magnets in place, it stays put even over bumps and rough roads. I've also tested with the standard magnets. It never fell off, but I never felt as comfortable.

Note: The car mounted Touchstone was able to stay ahead of battery drain and charge the battery with my Palm while driving even when adding the hotspot to Pandora and navigation. I hope it works with the GN, but wonder if the thirsty LTE radio might have other ideas. Worse case it that you plug the USB cord directly in the phone on long trips. I'll update this as I gain more information.

EDIT: This mod charges the phone at USB rate. My phone gains about 15-20% per hour in the car while using streaming Pandora with Bluetooth. The key here is that the screen is off most of the time. If I add navigation with the screen on to the mix. the Touchstone can not keep up. If I turn the screen off (instructions still go through BT) it will charge. So the key seems to be screen time. On longer trips or if my battery is really low and I need a quick charge, I simply plug the USB cord into the phone while and leave it docked on the Touchstone. My Palm car charger will charge the phone at the AC rate when plugged directly into the phone.

EDIT: Qubex has posted a link to a thread that will possibly get the Galaxy Nexus charging in AC mode when placed on the touchstone. http://forums.androidcentral.com/ve...ithout-soldering-post1629818.html#post1629818 [/B

Also, be aware that the Touchstone can get really, really hot mounted on your dash board during the summer months. If it gets two hot, it will not charge your phone correctly until it cools off. The phone will bounce back and forth between charging and not charging every couple of seconds. I've found that it helps to cover the Touchstone with something so it won't soak up all of the suns rays while I'm at work. I hang a baseball cap on mine and crack my windows slightly and does the trick. (A big thanks goes out to acaplinger for bring this point up!)

Parts:
Palm Vehicle Power Charger
Palm Touchstone Charging Dock

EDIT: The rate of charging can be increased from USB to AC with Franco's Kernel.

For those of you wanting to charge at AC speeds instead of USB, Fast Charge Mod is here!

1) Install Franco Kernel (Milestone 1)
2) Run this script to activate it from the terminal (minus quotes): "echo 1 > /sys/kernel/fast_charge/force_fast_charge"

To turn off:

echo 0 > /sys/kernel/fast_charge/force_fast_charge

Click to view quoted image


Source: USB Fast Charge mod - xda-developers
Franco Kernel: [KERNEL][GPL][5 MAR - #M1] franco.Kernel | 4.0.3/4 | 1,35GHZ | COLOR/SOUND CONTROL - xda-developers

Mods, feel free to move this if you need to.

 

[Cyber Warrior]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

What exactly did you do? Pictures are too small to see what's going on there..

 

[sleepysurf]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

That would be tres' cool, but I don't see how it's feasible without totally violating the phone warranty.

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

This space will be reserved for additional information and links to other helpful posts and threads.
EDIT: Most recent post are now listed first.

I got some aluminum ducting tape from Home Depot since nobody local had copper tape. Everything works great, no issues. I looked up the conductivity of aluminum and it's just as good, if not better, than copper. But it's banned for use in wires in the US because it's oxide is not conductive, and actually applies a resistance which could start a fire in a home. Copper's oxide IS conductive, so it's good to go.

Either way, your aluminum should be fine.

I'm using 8 magnets, and I've used a dremel tool to get rid of much of the ridging on the extended battery cover. The back cover now fits as though I hadn't stuffed the coil in there. However, the magnets are so powerful that they will pull the entire back cover off when removing the phone from the Touchstone. I'm not sure if I got a loose fitting back cover or what, because even if I remove the battery to make sure that the cover goes on like normal, the magnets still rip it off. I think I may just get a thin case.

I haven't gotten past that point, however; I just can't get the back off of my phone. I removed all six screws (110% unequivocally, never-been-so-sure-of-anything-else-in-my-life, positive there are no screws left) and used all of my guitar picks around the edge of the glass-- it still won't budge. How are you guys getting the back cover off? D:

I just used a razor blade shave the ridges off the back cover. I also had problems with the back cover pulling off the with the 8 magnets. I replaced the cover and that solved the problem.

As for removing the glass, you need to work the picks around the edges. Try sliding them around the edges a little. You should feel the back "un-clipping" from the glass as you go. Once you've loosened enough it it, it will just "release" from the glass with very little effort.

And remember, Google is your friend. Look what I found:
Samsung Galaxy Nexus full disassembly tutorial (English version) - YouTube

I went and bought more guitar picks today. I had to put 14 of them in before it finally popped out.

