Paul Fenwick
Paul FenwickHey friends,
Anyone have any experiences (good or bad) with FrameWork laptops that they'd like to share?
After keeping my old laptop running for ~9 years, I feel like I'm nearing the limits of what I can easily repair.
Thanks!
Paul FenwickJust because some of you may have never seen it, here is the best explanation ever made on how differential gearing works, made almost 100 years ago:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc
Paul FenwickFirst child-free half-day in what feels like forever, and 90% of it has been Queen Felicia cuddling me while I allow my bottled emotions to exit my body. She really is the best cat
#catsOfMastodon
Paul Fenwick@Unixbigot@aus.social @xssfox@cloudisland.nz @LapTop006@aus.social : Extracted myself from the cat, and did some testing!
I agree with you all that it's a fuse, and now my laptop starts without a battery where previously it did not. I don't know what changed; did I shift a broken joint? Did I displace a dark spirit from its residence? I don't know.
It still doesn't start or charge when the battery is connected. It turns on for a second or two, then goes off. The battery is "new", but discharged from the last time I tried this.
Paul Fenwick@Unixbigot@aus.social @xssfox@cloudisland.nz @LapTop006@aus.social : The symptoms leading up to this was it randomly switching to battery even when plugged in, until eventually it wouldn't accept jack power at all, even with the battery unplugged.
So that sure sounds like a problem with the power bits, but I'm not precisely sure what.
Paul FenwickDoing a laptop repair, and I think the fault is a broken trace to the power jack.
I don't think I can repair a trace, but I can solder in a jumper wire if I can figure out where the 19V input is supposed to get to. (The earth connections all test fine.)
Unfortunately I don't know where that 19V is supposed to go. The battery connector is very accessible, but I don't know if the battery takes raw 19V...
Suggestions and advice welcome
Paul FenwickAha, looks like I need Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) doodad for charging off a solar cell, and I doubt my $10 panel already has one integrated.
If I understand correctly, an MPPT doodad lowers the current draw from the panel to maintain enough voltage to charge; otherwise the battery charger can try to draw too much, which drops the voltage, and one gets nowhere.
A random blog post recommends a CN3791, which are only a few dollars, so I shall continue investigating
Paul FenwickI've been trying to understand how antennas work, and it's all deep eldritch shit. Make sure your antenna is an exact fraction of the length of the silent whispers you wish to hear from the void. Make sure the antenna has a solid plane to bounce the whispers off, but somehow you can get away with just a couple of wires that suggests where a solid plane would go. Make sure your cable isn't a cursed length, which attracts unwanted attention.
RF engineers are heckin' magicians.
Paul FenwickI'm too impatient to wait for a larger capacity battery, so I'm disassembling an old laptop battery to see if I can find any usable cells, and if I can scrounge a lipo protection circuit from somewhere to go with said recovered cell.
Paul FenwickAha, looks like I need Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) doodad for charging off a solar cell, and I doubt my $10 panel already has one integrated.
If I understand correctly, an MPPT doodad lowers the current draw from the panel to maintain enough voltage to charge; otherwise the battery charger can try to draw too much, which drops the voltage, and one gets nowhere.
A random blog post recommends a CN3791, which are only a few dollars, so I shall continue investigating
Paul Fenwick…and the battery that comes with the M2 board is almost enough to power it through the night. It would probably be fine in summer.
Luckily batteries are pretty inexpensive as well.
Paul FenwickI'm too impatient to wait for a larger capacity battery, so I'm disassembling an old laptop battery to see if I can find any usable cells, and if I can scrounge a lipo protection circuit from somewhere to go with said recovered cell.
Paul FenwickBaby's first solar powered LoRa #meshtastic node.
Still waiting on a better antenna.
Paul Fenwick…and the battery that comes with the M2 board is almost enough to power it through the night. It would probably be fine in summer.
Luckily batteries are pretty inexpensive as well.
Paul FenwickWhatever stroke of luck that was giving my #meshtastic node access to the rest of the mesh is gone. Until yesterday there was an otherwise silent node out there that was forwarding packets to and from mine.
I'm now anxiously awaiting my new antenna to arrive, because it feels wrong for my tiny radio child to be cut off from its friends.
Paul FenwickBaby's first solar powered LoRa #meshtastic node.
Still waiting on a better antenna.