Starting my ultra-portable PC project (PCp?) update Nov 26th

[Unidentified Assilant]

I used this, 3.16 amps while playing DVD's, so I will need a battery with quite a few amps to get acceptable run time, it is also 37.9 watts, you guys, which battery shall I use?

[Unidentified Assilant]

A mini-ITX mobo for only 59.99!? Is that in US dollars, because it sounds like a fantastic deal. What are the specs on that board, if you don't mind me asking?

Sorry for double post, it's in UK Pound Sterling, sorry teraflop122, I meant £ not $

[cennar]

far be it me to mock more than sleves!

[teraflop122]

UA: what kind of motherboard and components are you using? (curious) I like technobabble I'm going to dig up those Physics notes of mine and find the section on electronics.

This battery can reportedly run a laptop for around 4 hours, depending on usage etc:
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?P ... ProdID=172

Perhaps you could buy two of them and put them in parallel for uber 8000mAH capacity!!! You could have, so, an external battery pack that stays in your pocket or something.

EDIT: BTW, perhaps you post so often that people just can't keep up, and therefor an illusion that people are ignoring you is created. I don't think anyone here would purposely ignore you....

[Unidentified Assilant]

Teraflop: If you meant the motherboard, I was using power tester to test CompactFlash, Medium Video Card and SlimDVD Drive on a EPIA 5000 Motherboard

[teraflop122]

37.9 / 3.16 = ~12 volts

Battery Life = mAH rating of battery / (mAH requirements of screen + mAH requirements of the PC)

You would need a 12 volt battery with 3160mAh rating to get 1 hour of play time from that PCp Sorry if you already knew those equations above, just trying to be helpful by posting them.

That medium video card is sucking the life from your PCp power requirements. If you removed it, the same 3160mAH battery would give you almost 2 hours of DVD play time.

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EDIT: OH! Imagine this: you build a plastic casing around all your PCI devices, and then load them onto the PCp like a cartridge! So you could just leave off the uber video card when watching DVD's and sliiide in the video card before you start gaming! The software problems shouldn't be that difficult to remidy.
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For my project, I will most likely use two of these:
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?P ... ProdID=172
Connected in parallel, they yeild 8000mAH. They will be in an external pack that plugs into my PCp's Mini-ITX power supply 12v input.

Another option is squeezing a hole heap of rechargable AA's in amongst the obstructing parts of the Epia 5000. My original plans called for 16 (20) AA's, in two 8-AA arrays yeilding 12v 2300mAH each for a total of 4600 mAH.

(ponders) I, too, have dropped my 324 dollar plan in favor of an Epia 5000, except mine will have absolutely NOTHING on it besides a CF drive....and the PSone screen. That would require about 780mAH when doing light tasks. The screen- after the LED mod- would take about 310mAH.

8000mAH / 1090mAH = 7.33 hours... believe it or not, I find that unacceptable. What is the average battery life of the portable consoles people make?

[KANDYMAN-IAC]

revised budget::


VIA Epia N10000 $250 max
7 inch LCD $250 max
512mb sodimm ram $150max
40gb laptop harddrive $100max
battery Nimh 12v 9ah $120max
Input device $30

total $900 AUD

[*o*]

if you know anyone that works for a big company you can get half priced laptop my dad got my cuz a 2300 laptop for 1000

this is irrelevent but maybe it is a better option

[Unidentified Assilant]

37.9 / 3.16 = ~12 volts

Battery Life = mAH rating of battery / (mAH requirements of screen + mAH requirements of the PC)

You would need a 12 volt battery with 3160mAh rating to get 1 hour of play time from that PCp Sorry if you already knew those equations above, just trying to be helpful by posting them.

That medium video card is sucking the life from your PCp power requirements. If you removed it, the same 3160mAH battery would give you almost 2 hours of DVD play time.

-----------------
EDIT: OH! Imagine this: you build a plastic casing around all your PCI devices, and then load them onto the PCp like a cartridge! So you could just leave off the uber video card when watching DVD's and sliiide in the video card before you start gaming! The software problems shouldn't be that difficult to remidy.
-----------------

For my project, I will most likely use two of these:
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?P ... ProdID=172
Connected in parallel, they yeild 8000mAH. They will be in an external pack that plugs into my PCp's Mini-ITX power supply 12v input.