I was originally just going to go with the wire hard-soldered method and skip the copper tape all together, but I decided to give the tape method a try anyway. I put a couple dabs of solder on the back case connections so I can still use the pogo pins (although I don't know if I ever will). Worked problem-free on my first try.

To solve the battery-cover-getting-pulled-off problem, I got a somewhat slim-fitting case. Normally I don't care for cases, but this one is rather unobtrusive. It has a few properties that I like. First, it prevents my batter cover from getting ripped off. Second, it is slim enough that any reduction in magnet strength is negligible. Third, the case's material provides a bit of extra friction against the Touchstone to further prevent sliding. As a cherry on top, it adds that bit of extra protection for the phone as well.

Thanks for the guide!

I found that if I could get 5.6V when just the back cover with inductive coil is on the touchstone and it wouldn't charge my phone, then it was the cable/wall plug that was the problem. Also another area that I can see causing problems is the contact between the battery door and the copper tape on the phone. I actually rolled up a piece of double died tape and that provided enough force to keep the pieces of copper tape in contact.

Sent from my Acer Iconia A500 using Tapatalk 2

Wanted to mention to everyone, I tried out spraying my rear cover with Plastidip and it's awesome.

For those that don't know, Plastidip basically sprays rubber. So I put a few coats on the back of battery cover and it grips to the Touchstone incredibly solidly and it gives it a nice matte black finish.

Best part of Plastidip: Don't like it or scratch it somehow? Just peel it off. The coating bonds ONLY to itself and nothing else, so you can just peel it off the cover and it'll look good as new.

So I know this is buried and you most likely will not see this, but anyways....

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

This mod is absolutely incredible. It took me an hour and a half to implement and I am very satisfied with the results. The only thing I had to do a little differently was add some solder to the tape on the inside of the battery cover to ensure contact was maintained with the base (See here). Also, I lined up the copper leads while I had the enclosure off of the phone, it made it a lot easier (I didn't get a pic of this, sorry).

...now what to do with this extra 8m of Copper tape...

Ok. I have some more useful tech data to add. This is for folks who want to be able to use Force Fast Charging (FFC) or AKA AC Charging mode on the touchstone in their cars primarily. But it also applies to people trying to use non-OEM wall chargers as well.

Ok so I am not sure where to begin this rant so I will just word vomit it out. If you want to use the Touchstone in your car the charger/cable you use is important depending on which charging mode you want to utilize.

Background info:
The TS needs more current to function than a lot of chargers can provide - which is why they tell you not to plug it into your computer and why it won't work with a lot of chargers. I am going to tell you why and how to work around or avoid the problem. If you do not have enough current to the Touchstone it will do a weird on/off/on/off dance. The touchstone looks for a charger/cable combination that indicates the data pins D+ and D- are shorted together - this is used by the USB Spec to indicate a charger that is capable of providing >500 mA. If you do not have this, then the touchstone will not work at all. This is done internally for the OEM Palm Chargers. If you have an amperage-capable charger you can short the pins together yourself and it will work ***however*** it depends on which mode you want to charge with. There are two modes, USB Mode (slow - ~ 450 mA to phone - sometimes inadequate) and AC Mode (fast ~ 650 mA to phone - much better but not as good as a good car or wall charger plugged in directly ~1000mA).

If you are just wanting to charge your phone in USB Mode on the TS: my 850 mA Motorola Car Charger is adequate. I am guessing that you need at least a 650 mA rated charger. Remember it must have D+ and D- shorted to work at all.

If you desire to use AC Mode on the TS: You need a charger capable of 1A. My 850 mA Moto Car Charger just causes the TS to on/off/on/off every few seconds. Remember even if the charger is rated for 1A it must have D+ and D- shorted to work at all.

Here is a list from the WebOS forums that lists working CAR and WALL chargers for the TS: Here

For my Car TouchStone -I have purchased the Palm Car Charger 3453ww which is 1000ma rated from Amazon for $12. This already has D+ and D- shorted internally. Here @ Amazon Plus its OEM so quality of the power delivered will most likely be much cleaner.

I hope this is useful to folks who can't get it working in their car especially with the FFC (AC MODE) mod going. If you're seeing an on/off dance with the touchstone you are using an inadequate car/wall charger.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to the OP and the rest of the folks in this thread. I was able to successfully complete this mod.

