When I try to charge my Audiovox 8610, the phone beeps & flashes

SOURCE: Audiovox SMT 5600 will not charge

If your battery goes COMPLETELY dead, which it will do if phone is not turned OFF and not used for a long period of time, you will need to JUMP START it using you OEM SMT-5600 AC charger. Other AC chargers will not work for this purpose and neither will a USB port.

You can JUMP START the battery using a USB port by cutting off a USB cable to expost the red and black power USB PORT power pins 1 and 4. Remove your SMT-5600 battery and while the modified USB cable is plugged into your USB PORT, hold the BLACK wire to the negative (-) terminal and the RED wire to the positive (+) terminal for about a minute. Replace the battery in the phone and connect the phone to a USB PORT using a standard USB cable. The SMT-5600 charging light may not register for a while, but will eventually light amber to show it is charging, assuming your phone is recoginzed by your computer.

Note some mini USB cables DONOT carry the USB power leads through to the phone, only data. If you have a very thin USB cable, be suspicious the power leads are not being carried in the cable.

Since the USB PORT power is limited to 100ma it cannot hurt the battery, but will insert enough current into a totally flat batter to cause the battery to register a voltage large enough to alllow USB PORT charging, typically 3.7VDC.