Running a laptop off AA batteries - Funny hacks ep10

[UT00ber50]

Have you tried to replace the batteries in a laptop battery pack with any luck? How do you identify those types of batteries?

[ksandom40]

@UT00ber50 Long before I was any good at this stuff I had it done for one of my laptops. I just went to a place that specialised in batteries in NZ. I'm in the UK and haven't seen a store like that here. So if anyone want's to suggest someone, now's a good chance ! ;)

If you'd like to do it yourself, make sure you have the same type IE LiPo vs NiMH vs NiCad etc so the charger will work in the correct way.

[ksandom40]

@UT00ber50 Capacity shouldn't matter as long as all the cells are the same. Do not mismatch them. That would bring much sadness!

[r4microds]

my friend gave me a T42 to screw around with, but he didnt have the charger... Anything i can do? mine is different, so it wont fit

[ksandom40]

@r4microds Probably the most useful thing you could do would be to go to an electronics store and pick up a universal laptop power supply. If I've looked up the correct laptop, yours requires a 72w power supply. It's probably better to go a little over than a little under. So something like and 80 or 75 should do the trick.

If all else fails, a hack like this will do the trick. But it was never meant to be useful. Just silly and fun. :)

[r4microds]

@ksandom40 : Allright, thanks! Ive seen Universal Laptop chargers in an Asian black market store (3rd party Asian electronics). As far as I know, the laptop is really old, if the issue is software related, i can fix it, if it's hardware, depending on the issue, I may or may not decide to bother. Only reason I have not yet purchased the charger is simply their strick no return policy. Ive gotten 3rd party hardware from there before, without ANY issues. I think ill just borrow a friends

[hirnfaul]

Completly senseless likemy comment, hehe, but you are a humorous guy with a funny intro that makes me laugh. Strongly underrated vids.

[ksandom40]

@hirnfaul Haha Thanks dude :)

[jgbalboa]

Looks like your AAs burned your motherboard.

[ksandom40]

@jgbalboa haha nah, it did melt the battery holder though.

[TheBlacksabbathfan9]

Wow and I thought mine was old that is a thick laptop. Min is an IBM TP to

[ksandom40]

@TheBlacksabbathfan9 Haha yeah, just yesterday a friend was over and I powered up an old 486DX2 66 Laptop with 8MB ram :D Still goes!

[seehan1]

get to the fucken point

[14622Byron]

what cabel did you use what did you use?

[ksandom40]

@14622Byron Hey, sorry for the slow reply. In this case I used the DC lead from a universal charger. But you could also use speaker wire (not the really thin, cheap stuff). The main thing is to use a cable with lots of strands so that you can keep the amperage as high as possible without loosing it in the wire.

[ksandom40]

@monste1324 Sure what would you like to know? There's a huge amount of information on the page linked in the description including some things you need to be really careful of. I'm also doing a revisit later in this season (s2) of funnyhacks.

[froghead57]

like ur glasses

[ksandom40]

@froghead57 Thanks, several people have commented on that over time :)

[irulethe70s]

How many old laptops do you have?

[ksandom40]

@irulethe70s Currently 3, although I may lighten up for the move. The oldest is a 486 with 8MB Ram. I've used this hack on 2 of them.

[ksandom40]

By the way, video responses are welcome!

If you've had a go, I'd love to see it. :)

[TabalugaDragon]

For how long can it work on this amount of good NiMH rechargable batteries?

[ksandom40]

@TabalugaDragon The first laptop I did this on an old HP omnibook 500. It lasted over 4 hours on 20 2500mAh batteries. The thinkpad in this video lasted a couple oof hours on 20 equivilent 2500mAh batteries. So it depends a lot on the power requirements of your laptop. I've posted a lot more information that's linked in the description. But always happy to answer questinos :)

[TabalugaDragon]

@ksandom40 Thanks for reply! I have cheap Asus PRO52RL which drains a lot of power :( but 3 years ago I had samsung (I don't remember exact title) which drained much less power, because it has battery 4000 mAh, and when I bought it it worked 3 hours, and asus I have now had 4400 mAh and worked only 2.5 hours on this battery, and now decreased so much works only half hour max

so obviosly samsung has better energy saving system

which laptop can you recommend with best energy saving?

[ksandom40]

@TabalugaDragon Short answer: I don't know.

Long answer: I have an Asus eee 701 which is said to be reasonable. I consistently get 3-4 hours on that depending on what I'm doing with it. It has a 5200mAh battery, but the interesting thing about this one, is that it's 7.4v instead of the normal 10-12ish volts. So it holds 7.4x5200=38,480 watts (if I've done the calc correctly;) ) While my thinkpad, for example is only 4800mAh, yet it's at 10.8 volts, so it holding 51,840 watts.

[ksandom40]

@ksandom40 "7.4x5200=38,480 watts" Whoops, the 5200 is milli amp hours, so we need to divide by 1000 to get 38.4 watt hours.

[rrhade]

a battery from a dual core fujitsu siemens with 10 v 4800 mah .i 'm getting 3-4 hours of intense office.

I enjoy watching your videos great work !

[ksandom40]

@rrhade Thanks :D I'm currently filming the next series, which I hope to start releasing at the end of July. It's going to begin with a BANG! ;)

[rrhade]

i'm using the same hack on my thinkpad 600 .The original battery was bad , so i used some battery cells from another laptop battery .I cant use the internal chip from original so i only used the cells to power up.I recharge them with the ac adaptor + to + and - to - .

[ksandom40]

@rrhade Nice :D I considered doing it that way, but I wanted to be able to swap between the original battery and the battery pack I made without rebooting. The way you've done it will almost definitely work more efficiently since that input is designed for a less abundant power source, so it should be more optimised for efficiency, while the jack I've used is more likely to be a swiss-army-knife of power supplies.... (This is a massive generalisation!)

[tribalmasters]

Give it the right volts&amps and it is happy! AA batteries happily power my USB toys so I guess my Thinkpad wouldn't mind!

[ksandom40]

@tribalmasters Exactly! Some laptops detect the exact model of the power supply and will power off immediately during POST if they can't detect what they want. (I've seen some dells and an HP do this). The way I get around it is to get past the BIOS on the normal battery and then everything else can happen on the AAs through the power supply socket. It may be easier to use battery socket entirely instead, but I suspect the laptop will complain about missing ACPI facilities.

[ksandom40]

I originally did this hack back in 2007 and took it to a conference. I've just discovered that someone else did the same thing and released their video just a couple of months before this one in 2009, d'oh! I'll try to have less latency between the hacks and the video in the future!

[bafifihotmailcouk]

thanks... its my favourite video of all my other vids lol

[bafifihotmailcouk]

nice vid

u look like waluigie from mario

[ksandom40]

Thanks.

LOL I've been been given lots of nick names, but that's the first time I've heard that one. :D

I loved your hobbit video.