I have seen the other threads about uConsole dying under load but I’m unsure if this is related so I’m asking for help here.
I used to have the stock battery holder, along with 2 X 18650 batteries (Jesspow 3300mAh, 3,7V Li-ion). That powered my cm5 for a few hours. I heard the crackling noise when going under 50% charge, but no dying.
Now I have switched to the Hacker Gadgets Dual 21700 Battery Holder, along with a NVMe plugged to it.
After reading some good comments about Molicel batteries on this forum, I ordered and inserted 2 X 21700 INR21700-P42A Molicel Li-ion 3,7V 4200mAh 45A. On the battery itself I can see more information like : 3,6V/4.0Ah 092 2P620. They come at about 5 euros per battery.
Charging the batteries all night then turning on the unplugged uConsole works. But then if I open almost any software besides editing text, the uConsole dies with the screen and internal power still on. I have to remove the batteries to actually turn everything off and start again.
The problem is, when I try to calibrate them, after a few minutes of discharging even just moving the mouse gets the same dying problem.
@Wander_Menezes I saw in some other threads that you configure your batteries in the config.txt with some dtparam=charge_full_design_uah=XXX and dtparam=energy_full_design_uwh=XXX.
Can you tell me how to compute those numbers for a specific battery please ? So I can enter the correct params. Maybe it will do something.
Do you think I simply got the wrong batteries ? Do you suggest a specific brand and model ?
Thanks for pointing out this thread. I came across it earlier and did not try the tests described there since it’s not the same issue (on mine the battery percentage drops slowly).
But I tried the test with only one battery at a time. I tried all possible combinations of battery and slots. Just to discover that one of the 2 batteries is completely empty while the other is full.
I will first try to understand what is wrong with the empty battery by trying to charge it and use it normally.
I have the same symptoms, it seems that the 21700 board is only seeing 1 battery.
my situation was two batteries will be half used with one of them being used up more
the charge will not go beyond 67-82% randomly and will just stays there forever. upower -d will shows ridiculous charge time like 60-90hrs etc randomly
Although we share the issue where only 1 battery has been working, we do not share the percentage issue. Mine goes to 100%.
So I would not jump to conclusions too soon. I am charging the empty battery right now and will try again the test with the different combinations of slots and batteries to see if the problem is solved.
Only then would I safely draw some more conclusions.
When I insert only 1 battery (doesn’t matter which) in the upper compartment then the uConsole lights up but does not boot.
But in the other compartment the uConsole boots. It works OK, but it crashes when opening an app that draws load.
When both batteries are inserted then it does not crash under load (only when both batteries are charged, if one is discharged then the uConsole crashes under load).
Now the percentage is dropping linearly and much faster than with the 18650 batteries.
When it reaches 0% I will check if both batteries are actually discharged.
When going below 50% with both batteries inserted, I can hear the familiar crackling that was already present with the other batteries, the 18650. This is reassuring.
And the heavy loads do not crash the uConsole for now.
With the info above, it looks like the upper compartment does not discharge or charge the battery.
I am charging the empty battery now, in the lower compartment, with the full battery still in the upper compartment.
The only way to use the uConsole is by having both batteries fully charged inserted. But only the one in the lower compartment will discharge or charge.
you shared the exact same symptoms as mine.
the only differences is the percentage of leftover charge each batteries hold.
I used AI to create scripts to capture all the readings and found out that the resistances are off the charts according to AI and it points to something is not right with the board
I cant recall exactly which but 1 compartment like not working.
then the battery has to have certain charge like between 70-100% in order to work alone.
the battery discharges like 99 > 90% within a couple of minutes just idling with and without the nvme and rails all off
when I charged both batteries full to 100% in an external charger and placed it into HG board, both can only sustained powering uconsole around 1-3 hrs and the uconsole will crashed.
taking out both batteries and placed into the external charger to check their status, one will read about 50-60% left and the other will read about 60-70% left thereabouts.
it is very random, the only consistency is 1 battery will have more remaining charges than the other.
when charged by HG 21700 board, only 1 battery will be charged
There’s definitely something wrong there i have more or less same setup but getting really good battery life with a ssd inside too and all the bells and whistles. May be it’s down to the cells I got the ones Vileer recommended to me.