battery News - Page 12 of 13 - CNX Software

July 25, 2016July 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Raspberry Pi Club Battery / UPS Kit Assembly Guide and Review

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a Raspberry Pi battery kit with a 3,800 mAh battery, a battery control board, an acrylic enclosure, and an heatsink + fan set that I found on DealExtreme for about $22. I decided to buy it once I got confirmation the battery was included, and so today I’ll write about my experience assembling the kit, and running it with a Raspberry Pi 2 board. If you are only interested in the “RPi PowerPack” battery control board and battery, you can find them on Banggood for $11.93. Raspberry Pi Club Battery Kit Unboxing DX put all the accessories inside a zip bag, and shipped it in a bubble envelop. It contains a white box with the RPi PowerPack V1.0 battery and battery, several screws, spacers, and bolts sets, a fan with screws, an acrylic case with three layers, an heatsink set with two […]

June 25, 2016June 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Review of PocketCHIP Hackable Handheld Linux Computer

It’s not that easy to describe PocketC.H.I.P in a couple of words, as it’s so versatile. It’s a Debian based portable Linux computer with a resistive touchscreen and battery, but also a retro gaming console thanks to PICO-8, as well as a hardware development platform for IoT application with expansion header providing access to I/Os including GPIOs, I2C, SPI, UART…, and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Furthermore you can easily dismantle the device, in order to use the CHIP board, based on Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor, for a different project. So when Next Thing asked me if I was interested in reviewing Pocket CHIP, I was pretty excited, but when I received it, I scratched my head as there are so many ways to review the item, and it works out of the box with the firmware pre-loaded inside the internal flash, so a getting starting guide would have been […]

May 26, 2016June 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

Enclosure & Battery Kit for Raspberry Pi Boards Sells for $22

The easiest solution to power Raspberry Pi boards from batteries is to use a USB power bank, and if you want a neater solution, PiJuice HAT board is quite nice, but for something a little cheaper and available right now, Geekworm’s RPi PowerPack kit could be an interesting option with an acrylic enclosure, a battery board with a 3,800 mAh Lithium battery, a fan, three heatsinks, as well as a micro USB to USB cable. Key features of RPi PowerPack board: 3,800 mAh Lithium battery good for around 9 hours on the Raspberry Pi 3. Output current – 1.8A Output voltage: 5.1V ± 0.1V USB – 2x USB output port Standard charging current / voltage – 1.0A/5.0V via 1x micro USB port. Misc – On/Off switch (The battery still charges in off position) The kit with the 3,800 mAh battery is sold for $22.43 on DealExtreme. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started […]

April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

AAduino Arduino Compatible Board Fits Neatly into an AA Battery Holder

Johan Kanflo has been using Arduino compatible boards based on Tiny328 MCU with an ISM radio module (wireless Arduino clone), but he found that finding a case was not easy, and was quite not ready to to design its own and print it with a 3D printer. So instead he shrank the board to fit into an AA battery case bought on Ebay with two AA batteries taking the remaining slots. That’s the result. AAduino board specifications: MCU – Atmel ATMega328p clocked at 8 MHz to save power Radio – RFM69C ISM transceiver module Sensors – Two DS18B20 temperature sensors Misc – Indicator LED Keystone battery terminals rotated 180° to act as positive and negative terminals. Power – 2x AA batteries The project is also open source hardware, with all hardware files released under the MIT license on Github, where you’ll also find a demo sketch for the board. Via […]

February 26, 2016February 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Super VOOC Technology Fully Charges Your Depleted Phone Battery in 10 to 15 Minutes

Several fast charging technology are either available or available now with Quick Charge probably the better known, but Huawei has also showcased their own fast charging solution capable of filling up a typical smartphone battery to about 50% in 5 minutes, and Oppo has been using VOOC in their smartphones since 2014. The second version of VOOC, called Super VOOC, is promising even faster charging as the company showcased a smartphone with 2,500 mAh at Mobile World Congress 2016 that can be charge from about 5% to 100% in 10 to 15 minutes. Oppo revealed some of the key advantages of the technology in a blog post: Charging is always done at 5V, contrary to Qualcomm Quick Charge that starts with the high voltage (12V), and as the battery fills up drops to 9 and eventually 5V. Temperature is lower compared to competing solution due to the 5V charging, which […]

January 15, 2016October 15, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Ocean is a Battery Powered Mobile Server Powered by Allwinner A20 Processor

iCracked, a company selling and repairing iPhones, has designed a thin and battery powered mobile Linux server called Ocean. The device is powered by Allwinner A20 processor with 1GB RAM, 4GB flash completed with 8 to 64 GB internal storage (SD card), and runs Debian 8.1 Jessie. Ocean mini server specifications: SoC – Dual core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.0 GHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3 @ 480 MHz Storage – 4GB flash for firmware, 8 to 64 GB internal SD card Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi up to 72 Mbps, and Bluetooth 4.0 LE + EDR with 10 dBm Antenna USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x mini USB for power Misc – Programmable RGB button Battery – 4,200 mAh; good for two days of continuous CPU usage; Charged via mini USB port (~4 to 5 hours) or Qi charger (~10 hours) Dimensions – 15 x 7.8 […]

December 22, 2015December 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

SMA-Q Smartwatch Mini Review and Teardown

I had great hopes for SMA-Q smartwatch, as it features an always on color e-Paper display, a built-in heart rate monitor, and promised 30-day standby battery life, as well as being 30-meter water resistant. But last week, I found out that the latter did not mean waterproof, and instead the watch was rated IP65 that’s only good enough to wash hands and a little rain, but not showering let alone swimming. In the last week, I could play with the watch, and found some serious Bluetooth connectivity issues (with Iocean M6752 smartphone), and I was recommended to upgrade the firmware of SMA-Q watch, and after that my Bluetooth issue have somewhat improve, but everything pretty much went downhill, and the watch is now out of order, and shows no sign of life. So while I was expecting to write a full review, I’ll simply report with experience with the watch […]

November 15, 2015November 15, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Huawei Quick Charging Li-Ion Batteries Promise 10 Times Faster Charge

Watt Lab, part of Huawei’s Central Research Institute, has demonstrated new fast charging batteries for smartphone and tablets at the 56th Battery Symposium in Japan. The lab claims these new batteries can be charged 10 times faster than normal batteries, reaching about 50% capacity in a 5 minutes for a 3,000 mAh battery. Two video demos were uploaded online both using a special charger for the battery only, and compared it to a mobile phone charge with a power adapter. The first demo includes a depleted 600 mAh filled to 68% in just 2 minutes. The second demo is quite similar but with a 3,000 mAh battery (620 Wh/L energy density) charged to 48% in 5 minutes. That means you could get about half day worth of battery with a 5 minute charge. The feat can apparently be achieved by adding “heteroatoms“: According to Huawei, the company bonded heteroatoms to […]