The biggest difficulty I had was making sure that the battery cover came into good contact with the phone. If you put it all together and it's not working, definitely check your connections one piece at a time. I found out the hard way that the copper tapes inside the phone weren't as solid as they should be so I had to take apart the phone again.

Here are some additional hints to try to help out other folks, esp the more novice electronics folks:

• Learn to use the continuity function of your multimeter to make sure all of your tapes and connections are good.
• Before putting the phone back together, test your copper tape connections by using the continuity function. The easiest way is to put one probe on the appropriate external pogo pin on the outside of the back cover and the other probe on your copper tape where it's wrapped around to the other side. This will ensure you don't have to take apart your phone again.
• Also before putting the phone back together, put together the battery cover (with the inductive coil already installed) with the back cover and use the continuity function to check that you have one continuous circuit from the pogo pin all the way to the inductive coil.
• The foam suggestion is pretty important. Go ahead and use half of the foam for each tape. I do wish I had more foam to use on the battery cover side and automotive foam is pretty expensive so I just ended up winging it with some extra folded bits of copper tape instead. That doesn't work as well as foam but it'll do.
• If you have it, needle noise electronics tweezers would be very helpful, esp for those of us with less dexterous fingers.

I used an extended battery with the extended battery cover and although the fit is a bit tight and there is a tiny opening near the camera, the cover closes and I can live with it for the sheer coolness of this mod.

I used 4 of the stronger magnets that the OP listed. On the desk, it works perfectly. However, if you plan on mounting the Touchstone vertically (e.g., in a car), you'll need more magnets. With only 4 magnets, the phone definitely will not stay on the Touchstone vertically. Simply holding the Touchstone vertically with the phone on it and very lightly shaking the combo will cause the phone to fall off.

Issues that I currently have:

• It seems that the stronger magnets screw up the compass as the compass app goes haywire with the cover on. There were some comments out there regarding magnets that might negate that issue but I haven't had a chance to review those comments.
• I haven't gotten the Touchstone to work in my car yet. The same cable/touchstone works at home but not in the car.
• Sometimes, the Touchstone doesn't initiate charging. In those cases, I plug the USB directly in the phone, see that it works, then plug the USB back into the Touchstone. I'm not quite sure why this happens.

To those having problems with their coils, do you have the silver foil-ish sticker from the Palm battery cover stuck over the top of it?
Because whilst putting together my battery cover, I just discovered that it won't work without that.

At best it sits at zero and occasionally jumps to maybe 1.5-2v.

This is my set up for the Touchstone + Car Mount
also posted on XDA

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NFC and GPS seem to still work fine.
One thing I would have done differenty: get a thicker/less wobbly metal plate to support the phone.

For those of you wanting to charge at AC speeds instead of USB, Fast Charge Mod is here!

1) Install Franco Kernel (Milestone 1)
2) Run this script to activate it from the terminal (minus quotes): "echo 1 > /sys/kernel/fast_charge/force_fast_charge"

To turn off:

echo 0 > /sys/kernel/fast_charge/force_fast_charge

Click to view quoted image


Source: USB Fast Charge mod - xda-developers
Franco Kernel: [KERNEL][GPL][5 MAR - #M1] franco.Kernel | 4.0.3/4 | 1,35GHZ | COLOR/SOUND CONTROL - xda-developers

(Not sure if a similar post has been posted on here yet, but either way, more pics is better right?)

For those of you interested in using this with a case, I went ahead and modified my Seidio Surface case with this mod. Instead of mounting the coil in the battery cover, I cut away some of the felt lining on the inside of the case, and mounted everything in there. Then used copper tape run outside of the battery cover that connects with the copper tape on the case when everything is put together. I did this with the LTE extended case and it works just fine with the extended battery/battery cover as well.

I also tried this successfully with a Seidio Active case but wasn't happy with the flimsyness of the case... but that's another story...

I think this could work with a TPU case as well. I tested my wife's Gnex diztronics case and the coil + touchstone does work through the thicker TPU material. Not sure if the TPU case can hold the phone as well when being pulled by magnets. I'm sure it would be fine...

This also might solve some the NFC problems some people are having as you can put the coil higher up on the phone so that the battery is completely unobstructed. That was one of my priorities... One of the main reasons i bought the phone was NFC and I couldn't bring myself to lose that ability.

Pics below.

Spent like $100 today using NFC, also my NFC tags all work. In addition to that my compass seems totally unaffected by the bigger magnets.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

I have 1/4" neodymium magnets (I made indentations in the cover where they are to keep things thin).

I don't think going bigger than that will help much because the magnets in the touchstone have both N & S poles in close proximity and if you go much bigger you'll end up with some N-N or S-S repulsion force. Inside they actually have two magnets in each corner, parallel opposite polarity, yoked together effectively making it a U magnet. Probably the strongest way to stick to the touchstone would be to get use two small rectangular (touchstone magnets have a rectangular profile) magnets in each corner yoked with a thin piece of soft iron with polar orientation complimentary to that inside the touchstone.

NFC works for me and I put my coil so that it would be dead center on the phone (certainly not the highest up it could be). I have a GSM nexus so my battery is a slightly different shape than LTE nexus but I highly doubt that difference would matter.

Attached photos. I lifted the insulation to show the coil better on one of them.

I have not been able to re-produce the issue you are having at all....But try this.

1) In post 1, the OP mentions that they used the foam from the Palm case under the wire on the phone side. This will raise the wire and increase the likelihood that it makes contact with the door
2) Put a drop of solder on each copper strip (on the door side) where it makes contact with the phone side. This will guarantee that you get a good connection between the phone and the door. You will also be able to see a round indentation on your copper (phone side) from the solder beads.

It simply sounds like your leads are not connecting properly when you put the door on the phone.

Did this over the weekend. Works great! I used the normal magnets since I don't plan on using it in the car don't have a car. I used the standard battery door, and while I can tell there is now a small bulge, it's not really noticeable.

Since this is the only time I plan on opening the phone, I took a lot of pictures. Maybe they'll help someone.

https://plus.google.com/118411893476653106500/posts/VggTBt3pgJV

Good news on the USB charging rate problem. A thread on XDA has a method of forcing AC charge rate on the standard charge port as well as the POGO pins which we are using for this mod.

USB Fast Charge mod - Page 7 - xda-developers

I received a beta version of the kernal mod and app to make this work and can confirm that my Touchstone mod charges at AC rate now with an estimated charge rate of 1010 mA with the screen turned off!

I'll do some testing tomorrow with Google Music streaming over 4g and Navigation running with the screen on and post results.

Thanks for the instructions OhioMoto.

Just wanted to chime in with another success story
My configuration is:
-charging coil outside the phone, on the inside of a diztronic case.
-Copper tape traces to the edge of the case
-I extended the pogo contacts with copper tape, scratched a small hole in the tape through to the pogo contact, and put a small bit of solder on the copper tape. This makes the tape function as a solder pad, and there should be minimal solder on the pin itself. Should be very easy to reverse if needed.

Connection is pretty bombproof so far, and I love the convenience of this mod. Mine does charge pretty slowly this way, but with Pandora streaming bluetooth audio, and GPS navigation running, I get a percent charge every 4 or 5 minutes. Good enough for car trips.

NFC still works perfectly with the coil mounted as high as possible in the case.
The compass is severely impacted, but I can take the case off whenever I need an accurate compass.

Thanks for the instructions and all the feedback on this thread. If anyone is nervous about this, remember, it is an open source phone, hack it

I don't think its your coil. I have applied power to the contacts using pogo pins as well and the delay is the same. I have a GSM nexus running AOKP (4.0.3 based). I tried the contacts on my wife's totally stock LTE nexus and it charges instantly. I put my GSM nexus back to stock and it charged instantly. I rerooted and flashed AOKP again and again a delay before charging. I think the delay may be software based.

Just finished this mod tonight and wanted to share my thoughts. First, thank you very much ohiomoto for posting this. I would not have dared to try this without the links, pictures, and explanations you've posted.

As for parts, I bought 3 Touchstones (one for home, one for work, and one for the car), and 1 Pre back from the links in the OP. I did not use the link for the magnets in the OP, because they wanted like $16 shipping for 5 little magnets. No way. I ended up searching eBay for "N52 magnets" and found a place in the UK that was selling 20 of a similar size to the ones listed in the OP for under $10 including shipping from the UK. They are N40 instead of N52, so we'll see if they are strong enough for the car mount.

As for the copper tape, I noticed that a lot of the sources listed in these posts mention guitar uses. I have a friend who works for L.R. Baggs, so I asked him if they have any adhesive copper tape there. He said "yes, lots of it", so I asked if I could buy like 2 feet from him, and he just gave me some.

