11-15-2020, 10:26 PM
Chiming in here as I had a similar problem. I hadn't used my Pinebook in probably more than 6 months, and then I could never get it to actually charge for many months after that. I gave up on it, and threw it in a drawer. Whenever I discovered it in my drawer months later, I'd try to charge it again with no success. Green light just blinks on and off. Nothing charges, and it will not power on or boot up.
I work a lot with 18650 Lithium cells and decided to pop open the Pinebook. I unplugged the battery pack from the main board and put a multimeter on it. ZERO volts. It was deader than dead, which is usually not good for a Lithium power cell.
Here's my theory at this point. I think the circuitry in the Pinebook checks the voltage on the battery to see if one is there or if it is lower than acceptable levels. If it is low or like in my case 0 volts, it assumes theres a faulty battery or one not present, and doesn't charge it at all.
So I rigged up a few pins to a charger that I could put on the + and - leads of the Pinebook battery pack. I let it charge at 5V/1amp for about 10 minutes just to bring the voltage on the pack up beyond 3.0 volts. Tested it and it was around 3.5 volts. Should be good now. This essentially was a way to "jumpstart" the lithium pack to a state so the Pinebook would see the battery again and start charging.
Sure enough, soon as I put it all back together and plugged in the charger, it started charging the battery and I was able to boot the laptop up successfully!
If your Pinebook isn't booting anymore and won't charge... you may have a depleted Lithium pack that was the result of leaving the Pinebook in hibernate mode and never plugging it back in for long enough for it do drain beyond normal limits. I don't know how this happens exactly. Most electronics that manage lithium packs are smart enough to disengage any load on the pack if it drops below 2.8-ish volts. But maybe there's a condition or situation on the Pinebook where that doesn't happen, and a full drain can occur.
I work a lot with 18650 Lithium cells and decided to pop open the Pinebook. I unplugged the battery pack from the main board and put a multimeter on it. ZERO volts. It was deader than dead, which is usually not good for a Lithium power cell.
Here's my theory at this point. I think the circuitry in the Pinebook checks the voltage on the battery to see if one is there or if it is lower than acceptable levels. If it is low or like in my case 0 volts, it assumes theres a faulty battery or one not present, and doesn't charge it at all.
So I rigged up a few pins to a charger that I could put on the + and - leads of the Pinebook battery pack. I let it charge at 5V/1amp for about 10 minutes just to bring the voltage on the pack up beyond 3.0 volts. Tested it and it was around 3.5 volts. Should be good now. This essentially was a way to "jumpstart" the lithium pack to a state so the Pinebook would see the battery again and start charging.
Sure enough, soon as I put it all back together and plugged in the charger, it started charging the battery and I was able to boot the laptop up successfully!
If your Pinebook isn't booting anymore and won't charge... you may have a depleted Lithium pack that was the result of leaving the Pinebook in hibernate mode and never plugging it back in for long enough for it do drain beyond normal limits. I don't know how this happens exactly. Most electronics that manage lithium packs are smart enough to disengage any load on the pack if it drops below 2.8-ish volts. But maybe there's a condition or situation on the Pinebook where that doesn't happen, and a full drain can occur.