This post is an update of the second part of my Moto server series: https://lemmy.zip/post/72142441
Rumor has it that keeping an 8-year-old phone permanently plugged in with its equally ancient Li-ion battery might not be the greatest idea ever conceived.
Some even claimed that a phone needs a battery to work.
Very negative people.
Anyway, I removed it.
Pettyl did not care.
nginx: UP PHP-FPM: UP MariaDB: UP WordPress: UP cloudflared: UP sshd: UP
The battery is currently sitting next to the phone, contributing absolutely nothing to the project.
Pettyl is now running entirely from USB power, at around 37°C, while continuing to serve the website like this is completely normal.
There is, however, one tiny detail the haters may enjoy:
It can’t boot without the battery.
So the official Pettyl disaster recovery procedure is now:
- Insert battery
- Boot Pettyl
- Connect USB power
- Remove battery
- Pretend this is enterprise infrastructure
The battery is no longer a battery.
It is the starter motor.
I see no problems with this architecture.
Anyway, Part 3 is going great.
I wonder if my pixel 7 pro that dies suddenly can do the same. I suspect the battery just packed up
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Why not connecting the battery with a cable and put a switch in it?
I have a simillar setup but i kept the battery it acts like a ups
Perhaps replace its aging battery with a new one. Then you have a built in UPS for ideal disaster recovery
Nah, an actual UPS with 7kg batteries is way cooler.
But I really appreciate the feedback!
Inefficient tungsten gravity batteries are so cool tho
Perhaps then some solar power as well. I think those ecoflow battery + solar can act as UPS too. Could power that server indefinitely 😂
Now we’re speaking the same language!
Can you get a second identical phone. Or a third? I’m thinking perhaps load balancing and failover
Maybe not an identical one, but I did find an interesting Note 9 for around $40…
I guess this is foreshadowing…
Definitely take the battery out of that one
Yeah, for 40 bucks I get a phone with good specs and a free pillow!
Remember the days when hou could just pop the back off and take the battery out?
And it would still run when you had it plugged in. I could remove the battery from my old Galaxy S2, plug it in and it would work. And if I remember correctly, the same thing went for most of the phones I had before that.
That’s where I am today with my Fairphone.
I honestly held on to my old Nokia, replacing batteries and cases until Fairphone came along and then I jumped from 90’s tech to modern day.
0–>100% in 10 seconds (with a 2nd battery)
Still have my LG Optimus on Android 2.x somewhere. With 512MB RAM I dunno what to do with it outside of a clock display, but I have it (and a spare battery).
Now plug the phone into a UPS so if the power goes out you’re good for awhile.
This is obviously ridiculous.
So I’ll do it.
We are glad to inform you that your application to the USS Enterprise Engineering Department has been accepted!
Please do not turn Admiral Archer’s beagle inside-out on day one and refrain from creating perpetual energy machines, sapient missiles or sexbots until you have undegone the requisite HR training and completed your schedule of immunisations.
I’m honoured to have my idea contributed to this project!
Your contribution is noted and landed you a new position at Pettyl Industries!
I graciously accept the position of Chief Energy Officer! Thank you!
Since when does a phone need a battery to run? It needs power, doesn’t matter where the power comes from.
well ACKSHUALLY 🤓☝️
Unfortunately Pettyl is stupid enough to need the battery to boot, but smart enough to forget about it immediately afterwards.
I don’t make the rules, I just host WordPress on an 8-year-old Motorola.
Since their burst power consumption started using more current than a capacitor in the charging circuitry could provide
Fun fact, this is also why Macbooks, at least some models, throttle the CPU if the battery is missing. My old Macbook went from 2.4 GHz to 800 MHz without the battery.
Yeah, what he said. I was just about to say the exact same thing…
I once soldered a usb wire into the terminals where the battery of my moto g4 used to be, and it kept crashing on boot. So I added a large capacitor right across the terminals, and even with that and being at 5V (on a 5 amp supply), some apps still overloaded it and got it to crash.
Would love if there was some package that just attached like a battery with a usb wire coming out the bottom, that could supply any spikes if the usb provided enough average power.
It’s not just the spike, but the battery is supplying more power than the adapter for sometime extended periods of time. It would take an expensive, or very large, capacitor bank to hold enough power to accomplish that for very power intensive apps. Capacitors are good at charging and discharging quickly and lasting many more cycles than a battery, but no where near the capacity.
What you really need to know is exactly how much power the battery can provide and adjust the power supply to be able to supply that on demand and just enough capacitor capacity to smooth out the initial spike until the power supply gets the power up. I haven’t done the research to know the exact amounts, but I have a lot of experience with electrical and electronics in general, both professionally and amateur. So I could probably build it if o knew the exact specs.
That or adjust the phone firmware to limit the processor and GPU speeds, but that’s only possible on some phones that have code available and a way to root it without some hardware switch killing the phone permanently.
*glances at compressor capacitor
Yeah, exactly…large. Bigger than the phone, definitely not going to fit inside the phone.
It’s something about how the charging circuitry is constructed. I’ve asked a handful of electrical engineers about it but they’ve never given me a good answer. My guess is that it’s easier/cheaper to design and build a circuit that only powers the phone off the battery, and only uses DC to charge the battery.
When the battery in my wall mounted android tablet swelled i had to add a 10k resistor to the sense line, inject the 5V directly into the battery port and add a few capacitors to get it to work. But at least it won’t cause a fire now.
Damn, I wish they still made phones with a removable battery
I just got a fairphone 6. Removable battery!
I’m still using my fairphone 5 :)
I used to keep a charged spare on me. And this was back when a phones battery life was like 3-7 days.
Stop making phones thinner God dammit. I don’t want a thinner phone. I want longer battery life and a removable battery so I can fucking double the shitty longer battery life I get.
