Slashdot Mirror
Mac mini Sans Wires - Batteries Inside the Case
An anonymous reader writes "Running Debian (or Linux generally) on a Mac mini is old news. Silas installed rechargable batteries inside the case, delivering a couple of hours of runtime while retaining the small form factor. Although it runs fine without wires, he had to plug in the monitor to be able to show that it was really up."
the monitor would drain the batteries like hell
Since when did nerds need a reason to do something nerdy?
This is Slashdot!
Execute? [Y/N] _
VNC is the obvious way to talk to the machine without a monitor connected...
If an external battery could be housed in a mac mini form factor external case (stacked under/ontop of the mini) I bet battery life could be equivelent or longer than a power-book (no LCD to run). Could provide some interesting low-cost remote monitoring solutions...
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
And the use would be?
As a random act of senseless beauty.
You see, geeks do have poetry in their souls. It's just in a language they don't teach in the English department.
So -- do what appeals to you. The utility will come later.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Bah! Real programmers don't need screens. Why, in my day we didn't even need keyboards to issue our commands. We merely bellowed at the computer and it whimpered off to do what we wanted. Honestly, the kids these days...
wait till you see my gerbil powered mini. I'm having a small problem with it though, it runs just fine in my test harness but the power seems to tail off and then die shortly after I hermetically seal the case.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The author says he measured 14-20W for the mac mini under load, but his 80W-Hr battery only lasted 1H:50M, implying a 40W+ power draw.
Am I missing something?
Hey, this could be the start of something big! What if he were to also install a portable screen? Maybe it could, I dunno, fold down into the top of the machine, or something. Then you could carry the computer around and do stuff with it, wherever you went, while resting it on your knee. A sort of "knee-top" compiter, though maybe there's a better name someone can think of . . .
Exactly how is the LiPo battery charged ?
0 9187
Without a proper charger, combining the energy density of a 80Wh battery with highly reactive Lithium is a recipe for disaster.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Wow, at only 12W for the entire system? It is pretty hard to get a x86 box that low for that
cheap.
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
It's a portable wireless hard drive for my laptop. Duh.
Random and weird software I've written.
Mac Mini Surgery
I had an itch to scratch so here it is...
Earlier this week I read an article on the Debian Weekly News, about a Debian box running on 3 Watts, and it reminded me of a project that I was asked to put on the shelf some time ago. The gist of the article linked to by the DWN was that Alex Perry got to wondering how much power his Linksys switch was sucking down whilst running 24/7, and found that his Manga, an ARM based router box, not only consumed less power but was able to run full blown Debian to boot. His point was "If I am going to pay to have a switch run 24/7, I might as well have the switch be a useful server as well." Following his article the PepLink community promptly got X11 working on the Manga and Alex's website was updated with the screen shots, which I might add are quite amusing.
While I do sympathize with the original thrust of the article, I must say that the Manga's ARM is a rather diminutive processor for a desktop machine these days. So my question is why would you run a Manga as a desktop to get down to the 3 Watt mark when for just a few more Watts you can run a box with a G4 processor? Yes, I am talking about that little machine that all of my geek friends (me included) seem to be drooling over as of late. The Mac Mini!
Several months ago I was in need of finding a small but powerful computer that could be run for a long period of time on batteries and not be a burden to carry. I was looking at several embedded options from places like kontron and mini-box, when I saw an article on the Mac Mini. Looking at the limited specs for the Mac Mini on Apple's website I began to suspect that if I removed the cdrom drive I would be able to fit a "lithium-ion polymer" battery pack inside the vacated space. I say that I suspected this because Apple is lousy about posting specs about internals and stuff that your Grandparents wouldn't normally ask about. So I ran down to the local Apple store with my trusty calipers and had one of their technicians go into the back and measure the dimensions of the cdrom drive for me. The numbers that he gave me made my day, the batteries would fit! Now about power specs. Apple of course did not have the DC power specs online, and nobody I talked to at the Apple store or on the support line could get them for me. In an act of desperation I resorted to sending email to combinations of addresses like steve_at_apple.com sjobs_at_apple.com, steve.jobs_at_apple.com, etc asking for the specs. Funny enough I got a reply (No, not from Steve Jobs) from an Engineer who was quite helpful. It looked like the Mac could do it, so I decided to get one and hack on it. The Mac was dirt cheap compared to the embedded systems so it was a very limited risk approach to proceeding on the project.
I ordered the Mac, a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive, and a laptop-IDE to CF adapter. I also talked to Mike (Dr. Zhang) at SKC PowerTech, Inc, and he was kind enough to send me some batteries for evaluation. The batteries were a new design and were not yet in production, so there was a bit of a lead time on those, but at the end of two days I had the rest of the necessities at hand. First things first, I measured the out of the box power draw of the Mac Mini, which turned out to be only 12 Watts! This was better than the specs I was given. I then proceeded to remove the hard disk and replace it with the Microdrive-CF adapter setup. Then I got me a Debian (Sarge) disk *GRIN*. This was the first time I had touched a Mac, and I was pleased to find that the Debian install on the Mac was smooth and painless. After getting the system up and running, I did some stress testing on it. The testing involved running simultaneous FFT routines (like 30 of them) on 80MB data files. The system was so heavily loaded that it took about 15 minutes to log into the machine from another terminal, and another 15 minutes to get to the bash prompt. During this utter thrashing of the system the highest the power usage spiked to was 20 Watts, but it stayed around 14
Old Macs, maybe. I had to plug in a display dongle to a Mac IIci server back around 1995. But the Mac mini doesn't need one. I have a mini in my basement, and it works fine over VNC with nothing plugged into its video port.
When I saw this, it reminded me of a very old joke I saw once.. and compelled me to post it here.
Top 12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say
12. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
11. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual processors if I am to do battle with this code!
10. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
9. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
8. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
7. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
5. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again.
4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
3. By filing this SCR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
2. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Seeing as how old school programmers think like klingon programmers, I believe that it can be reasonably assumed that all old programmers are klingon.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
for an Apple computer that runs on human blood!
Oh wait...
Seriously, give the guy a break. This mod probably wasn't as easy as it looks. Yes, it does have a very limited practical application due to the fact that you need a powered monitor (network access aside), but....in the long run, things like this can serve up some very innovative creations. Perhaps someone else will see this, and take it a step further, and eventually some ingenious application for a battery powered Mac Mini will appear. I say bravo, good job, and keep on tinkering.
"Although it runs fine without wires, he had to plug in the monitor to be able to show that it was really up."
Actually, the mac is both dead and alive until the monitor is plugged in - at which time the mac's probablility wave instantaneously settles in at its definite and final value...that is until the batteries run out, then it's a $500 doorstop.
One of the things I tend to use the battery in my laptop for most is to keep the thing on when I move from one room to the other in the house and then plug in again. Seems like a sensible thing someone would want to do with a mini, to go from a desk in a study over to the bedroom or to the stereo to play some music for a while without having to shut down and restart.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
spend less time wondering and more time doing research. Some of IBM's AS/400 systems (whatever-series, now) have a built-in UPS; they are sold as a complete computing solution for businesses. Just plug it in, and compute.
Or, you know, you could try a google search, if that's not too much trouble.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"