The install was pretty much how ohiomoto and others described it. I had no trouble getting the phone apart with a few guitar picks and some patience. The internal copper tape install went without issue. As suggested by ohiomoto and others, I did not install the tape with the adhesive side down on the internal gold connectors, but instead folded it over in case I ever wanted to use the pogo pins. After snapping the screen back together, I verified my tape was working by removing the battery, then plugging a USB charger into the phone, then putting my meter probes on the pogo pins to make sure there was 5.6v, then putting the meter probes on the tape in the battery cavity to make sure there was 5.6v. All was well.

The install of the coil on the battery door also went pretty much as described in the posts here. My only concern was that the coil is pretty flat, but the little circuit board attached to it is raised a bit. I am using the extended battery and door. I was worried that since the battery is a little taller than normal, that it might cause an issue with the coil circuit board. But, after taping the coil in place and snapping the door back on, I could not see any issue. There is a nice space right above the battery that looks like a much better fit for the coil circuit board, but installing the coil upside down like that would make routing the copper tape much more difficult and I was not ready to try that. If I end up having issues, or the circuit board ends up getting crushed or damaged, I guess I'll have to look into that. For now, I cannot tell the difference between how my phone was without the coil install vs. with the coil installed.

Once I got everything back together, I put it on the Touchstone and it would not charge. I pulled the door off and verified again with my meter that the coil circuit board, and the copper tape attached to it had 5.6v. I also re-verified that my pogo pins and copper tape attached to them had 5.6v (with the battery and door removed). So, that only left the connection between the copper tape on the inside and the copper tape on the door. My guess was that even with the little bit of foam from the Pre back, that the copper wasn't being pushed up enough to make contact with the copper on the door. So, I simply added a couple more layers of little bits of copper tape to the tape on the door, adding the bits underneath the tape that was already there so that the non-adhesive side was not covered. I put it all back together again, and viola! This time it worked! Phew...

Now, so far the posts in this thread have said it takes up to 10 seconds to start charging. I've tried two of my touchstones so far (the magnets have not arrived yet, so I haven't setup the car one), and in both cases, it starts charging almost immediately when I put the phone on the touchstone. I have no idea why mine would be any different from anyone else's, but there ya go.

Thank again to ohiomoto and the others that paved the way for this mod. I returned my $40 Verizon POS car dock, and my $20 eBay lame-o desktop dock, and for about $30 in parts, I now have 3 super cool chargers. Yay for the internet.

I also ordered some NFC tags, and will be putting them on my touchstones so that when I place the phone on them, they will do things like auto load the clock or car home, turn off WiFi, etc. I'll let you know how that goes once my tags come in...

For those of you planning to put a Touchstone in your car once you mod your Galaxy Nexus, you may want to read this huge thread over at webOSNation.

Also, in my 2-year experience with a dash-mounted Touchstone, they are very sensitive to heat. They will not charge when the temp in the car is over 75 or 80. I'm not sure if this was a battery protection circuit within the Pre or within the Touchstone, or possibly within the little board attached to the coil, but the phone would bounce between charging/not-charging every other second, which obviously meant it couldn't keep up with anything.

Thanks, OP for posting this. My modding supplies are due to arrive Thursday. I've really been missing my Touchstones!

-Andrew

SUCCESS! Thank you Ohiomoto, thank you iFixit, thank you AndroidCentral!

I barely got it to snap shut with the standard battery and battery cover, but it is quite bulge-y back there.

I can report that the compass appears to be unaffected by the stronger magnets. Also, from what I can tell, the little metal disks in the stock Palm Pre back don't seem to be magnetic (or they've weakened to the point of being unnoticeable in mine.)

I did have to solder the tape to the coil's contacts. I even had to redo it because the solder joint was hindered by the adhesive back so I folded it over to make a copper-on-copper connection before soldering.

Thanks again, Ohiomoto and AndroidCentral community!

-Andrew

Here is my mod. I have been waiting to do this since before the nexus came out. i used to have a thunderbolt with a wireless charging setup from verizon. i sold the Tbolt but kept the back cover.

