I've made these, but not for this purpose (Score 2)

When I first got a Playstation Vita (What? Why is everyone laughing?), I had a USB battery to charge it on the go - but it wouldn't work! Of course, Sony said that it would only charge from their own Vita power bricks, but that was obviously just PR - it was just a USB A connector on the business end, after all. After some investigating, I found out that the Vita checks for shorted data pins, and if it doesn't find them, it won't charge (unless it's connected to a PS3 or computer.) Other products use different methods, such as sets of resistors to put a certain constant voltage on the data pins; said voltage varies according to how much current the adapter can safely provide. Apple is a big one for this method. The solution I went with involved getting some USB swivel adapters, cutting open the female sides, and soldering the data pins together. This tricked the Vita into thinking it was connected to its own power brick, so it drew the full 1.5A from any USB source. This could be dangerous, if you have it on a cheap charger that can't safely provide that much. Since then, I've used these devices for charging other things that use the same method of identifying fast chargers, and even for data safeguarding, as this article suggests. If you don't want to do the work yourself, such things can easily be purchased (they weren't as prevalent at the time). -- As several other people have said, I'm curious what all the intermediate stuff in this USB Condom is for. Perhaps it's to do with negotiating higher power draw from host devices, and making your device think it can pull however much it wants, for safe, fast charging? -- Sources: http://www.dannychoo.com/en/post/26419/PS+Vita+USB+Mod.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Y3L5RI