And a big enough pocket to hold it securely, no matter what gender clothing you wear!
Here here!
There, there. It’s “hear, hear.”
Where, where?
Wherever you were talking about when you said “here.”
Oh, there, there?
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That’s kinda hard when women’s pants often have no pockets, fake pockets, or pockets so small they’re functionally useless.
That’s why it’s a response to “I want…”!
An add-on to the wishlist, as it were. I’m just an old non-tech cis woman but I firmly believe generous pockets could and should be designed/engineered/built into every twirly skirt, every thigh-high (but down near the ankle bc gravity) every booty pant and even red-carpet gala gowns. At least someone finally realized workout leggings can have a pocket down on the leg if it’s so god-damned important not to interrupt the “line” elsewhere.
And everyone should feel free to wear whatever styles they feel suit them, with neither social stigma nor pocket-neglectful construction holding them back.
Hell yeah sister! I’m 100% for this. I’m a cis guy but the clear disparity of pants pockets between gendered clothing (and clothing being gendered at all) has always irked me. Everyone should have equal access to pockets!! (Silly but serious)
I used to keep a charged spare on me.
There’s at least one Chinese brand that has smartphone with hot-swappable battery: https://rugone.net/products/xever-8
Removable battery. Swap within 2 minutes for zero interruption. After 2 minutes, the device enters a 60-second safety lock-out to protect your data.
Unfortunately, software from these brands tends to be shit. I feel like they just outsource it to the cheapest company. Especially following this recent thing:
As of March 4, Sophos X-Intercept telemetry listed over 500 unique compromised Android devices across nearly 50 models. The devices were mostly low-cost models produced by the following manufacturers: Allview, BLU, Dcode, DOOGEE, Gigaset, Gionee, Lava, and Ulefone. The list did not include Alldocube devices, despite Kaspersky reportedly observing Keenadu affect that manufacturer as well.
They do. They’re generally just… not very good or are very expensive.
Samsung had a good one in the Xcover. I’d get one but… well… Samsung.
All batteries are removable once
Just like all mushrooms are edible once…
Didn’t EU pass a regulation regarding that? If I recall correctly all portable devices sold in the EU after February will will need to have a user replaceable battery.
i’m curious to see how apple will workaround the regulation
They already did I believe. They enhanced their battery glue so it should be easier to remove; reduced the amount of different screwdriver types required to access the battery to one or two; and put a small repair tool set up for sale, for the low price of $700. Thats already impressive for Apple standards
Didn’t know that, fantastic!
Well… I was obviously wrong. Sorry.
Don’t know if my knowledge was just outdated or plain wrong from the start, but good on you for still trying and respect for pulling that off.
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AFAIK it depends on the device. I believe it’s simpler to have a battery management system which keeps the battery charged when power is attached, and then a second separate system which powers the phone from the battery. That does lead to more wear on the battery though, so the better solution is to have a power management system which monitors the battery and keeps it within a set charge range, and additionally can supply the voltage needed to run the phone. Only when power is not connected does the battery power the phone.
From a quick google though, it seems that’s only part of the picture. High-end modern phones will often require a battery present, as they use it to smooth out the power coming from the adapter, even though most of the power for the phone when the charger is attached comes from a direct power path.
You are absolutely fine!
People here, including you, have been very respectful and thoughtful, and I am all for feedback.
I don’t have the knowledge of the whole universe, do I? So please, by all means, I want to hear your critiques, it makes the project better and I learn along the way!
Anything made to be run from battery can work fine without one. Worst case scenario requires you to spoof some I²C communication to properly emulate a battery, but most devices and batteries are far dumber than that. DC is DC, and sometimes you just need to graft something on top for the other pins.
Source: My old laptops charging circuit failed, so I soldered the charger onto the battery pins instead. Then I replaced the actual battery with an Adafruit Itsybitsy 32u4 (because that what I happened to have available) that emulated the battery status of “Charging, nothing to see here, move along” and sent it via I²C
The charging cirtuit that also tries to guess the battery percentage can be the problem. The ‘guessed percentage’ will depending on the chip and programming go down even if you solder in a dc power supply. When it hits the 0% it will shutdown.
Thats the case for some smart phones.
My old Galaxy S5 would work without the battery, including bootup. So it’s not entirely unexpected that other phones could also do so. I would say I can’t imagine who would take the time out out of their day to just talk out their ass and claim something like this wouldn’t work without trying it first. Except then I remember this is the internet, and people do that all the time.
Regardless, good on you for making this all work!
Hahaha, thank you for defending me! 😄
Just to clarify though, the “they said it couldn’t be done” part was mostly me being ironic and unnecessarily dramatic for the post lol. The comments on this whole project have actually been overwhelmingly positive and helpful.
People here are the reason I even tried some of this stuff in the first place.
But I genuinely appreciate you having my back. And the S5 being able to cold boot without a battery is really interesting — Pettyl unfortunately needs its battery as a starter motor. 😂
DO NOT skip step 5. It is VERY IMPORTANT.
Nice.
There is often a check for battery that is effectively a check of resistance between sense and ground. Looks like that battery is labelled, you might be able to bodge a resistor between sense and ground on the phone and get it to boot without the battery?
Here I was thinking you should add a capacitor so there is some juice if the phone draws more than the USB can supply. Maybe even a super cap so you get a more robust drain discharge cycles.
Update! Apparently removing the battery also removes half the CPU lol.
I’ll keep you posted!
Usually phones have 3 pins on the back for the battery, one of them - usually the one at the center - reads the battery resistance, so if you add a resistor between that pin and another pin, it will fool the phone to belive it has a b
eatteryEdit: spelling
Any idea what ohm value would be best?
Nope, i think the ideal one changes with the phone manufacter, you should try to test the battery ohm value and use that one
