[Sprint Galaxy S 5 Android Development] rwilco12:
For those of you who don't know I got my start in the mobile arena with the Palm Pre and Pixi. Although others will argue with me, they were quite literally the best phones ever! They did have a few drawbacks, the biggest one being that HP bought Palm and didn't know how to build the brand so they killed it... Recently it was announced that HP was shutting down their server support for all things Palm. This means no more device activations, no App Store, etc. This announcement created some nostalgia for me and I started reminiscing on all the amazing things Palm did that Android still doesn't do right. The biggest was their wireless (inductive) charging. I've tried various different Qi chargers and other methods but they were all unreliable or caused my device to run really hot when it was on the charging pad. I stumbled on a few tutorials that showed how to take the Palm Pre and use it to mod the Android device and create an inductive charger. I've taken their instructions and modified them to work on the S5 and with a Palm Pixi (cheaper parts and easier setup).

Prerequisites (Picture #1)

- Samsung Galaxy S5

- Palm Pixi Back Cover

- Palm Touchstone Charger

- Conductive Copper Tape

- Electrical Tape

- Palm AC/USB Wall Charger (although not required they work best with the Touchstone and are also very well rated as a stand-alone charger)

Negative Side Effects

- I've found is that this mod causes NFC to either not work at all or intermittently. I don't use NFC so it's not a problem for me.

- This creates a slight bulge in the back of the device. I haven't tested it but this could impact the water resistance of the device.

Instructions

1) Take the Palm Pixi back and remove the insert as indicated by the red and yellow arrows. I have found the best success starting in the bottom left corner, as indicated by the yellow arrow (Picture #2).

2) When removing the back be very careful not to lose the four metal discs, indicated by the four arrows. These discs are what hold the device to the Touchstone. There are many ways to keep these in place but for convenience sake I used electrical tape, the yellow arrow shows what they looked like before being covered (Picture #3).

If the discs do happen to fall out I find it useful to place the charging assembly on the Touchstone and then put the discs in the four corners and then tape them down. The Touchstone does all the alignment work for you!

3) Remove the back cover from your S5. Hold it in place on the Touchstone. Take the insert from the Pixi and apply it (black side up) to the S5 cover. Then take a US quarter ($.25 piece) and place it between the bottom edge of the USB space on the S5 and the table (Picture #4). Once you have it aligned tape down the Pixi insert with electrical tape (Picture #5). Take note of the two copper leads sticking out of the back of the insert for the next step.

Take extra care to make sure you don't cover the gray rubber pieces. One, because the electrical tape doesn't stick to them well. Two, because these are what make the device water resistant. As stated, I haven't tested the water resistance with the mod but let's not tempt fate, shall we?

4) Take the other part of your S5 and locate the two charging ports (indicated by the arrows in Picture #6). Run copper tape along the back of your device so that the two copper leads from Picture #5 connect to the port with the same number in Picture #6. Once you have a good connection cover the ports with electrical tape. The copper tape has a tendency to come out of the ports and the electrical tape holds it in.

I found it best to fold the copper tape in half lengthwise (so the adhesive was out on both sides) and then roll the ends of the tape over themselves to make it a little taller. I then pressed the ends down into the charging ports to give them a better connection (Picture #7).

5) Take the back of your S5 and hold it an angle above the back of the phone (as if you were going to put it on) and visually check to make sure that everything lines up as it should (Picture #8). If it does then close the cover and press down to make sure everything clicks in to place.

6) Plug the Touchstone in, place the new Palm S5 on the Touchstone and watch for charging notification.

If you find that you aren't getting a charge check to make sure the copper leads line up with the ends of the copper tape and that the copper tape has a good connection in the charging ports. Then close the case and try again.

Enjoy!

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