So this mod is done with the Thunderbolt inductive charge cover.

the Main difference between this mod and the palm touchstone is that all verizon phones with wireless charging doors all have 4 pin instead of 2. i located the pin that was throwing 5Volts and just connected that and the ground just like the OP's post said. but when i tried to charge it, nothing happened and the pad was blinking red. Long story short, there are 2 powers and 2 grounds. one power is only 3volts and one is 5volts. when you connect the 3volt to the 5volt it still only outputs 5volts. so both grounds need to be soldered together and both powers need to be soldered together.
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Excuse the sloppy look, i just finished, going to go back and touch it up and make it look all pretty later

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I do have one suggestion for you guys. anyone the Copper tape (which you can buy at lowes in the gardening section, apparently it's used to guard against snails) and dont want to use tape to cover the exposed power lines, i suggest getting a can of black spraypaint and coating the tape except for the points of contact. this way nothing gets shorted out and it looks professional.

Just wrote up a big response to post on my failure and disappointment with the process, but figured out what went wrong. In other words it works. It took about 2.5 hours of uninterrupted time. Got everything in place but I could not get the back plate copper to connect to the side plate copper. finally figured out 2 things. First my side shell was not all the way back on. And second, the copper tape going from the coil was not picking up on my voltmeter. I think that when I was trying to rework it the grease on my hands or perhaps the copper itself lost its ability to conduct. Replaced that and all was well.

One other problem I haven't figured out yet is back plate fitting over the extended battery. I've tried and tried and it just does not snap on. Right now the ext. plate fits perfect over the stock battery. I am gonna try reworking a bit and see if I can't make it fit.

Another thing is the magnets. I would definitely go with the super magnets in the link on OP. The ones on the pre were weak. I tried them out and realized pretty quick they were going to suck.

As for a case. I have the Diztronic case on, and believe it or not it is charging through the effing case! I thought I was going to have to turn this thing into a bumper. It does look to be charging at a slower speed though, so maybe a no-go in the long run.

As for my skills, this was the first time I've ever done something like this. As long as you take your time, don't get in a hurry, and make sure you do quality work then it is not difficult.

I've just posted an instructable on how to hide the MicroUSB cable coming out of the back of the Touchstone. it can help clean up the look if you're mounting in a car.

PALM Touchstone Hidden USB cable

I noticed that with the extended battery+cover it bulged out a bit too much for my taste(I even removed the plastic over the chips on the inductive coil to save a small bit of room).

To remedy this I just went back to the regular battery but kept the extended battery cover. Feels/looks perfect now It really is amazing how easy it is to get the back cover off with a few guitar picks once the screws are removed.


Also of note, I didn't notice any "warranty check" tripwire stickers unless they were very cleverly concealed.

Cheepest stuff I could find! Works great just cut it into 1/4 inch strips.

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=170727277343&index=0&nav=SEARCH&nid=71140590420
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

And it may say USB charging but I swear it charges faster..... oh and NFC worked for me. Beamed a few websites to my buddy today.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

I finished doing this modification this weekend and thought I'd throw in some things I learned...

--Ohiomoto did a very nice job doing things "right." It seems at every step if I tried to do something a bit simpler it failed! So follow the instructions closely.
--While the guide mentions that the back cover snaps on easily after putting these coils and magnets and strips inside, I did not have that experience... at least with the extended battery and cover, it was very difficult to put the cover back on. For this reason, I recommend shaving off the plastic flanges/buttresses on the battery cover (those thin black plastic lines that keep the battery cover touching the battery). I used an x-acto knife for shaving this off. Things fit much better after that, but it was still very tight. Also, make sure that the coil and batteries don't overlie these plastic flanges. Finally, consider no re-applying the "palm" branded black sticky cover over everything, it just adds more space.
--getting the copper tape to touch the contacts of the copper coil was a bit tricky unless soldering was used. I have a low quality blunt tip solder gun, so this wasn't easy in a tight location. Consider applying the copper tape to these contacts under the black "palm" branded sticker if you use that black sticker-cover at all.
--My copper tape was silver on the sticky side (didn't conduct at all) and copper (conductive) on the non-sticky side. They sell double-sided copper tape with the adhesive allegedly being conductive... life would have been easier to buy this tape.
--Buy a cheap voltometer if you don't have one... it helps check your contacts at each step.

Other than that worked well. I finished late last night and recharged the phone overnight using this. It does say charging usb during the process, but I guess that's what we expect.

I have no way to check the NFC at this time. I made no effort to avoid putting the copper coil away from the battery, but there's not a lot of choice for where to put it.


