Part 3: They said a phone can’t run without a battery. Unfortunately, Pettyl didn’t get the memo.

Submitted ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨tradicije@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/c3322636-de5b-4cbe-950e-fd34ffe024ec.avif

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.

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Comments

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Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I should test this with my old s8

Had to toss the spicy pillow and had no clue what to do with it since

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NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Now plug the phone into a UPS so it the power goes out youre good for awhile.

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is obviously ridiculous.
  
  So I’ll do it.
  
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  - NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m honoured to have contributed to this project!
    
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0485919158191@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Since when does a phone need a battery to run? It needs power, doesn’t matter where the power comes from.

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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fox2263@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Perhaps replace its aging battery with a new one. Then you have a built in UPS for ideal disaster recovery

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Nah, an actual UPS with 7kg batteries is way cooler.
  
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  - fox2263@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Perhaps then some solar power as well. I think those ecoflow battery + solar can act as UPS too. Could power that server indefinitely 😂
    
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vext01@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Remember the days when hou could just pop the back off and take the battery out?

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- El_Scapacabra@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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)
  
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- WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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).
  
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gagootron@feddit.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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.

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Asetru@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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!
  
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oaoaoe@thebrainbin.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Damn, I wish they still made phones with a removable battery

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- thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  All batteries are removable once
  
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  - tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Just like all mushrooms are edible once…
    
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- foggy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - user224@lemmy.sdf.org@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    I used to keep a charged spare on me.
    
    There’s at least one Chinese brand that has smartphone with hot-swappable battery: 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.
    
    Source - Sophos
    Report from Kaspersky
    
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  - Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    And a big enough pocket to hold it securely, no matter what gender clothing you wear!
    
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- JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I just got a fairphone 6. Removable battery!
  
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- undefinedTruth@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - oaoaoe@thebrainbin.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Didn't know that, fantastic!
    
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  - Wispy2891@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    i’m curious to see how apple will workaround the regulation
    
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neidu4@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Anything made to be run from battery can work fine without one. Worst case scenario requires you to spoofing some I²C telemetry, but outside of that, DC is DC.

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- ShortN0te@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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eggpl4nt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Glorious.

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dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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!

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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. 😂
  
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ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
DO NOT skip step 5. It is VERY IMPORTANT.

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affiliate@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Well you better go catch it!

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non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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?

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- ThePantser@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Update! Apparently removing the battery also removes half the CPU lol.

I’ll keep you posted!

Image Image

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- axolotl_cpp@feddit.it@feddit.it ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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 bettery
  
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  - WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Any idea what ohm value would be best?
    
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ruuster13@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Remember bezels?

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- deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  When in Besźel, think Besźel!
  
  Image
  
  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXrBBXaKGOo
  
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4grams@awful.systems ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I just have to say, I really enjoy your writing style. Fun project, great post!

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thank you for the kind words 🎩
  
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viertesauge@feddit.org ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
What did you put in place of the battery? nothing or a cap? i tried this with a moto g6 but there is not enough power delivered through its own usb port so i have to use a 5volt source+capacitor connected to the bms i saved from the battery.

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I did not need to fake battery presence, just needed the battery as a starter, once the phone is booted just removed the battery.
  
  Although the real test is yet to come, I have to leave it like this for a day or two, to see if it powers off when CPU spikes…
  
  Image
  
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  - surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Awww… I remember back when batteries were removable. Good times.
    
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zzffyfajzkzhnsweqm@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Awesome! Keep us updated!

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- tradicije@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Aye aye, captain🫡
  
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tropicaldingdong@lemmy.world@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
How do I sign up for the pateron?

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ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
put one lead from the battery on a transistor so you can disconnect it with a little ESP or something when you go to power cycle it. Or even just hold down a button to connect it while you plug the phone back in.

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r4venw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m currently reading this on my nearly 8 year old phone. I guess when I finally get round to replacing it I’ll have a new server! Sweet

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probable_possum@leminal.space ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
About the not booting issue: What if you soldered a fitting power supply directly to the phones battery pins? Is this a horrible idea? I don’t know.

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morto@piefed.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Awesome! I will try it too!

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hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
nice phone! all of my phones i tested (with replacable battery) refuse to work without battery attached and almost instantly turns off if i ever detach it while running, even with power connected.

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jaybone@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ve run laptops without a battery, constantly plugged in. I assume this is not a fire hazard.

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- frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  No more than any other electrical device.
  
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  - Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Not sure why you’re being downvoted, but you’re absolutely correct
    
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- cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s perfectly fine. The only issue is that it may limit performance on some laptops.
  
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