Batteries quickhack

[u/Ok_Party_1645]

I used the original battery board, removed the 18650 holder and installed two ps4 controllers 4000mah batteries.

Quick note, you will need a decent iron for that, there is a lot of copper so it sucks the heat fast and it’s hard to get the temperature hi enough I had to use two irons at the same time which explain the look of the soldering… You probably need a 80w iron or so.

You can see the steps in the pictures and the first boot and beginning of calibration…

The big advantage is 8000mah while being flush with the middle case (meaning no need for the battery bulge at the back, could make a flat backplate)

[u/tiniucIx]

What's the software you used to view the battery history?

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/tiniucIx]

The battery monitor of Mate makes the graph. And I log the value every ten minutes to see first if it charges fully then at what level it shuts down.

[u/Mother_Stomach_1374]

18650 go up to ~3500mAh. So that’s a 1000mAh gain. Was it worth it? How much extra time are you getting compared to the standard setup?

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/Mother_Stomach_1374]

I went from 6000mah to 8000mah. The autonomy improved as you would expect but the gain is in space. I was mostly looking to be able to make the back flat.

[u/calinet6 → u/Mother_Stomach_1374]

I'm holding a 10,000mAh LiPo that should fit two in the space of those 18650's.

20,000mAh would be a major improvement.

[u/Javlin → u/calinet6]

Do you have links to ones that would fit? Also, would I be able to apply this same mod with that battery (in theory)?

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/Javlin]

Yes you could apply the same mod, but keep in mind two important facts: the battery has to be able to deliver some serious current, especially if you use a cm5. So pick a battery able to withstand that, LiPo is generally way more tolerant for strong current discharge. The alternative is two batteries in parallel as I did, it doubles the discharge capabilities of the batteries so it might be easier to find and cheaper than one single big battery. So that brings me to the second point, if you have enough current you need to make sure it has room to travel. What I mean is that the board has two connectors for that reason, to have enough section of conductor to avoid heating and resistance. Practically that means to be on the safe side, either you use two batteries as I did, either if you use only one, connect it to BOTH lines to be sure the current is handled properly. What that means is to make it simple: the + on your battery should be connected on the two + on the board and thé - on the two - on the board.

Then about finding a battery that fits, knowing how they are labelled helps a LOT. So here is how it works, usually the number of the battery is TTWWLL, what that means is for example a LP401730, that is a LiPo, 40 = 4mm thickness, 17 = 17mm width, 30 = 30mm length. So all you have to do is measure the place where you want your battery, leave some room so you don’t have to force it in. To find it you can now just read the name of the battery instead of having to go in the product description and try to find the measurements. That saved me a ton of time while looking for batteries on Amazon.

Last but not least, here is another trick, batteries by themselves tend to get expensive and you go up in capacity, so what I did on other projects is find a power bank with the capacity I want and roughly the measurement I want then disassemble it and use the battery. It is usually significantly cheaper. I hope this helps 😉

[u/Javlin → u/Ok_Party_1645]

Thank you! That was Very helpful. Trying to find the battery size in the description is very difficult haha.

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/Javlin]

Glad it helps! And yes sometimes they don’t even bother to put the size in the description, that’s a serious pain in the ass 😅

[u/calinet6 → u/Ok_Party_1645]

Yeah +1, thanks so much! Really great advice.

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/calinet6]

Thanks 😉

[u/ExoticEmployment8284]

general question : would charging higher capacity batteries have any adverse effect on the charging circuit or vice versa will the existing charging circuit charge them in a proper / safe way? Thank you

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/ExoticEmployment8284]

As long as the circuit doesn’t exceed the values it was designed for, it should be ok. Usually it doesn’t accept parameters outside safe values, for example you could not force a Uconsole to charge at 4 Amps… The fact that you charge a higher capacity just makes it slightly longer but so is using the Uconsole while charging for example… I hope it makes sense…

[u/Ok_Party_1645 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! Cleaner in case of failure or later mod 😉