Hello beloved community. First time I post here.
I’m a software dev, and I’m a passionate renewable energy amateur hobbist. But I have some background knowledge in electrical engineering, but never graduated.
I ordered a A04 uConsole and I became curious about its 18650 option, as I’m familiar with NiMh, Li-ion, LifePo4 and most likely will be working with LTO in the near future and so on.
I have solar panels I installed myself at home, powering my self-made battery, made out of 300 li-ion 18650 cells, most of them taken out from non working laptops, abandoned battery packs, etc (this took me like 2 years and the battery is still growing day after day…)
I thoroughly tested each of these cells before putting them at work:. All of the “not-good-enough” / “dead” /“Dangerous-cells” are in the “sorry, but-I-have-no-use-for-you” basket, to be properly discarded when I have the chance.
Now that a uConsole is on his way home, I will like to know more about the charging circuitry and tech specsheet regarding this area in particular, if possible
My idea in the future is to:
- Try to recharge the uConsole batteries with sun power (or wind, or even hand crank, like emergency radios have, who knows) without removing them, by calculating and setting proper BMS, solar panel(s) and all stuff.
This will be part of a side project with it, in parallel with software development of course.
Of course, you can ask me anything about these topics, and I will be willing to help out.
Thank you in advance!
A.
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I’ve gone down a similar path to a shorter distance. Bought about 200 used laptop batteries from a local repair shop. Tore them down, tested and sorted them by capacity. Removed the duds.
For the recharging in situ thing, it should be simple to present acceptable input voltage to the uconsole, probably usb 5v. I assume its designed to charge like a phone.
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I have several 12 volt DC nominal voltage packs that can be solar recharged - I use a USB car charger to charge my phone and laptop… (most of the components are off the shelf) I built the enclosure myself.
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By far the easiest way would be to get the voltage to 5V. It will only need a max of 3A so that shouldn’t be that much of a problem. You don’t say what voltage you run your 300 battery battery pack at, but there are several buck converters that can just do what you want. I do have a degree in EE, you could always go back.
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I’m brand new to Clockwork Pi and this product, I found it when a friend mentioned that uConsole is the kind of gadget I would love. Based on what I’ve read they’re unlikely to be wrong! I’m very excited for my uConsole but now after reading this thread I have deep concerns about the shipping times.
I decided to do what I perceived to be an ‘in stock’ option - the uConsole with the CM4. Based on this thread though, it also looks like it takes several weeks to source parts for my unit and that those to go out in batches as a result.
Could someone with experience let me know their perceived estimate for one of these based on my order number of 225XX? Is my expected ship time any different since I ordered the CM4 or am I in a situation where I’m still stuck waiting for other parts for the build too?
Thank you in advance for your patience with my questions. Also, I understand that anything in the replies is likely to be speculation. I can see some folks are repeat buyers here and/or have been following the ship times more closely this past year so I’m just looking for what I’d call a ‘vibe check’ here 
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