So, what the heck is up with vibrating phones? My Samsung e315 is tiny but that sucker almost vibrates off the table when I get a call. How do they make something so small vibrate that much? What does the "vibrator" (for lack of a better term) look like inside my phone? I took apart my old Timeport that had a vibrate feature and I can't see anything inside it that looks like it might be the "vibrator." Can anyone shed some light on this? Maybe post some pictures of this part of different phones? A repair tech, perhaps?
Ok, here it is... I disected a portion of my old StarTac and found exactly what I suspected I would. There is a tiny electric motor with an off-balance weight attached to it. When the motor is activated it will vibrate because it is not balanced. I included a pic of the tiny motor pulled out from the phone.
Thanks for the pic! I suspected the off-balance weight as well, but couldn't figure out where the heck it was. Did that come out of the part of the StarTAC that says, Motorola under where the battery clips in? If so, that's why I couldn't find it, I didn't take that apart on my Timeport. I just figured it was empty space... looks like I may have been incorrect.
Yes, it is actually still attached in the photo. It was stored in the same place as the speaker is on this phone.
No, not this one anyway. At one time I had three working Timeports, this was the crappiest of the three so I took it (not very gently) apart to see it's guts. I guess I could convert my other one, though.
Thanks, I think the term, pry with a screwdriver, is another accurate way to describe the dismantling of my old Timeport.
At least I used an eyeglass screwdriver to take apart the StarTac, but it seems to not snap togeather right now.
I can't remember but I think it was the Sony Ericsson that had the feature in the battery & you had to buy a special battery for the vibrate feature, I never got the battery but thought that was a real odd setup & wonder how that worked? it also could have been a Nokia, I just can't remember which one for sure.
My Dad had a Nokia that he bought a vibrating battery for. The phone did not vibrate and he bought an aftermarket battery for it that vibrated. I guess it sensed when the phone was ringing (By RF Output?) and vibrated when the phone rang.
That must have been it, the Nokia now that I think about it more. I can't remember the model but it was a TDMA phone.
Jay, Fire14, was it possibly the Nokia 5165. I had the 5165 Cingular TDMA, and it could be made to vibrate with the vibrating battery.
I have no clue. It was a big, ugly black hunk of plastic as fas as I was concerned. Not as "cool" as my StarTac was.
If i remember correctly alot of the first cell phone models used the vibrating battery if you wanted that feature on your cell phone.
The vibrating batteries were all aftermarket that I know of. It was a way to add that feature to a phone that originally didn't have it..
I also needed to buy a vibrating battery for my old Nokia... the 5170i CDMA. Same big, ugly hunk of plastic but it was cool at the time and every place had about 904960546 faceplates for it. Wow... I can't remember what it was like without a vibrating phone! Also, on my old SE T68i, the vibrating motor was in the faceplate. It was a little weight cut in half and spun around. I took that phone apart a lot... then sold it for $70 on eBay. :biggrin:
