Recycling pinephone as home server

[mdk]

Hi!

I have an old pinephone that I stopped using (due to broken battery pins).

I'm trying to recycle it as a home server, without a battery (I don't want it to catch fire) but:

- Either I plug it using an USB-C charger, it boots, but does not gets Wi-Fi (known behavior), so I'm stuck.
- Either I use the Pinephone convergence dock to use RJ45, but it looks like it lacks power or something as the phone bootloops.

I though about using a voltage regulator to fake the battery BUT I fear the moment the phone tries to "charge" it, lol.

Can someone try to boot its pinephone without a battery and with a convergence dock to see if there's any chance this way?

Or is there another way I missed?

[zetabeta]

Hi!

I have an old pinephone that I stopped using (due to broken battery pins).

I'm trying to recycle it as a home server, without a battery (I don't want it to catch fire) but:

- Either I plug it using an USB-C charger, it boots, but does not gets Wi-Fi (known behavior), so I'm stuck.
- Either I use the Pinephone convergence dock to use RJ45, but it looks like it lacks power or something as the phone bootloops.

I though about using a voltage regulator to fake the battery BUT I fear the moment the phone tries to "charge" it, lol.

Can someone try to boot its pinephone without a battery and with a convergence dock to see if there's any chance this way?

Or is there another way I missed?

somehow dock is recognized by operating system. some cases detection works and there have been other cases it does not. but charging connector messes this even further. i had cases where dock works but not if i put charger in it. and if i use a dock, and connect charger afterwards, it recycles stuff on a dock, disconnects and connects.

generally speaking, using charger thorough dock without battery is a bad idea.

3 ampere charger is recommended though.

voltage regulator may work, but maybe diode might be good idea.

lack of wifi might be because of bad drivers or kernel. bluetooth could be used for networking, but it is slow. you could update the system with bluetooth.

i may test dock and non-battery later, but i expect it fails somehow.

[Kevin Kofler]

The lack of WiFi is because the PinePhone circuitry has the WiFi (and also the modem) attached directly to the battery, not to the main power circuit. So no battery implies no WiFi and no modem.

[biketool]

The lack of WiFi is because the PinePhone circuitry has the WiFi (and also the modem) attached directly to the battery, not to the main power circuit. So no battery implies no WiFi and no modem.

There are instructions from maybe 3-4 years ago somewhere on the wiki, but there is a trick where voltage, I think 5v+ is fine, needs t go to a battery pad.