24 Hour Netbook (help needed)

[j1979]

Ok so i had a lenovo s10e, and it died on me, not the hardware but the case. it cracked and the screen came away from the main chassis. Also the fan made a horrible noise, it ran very hot and crashed sometimes due to the heat on the atom. I had the idea a long time ago for a small PC project (pre netbook days) but back then components weren't available cheaply, and by the time they were, it was just cheaper to buy a netbook. So the project was forgotten.

But now i had the components and just needed a new case. I decided to make the new case capable of holding 12 cells, with the aim of getting a very long battery life with the help of good natural cooling. The original idea was to use an aluminium case and have the case it's self as the heat sink, by having the heat conducted away from the CPU via a block of aluminium attached to the base of the case. This idea had many pitfalls, mainly that the core might be damaged if the case was knocked or dropped. so i decided to make a new heatsink that should be capabler of passive cooling.

So after dismantling the netbook down to it's component parts, i started by making a mounting system for the board. The best way i discovered was a combination of support below, and at both sides. The board is mounted using the audio ports (which sit nicely in the holes drilled on the inside layer of the case) and on the other side likewise it is supported using the VGA port and the VGA screws hold the board very well.

holes to be made, for the board mounting.





needs filing down





a new base had to be made to give couple of extra mm depth in the base.


here it is mounted (very sturdy)


two motherboard mouting nutscrews are used in the VGA port mounting holes to secure the board.

[j1979]

On to the battery!!

the old battery, after taking apart.



The new battery, i used ultra fire 3600mAh x 12 in a 4 x 4 x 4 arrangement. using the old circuitry


testing the battery (it worked fine at this stage!!! (more on this later )


and here too.. (the battery shows that it is charging)








i used polymorph to make the mounting for the bottom of the board and the battery.


Polymorph melts at 62 degrees Celsius.. (lets hope the new cooling solution works)

[j1979]

so far so good! it's all working at this stage and, time to move onto the heatsink..

I got a heatsink of ebay for a 99p and modded it to fit the lenovo heatpipe


here you can see what i mean.


ready to solder the heatpipe (if doing this be carefull as the liquid in the heatpipe will expand and if you overheat it can explode) always wear goggles, or at the very least blink many times per minute.


here i had 2 ideas for a fan, i opted for the squirrel cage type.


placement thoughts


here is the copper mounting plate i made, and the raised part is where the CPU core makes contact


old vs new.

[j1979]

The HD is not in it's original position, the batteries were 1mm higher than i expected, so i had to mouth the disk on the floor of the case and use a cable to attach it to the board.

also at the back in the middle you can see the custom battery connector is made from polymorph, i broke the old connector as i crumbled due to too much soldering.


so here it is.. almost finished (just needs cosmetic work) + my main problem...


Ok so like the title says i need help.. the battery was working fine, until i had to make the new connector.. I soldered the battery mini daughter-board so many times, i think its fried!! Now when i turn the netbook on, it works with the battery when i pull the power but it shows that it's running on AC power, and the battery won't recharge now.. (it did before). The battery it's self if OK, but i have damaged the circuit that the battery needs. So what i am asking is, does anyone know about netbook/laptop batteries? and does anyone have an old battery that has lost most of its charge that they are willing to give me (i'll pay the postage) so that i can use the circuit...

I presume that any board will do, as all the batteries use a universal arrangement..although i could be wrong here and im just guessing. An old netbook battery would be ideal, as the board will more than likely fit in the case. An old S10e battery would obviously be best of all!

Please help me fellow Hexies!

[j1979]

can a mod please move to "Small form factor & portables"

cheers

[vicar]

very brill thread, end result looks good.

Any success with the battery recharging?

[j1979]

very brill thread, end result looks good.

Any success with the battery recharging?

Thanks

im looking on ebay now for any old 11.1v battery so i can rip out the daughter board. i seen one for 99p with very dead batteries. so it might work. ill update the thread. It was working fine before i soldered and resoled the board.

[Pob255]

Modding is the right place for a scratch build laptop case

And you get thanks from me for just trying it.

Have you got any more photo's and details on how you've made that case?
I'd love to make an aluminium case for my eee pc901

Are thoes pop rivets holding the bottom on? and what are the black corner sections?

On the battery front, the cells are standard, although they tend to be made in fixed batches and you don't want to mix batches as minor variations can cause charge issues.
However I don't think the battery controllers are standard.

Before when your made battery was responding correctly how charged up was it?

I'm guessing that it could be that because it far higher capacity than the controller is set for it actually thinks that it is on mains.
When the batteries run down enough it might then be able to correctly recognise them again.

Although that's just a guess as battery controller circuits are a bit of a mistery to me, I know they are there and they regulate the power charging and level data to the loptop.

[j1979]

Modding is the right place for a scratch build laptop case

And you get thanks from me for just trying it.

Have you got any more photo's and details on how you've made that case?
I'd love to make an aluminium case for my eee pc901

Are thoes pop rivets holding the bottom on? and what are the black corner sections?

On the battery front, the cells are standard, although they tend to be made in fixed batches and you don't want to mix batches as minor variations can cause charge issues.
However I don't think the battery controllers are standard.

Before when your made battery was responding correctly how charged up was it?

I'm guessing that it could be that because it far higher capacity than the controller is set for it actually thinks that it is on mains.
When the batteries run down enough it might then be able to correctly recognise them again.

Although that's just a guess as battery controller circuits are a bit of a mistery to me, I know they are there and they regulate the power charging and level data to the loptop.

the batteries were from flebay all brand new and sealed, 18650 3600mah ultrafire (protected) they have a little circuit on the posi end of each cell. they appeared to be working fine and the battery info in windows showed (the name of the previous donor battery brand were i took the board from), and it showed running on batteries and charging. I fully charged it and ran the netbook running Prime95 and superPI.. It lasted for 7 hours at full load and highest brightness.

but then i needed to make a custom connector due to the size of the case i could not easily use the current connector. I did this work while the charge was very low, as i figured it was best to work while drained. So i tried to mod the connector and the plastic disintegrated due to too much soldering. Whilst removing the old connector attached to the battery daughter board i think i fried it. It was hard to unsolder all 7 pins at the same time..

so i finally made the new connector and all the connections worked, tested the continuity with my meter. But the next time i plugged the battery in, it showed in windows, No battey, followed by charging, then no battery, then 3% battery then that AC power was plugged in when it wasn't (it was all over the place) this all happened very quickly.. like 1-2 mins... I guess i just assumed that it would still charge when plugged in but not show this. it was only when i went on a road trip and my battery lasted 5 mins after i left the AC plugged in for 18 hours.

The battery just runs for a few seconds now, and no way to recharge.


I found a netbook sized case on flebay, so the case was ready made but only 5cm high and i had to remove the Aluminium sheathed wooden base and replace it with aluminium sheet on the very bottom. And yes i used pop rivets to hold it! i looked at aluminium solder but it needs to be heated to 400c so this would have melted the plastic corners. The guy fro flebay i got the case from said he will have more stock in October/November of this case.

Ohh and i was thinking of making a second case ! a bit more refined! hopefully with fully anodised aluminium

[Pob255]

And here was me thinking you made it.

Does sound like you've damaged the controller, sorry I cannot be of more help, I don't know much about it and my electronics knowledge is very limited.

[pollaxe]

Sorry, can't help either but just wanted to say it was good work!

[Raz62]

looks good hope to see what it turns out like when you do manage to finish it

[Fraz]

Man, I love it when people do stuff like this. Can't offer any help, but I like your DIY styles