Another option is squeezing a hole heap of rechargable AA's in amongst the obstructing parts of the Epia 5000. My original plans called for 16 (20) AA's, in two 8-AA arrays yeilding 12v 2300mAH each for a total of 4600 mAH.

(ponders) I, too, have dropped my 324 dollar plan in favor of an Epia 5000, except mine will have absolutely NOTHING on it besides a CF drive....and the PSone screen. That would require about 780mAH when doing light tasks. The screen- after the LED mod- would take about 310mAH.

8000mAH / 1090mAH = 7.33 hours... believe it or not, I find that unacceptable. What is the average battery life of the portable consoles people make?

thanks, thtat was helpful, so I need a 12volt battery, how is the 7.33 hours playtime possible or unacceptable, that's amazing! 7 Hours! Even the PSP can't do that! I'm using a PSone Screen, and now, a 12 volt battery, my main goal is to get at least 2 Hours play time out of it.

[KANDYMAN-IAC]

There are 1.2V D cell Nimh batteries available that have a running time of 9AH. The same website that terraflop posted with his laptop battery pack also has a 12V battery pack constructed of those D cell Nimh batteries, and it is currently going for $87 USD.

You can also purchase these type of 9AH batteries seperately and wire them together yourself to make your own pack.

[teraflop122]

7.33 hours is possible because my battery pack will be external and freakin huge The battery pack alone will way on the order of 3 pounds

I could concievably run it on 8 (10) 1.5v (1.2v) 2300mAH AA's for about 1.5-2 hours, maybe a likkle bit more, thanks to the uber low power components I've chosen. After all, my PCp will be nothing more than a motherboard and a 512MB CF card

Now I'm beggining to wonder whether I can't find even lower drain components. Somewhere I saw 3.5" motherboards using a special LV (low voltage?) 400Mhz Eden CPU.

UA, this thing might be helpful: http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Me ... de=1UR32-E
You could connect a PCI video card and mount it, say, flat underneath the Epia 5000.

[tom61]

Update:

Wired up the PS/2 keyboard port today, it works. However, USB does not, as the system freezes whenever a USB keyboard is plugged in. I'm guessing that the USB breakout I have isn't wired right for this board.

I got it to boot off an old laptop drive running Windows 95, kind of nice to see it up, even in such a limited sense.

To Do:
Get the plugs needed to wire up the battery to everything else. (Not opening mine, considering all the trouble Ben had opening his. Not cutting cables, in case I decide to use it for something else)

Wire up a VGA connector to the PSOne screen.

Wire up the sound and PS/2 mouse.

Get Linux onto the 20GB drive I intend to use, and configure it to use 15kHz for video.

[teraflop122]

While I'm good with computers, I have only a substandard understanding of electrical components and wiring.

I have found the perfect motherboard for my purposes- running on a Geode GX1 300MHz CPU- that accepts a 5v power source. All well and dandy- I'll use arrays of 4 1.2v batteries- but I need a way to power the PSone LCD off the same circuit.

I looked at some regulators, but all of them I saw only step DOWN the voltage, such as from 7.2 down to 5 volts. I need to step 5 volts up to 7.2 volts. Is there a components I can use to do this? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[tom61]

While I'm good with computers, I have only a substandard understanding of electrical components and wiring.

I have found the perfect motherboard for my purposes- running on a Geode GX1 300MHz CPU- that accepts a 5v power source. All well and dandy- I'll use arrays of 4 1.2v batteries- but I need a way to power the PSone LCD off the same circuit.

I looked at some regulators, but all of them I saw only step DOWN the voltage, such as from 7.2 down to 5 volts. I need to step 5 volts up to 7.2 volts. Is there a components I can use to do this? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Just bypass the 7805 in the screen and feed the 5 Volts to where the output of the 7805 was going.

[teraflop122]

Oh, I get it. The LCD actually runs on 5 volts, which is supplied by the 7805 from a higher input volatage.

Update: According to Energizer charts, Alkaline D batteries offer about 20500 mAH of power. If I do indeed purchase this 300MHz Geode motherboard, I will be able to run it off of 4 D batteries for...8.84 hours. Interesting. I wonder, though, whether the Geode is capable of running emulators at an acceptable speed. I've heard a few bad things about it.

You think I would fry the PSone screen if I bypassed the 7805 with a 6 volt current instead of 5 volts?

EDIT: BTW, thanks for the help, tom61