Battery powered motherboard - homemade AA battery pack

[NLRamonNL]

I tried this today, 8 standard alkaline AA's hooked to picopsu, no HDD attached or anything. I enter the bios asap to check out the voltage, it start at about 9v which is already way too low. then it drops pretty quickly to about 7v at which point the motherboard hangs. Batteries are fully charged but prolly cant handle the load.

[ammarkov]

@NLRamonNL it has to do with how much energy can be supplied for how much time ( mAh ) by the batteries , for my motherboard ( Intel D201GLY2 ) I ended up making a custom battery pack consisting of 10 rechargable NiMh C type batteries ( 1.4V ) with 4500 mAh capacity ( not shown in the video )

[NLRamonNL]

@ammarkov I got it to work using 2x10 AA batteries. still unstable but atleast it ran for a while, i might make a vid of it later. <3 nerd projects

[ammarkov]

@NLRamonNL :)

[twocvbloke]

For 12v you need just 8 1.5v batteries, fully charged of course, but to get more life out of them, you should make 2, 4, or 10x (your choice) 8-cell packs and wire them up in parallel giving you more amps at 12v... :)

Or just go for a Sealed Lead Acid battery, they're much easier to work with... :)

[ammarkov]

Each rechargable AA battery carries 1.2V (a little more in full charge) 2500 mAh , so 10 x 1.2 = 12V , Plus a Diode in the end that drops voltage a volt or something almost 11.5V ..

NiMH batteries are very liteweight , have almost no memory problems and many recharge cycles ,so the idea was if I could use them in parallel in the end :) ..

Unfortunatly they cost too much so I am now considering the cheaper but heavier Lead Acid alternative!

[twocvbloke]

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that rechargeables only carry 1.2v!!! I guess that once you build up a battery pack, it would probably weigh about the same as an SLA battery, so it would probably be easier just to use one of them... :)

I'm fiddlig with my own PicoPSU on a Via EPIA 5000 mini-ITX board, haven't got far with it but it does power the board up, I just need a monitor (I use a laptop these days) and to dig out my spare keyboard & mouse to try it out... :)

[ammarkov]

Same Problems Here..

No money -> means I have to use a broken LCD Monitor ( Because you can`t change BIOS with Remote Desktop , Search my videos for Broken LCD Monitor to see the horrible conditions I have to face :) .. ) , a broken mouse , and a shitty keyboard..

The best alternative is to use a Car Battery

12V 45AH , that will keep things running for about 9 hours on full load ( based on my calculations )

[twocvbloke]

With a battery like that you'd need a voltage regulator so you don't fry your PicoPSU, an expensive toy to ruin!!! :S

I just have no monitors!!! I did have 2x really nice Compaq S710 monitors, but they got thrown out when I moved house (not by me of course!!!), but I'm trying to save up for a TFT of some sort, just so I can get my computers up and running again!!! :)

[ammarkov]

Actually I am pretty confident that the PicoPSU will do just fine..! :) A voltage regulator is needed when you connect it to a Car Battery in a live car..When you switch the engine on , or while it is charging there are ups and downs in the voltage that can indeed hurt the PicoPSU..!But in any case there will be some voltage regulation in order for the robot to be able to charge while continuing to operate!

Monitors are becoming cheaper,in Greece you can get a 22 inch 1680x1050 LG for 154 Euros!

[ashermehul123]

thats gr8 man!!! are you using any additional circuit???? i would be thankful if you could send it to me...........

[ammarkov]

The batteries are directly plugged to a PicoPSU 120..

You should be careful though, the PicoPSU has no voltage regulator on , 10 full charged batteries produce over 14V of power..

It may fry the PicoPSU and or the motherboard!

The batteries in the video were half dis-charged and had an output about 12.2V

I will add a voltage regulator to the setup!