Thanks!

Nfc is blocked by the coil if it sits directly over the battery. If you move the coil up though and uncover the bottom half of the battery it works just fine.

The phone will charge at USB rate, approximately 500ma, rather than the AC rate of 1+ amps. The coil and batteries shouldn't interfere with the NFC, but that hasn't been tested. They don't interfere with any other function of the phone. Stronger magnets are recommended, but the ones from the original Palm device will work as long as you don't knock the phone around too much. I recommend cutting up an old USB cable, the wires are about 26 gauge and just the right size. Foil is good if you want to play it safe; me, I like voiding the warantee.

 

[lembowski]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

Saw this a few days ago as a solder version

Galaxy Nexus inductive charging mod - [H]ard|Forum

Interested is seeing what you did

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

That would be tres' cool, but I don't see how it's feasible without totally violating the phone warranty.

All I did was put a few 'stickers' inside. You'll see. I just need time to write the guide and a place to host the pictures. Be patient my friend.

 

[Pr3mier]

subscribed.
I'm a former pre 3 user. I've got extra touchstones =)

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

@ googly

I'm uploading pictures right now. Might have something done tonight.

Saw this a few days ago as a solder version

Galaxy Nexus inductive charging mod - [H]ard|Forum

Interested is seeing what you did

I saw that yesterday. It was the motivation I needed to exchange the buggy Galaxy Nexus I had for a fresh unit and do the mod. I've been planning this since I decided I would give the Galaxy Nexus a try.

 

[Rickgsx]

Re: Galaxy Nexus now working with Palm Touchstone chargers!!!

Subscribing........

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

Guide is up!

I'm going to bed will proof read tomorrow. If anything isn't clear, let me know.

 

[nsurg]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

Looks great, thanks. I have some palm touchstone charging equipment for my wife's phone, and it such a cool feature that I've always been a bit jealous of. This will also be a good option for a car mount!
I appreciate the detailed links. For what it's worth, I found 1/4" by 9' copper tape shipped on ebay for under $5, and the magnets can be found for that price shipped as well on ebay. The amazon link is a bit pricey for the copper tape and the magnet shipping is a ripoff from the other site. It's hard to link ebay sales, obviously.

Thanks again, my parts are ordered, and I look forward to doing this.

 

[nsurg]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

Oh, a second question for OP as you test yours... can you try to get a feel for charging time versus the stock wall charger, and can you tell if the car mounted version keeps up with 4g/navigation power drain as you use it over time?

Also, I have no opportunity to use NFC yet, but would the magnets interfere with it?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

The car mount was able to stay ahead of battery drain and charge the battery with my Palm, even when adding the hotspot to Pandora and navigation. I hope it works with the GN, but wonder if the thirsty LTE radio might have other ideas. Worse case it that you plug the USB cord directly in the phone on long trips.

Not sure about NCF as I have not used it.

 

[freeskier44]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

This looks awesome... anyone know what Gauge wire to use If i go the wire route?

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

30G is enough. I used 30G wrapping wire on my Fascinate mods, but wrapping wire wouldn't last very long if you were taking the back cover on an off more than a few times.

 

[freeskier44]

Cool thanks! Can't wait to hear about NFC haha

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[dano272]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

Ordered all the pieces ill need for this mod from Amazon and ebay. To the OP, I was wondering if you've noticed any weirdness with those strong magnets so close to the phone all the time? ie screen issues etc. Thanks for the great mod. I think this will be especially awesome in the car as changing from landscape to portrait will be a snap.

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

Magnets don't cause any issues that I can tell. People have been using those magnets in other phones including Palm Pre phones with extended batteries. The common claims are that they will effect compass readings (does the GN even have a compass?), but no issues with the screen or anything like that.

 

[ohiomoto]

Re: [GUIDE] Galaxy Nexus MOD for Palm Touchstone without solderin

If anyone decides to change the mod up a little bit, please post pictures with your instructions. I'll add them to the post. More ideas, the better.

Quick update on the charging capabilities in the car. Between 15%-20% per hour gain while streaming Pandora with 4G through Bluetooth (letting the screen sleep most of the time.) Not bad for the car considering the use case. I'll try to test the desktop rate tomorrow.

 

[freeskier44]

I got everything ordered today.... wondering if I should use the foil or just solder wires.... what foil did you guys find for cheaper? And I feel like 30 gauge wire isn't enough...

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk