I hope this is the best place to put this thread..

I have quite a few nokia phone chargers lying round the house and i thought about doing some surgery on one of them. I notice you can buy USB phone chargers - and this would be very usefull for me as my desk at home is running out of power sockets due to the expansion of my PC.

So i was wondering if anyone knew how i could make one of these myslef and not pay £12ish for one. As i said i have many nokia phone chargers and i have a normal USB A-B cable.

This page gives a USB pin out
This page shows a 3210's pin out

The main problem I can see is the USB port will give 5.0V, the phone wants 3.7V .

I'm not aware of a voltage regulator that does 3.7V (3.3V is the nearest common one). You may be able to do a set up with a Zener Diode to regulate the voltage, but this would be a pain in the arse and involve maths.

What I want to know is who the hell is charging £12 for a USB Nokia charge cable?

Combined Precision Components (CPC Plc) sell them for £2.99 each - here is a link to the catalogue item but if that doesn't work just go to www.cpc.co.uk and search for Nokia USB.

We got some in for each person in our office about a year back because at that point we all had various Nokia phones. I've successfully used these exact cables with older Nokias including 3310, 3330, 8850, 6210, 6310, 7110 and 8210. They will not work with Nokia 8310's for some reason. A mate of mine manages a mobile phone shop and she hasn't been able to find a single USB cable that will charge an 8310.

Hope this helps.