08-09-2020, 10:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-26-2021, 07:58 AM by dsimic.
Edit Reason: Layout improvements
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(07-30-2020, 04:51 PM)forthwith Wrote: According to the schematics, the battery connector is a JSQ1201WR-7P, but there doesn't seem to be a datasheet I can locate on google. What is it's maximum power rating? It's already got 3 hots and ground pairs, so each one carries one amp apiece. It's pretty small, so that may be the weak link in the circuit.
A better alternative may be to increase the power output but leave the battery charging current as is. This way, under full system load the battery should still be able to charge, or at least not discharge.
That's a good point regarding the battery connector. The battery can easily take 5 A, according to its datasheet, but it should be investigated further about the power rating of the battery connector.
I totally agree that not changing the battery charging current would be a much better way to go, but that seems to be impossible, unfortunately. I'll investigate it further, but the overall design of the PineBook Pro seems to be taking all of its power from the battery, while the DC inputs are there only to charge the battery. Quite frankly, such a design doesn't make much sense for a laptop, but everything points into that.
(07-30-2020, 07:35 PM)Dendrocalamus64 Wrote: As the battery monitor is able to get a detailed reading of the current charge status, I'm more interested in being able to set the charge endpoint to less than 100%, so as not to be death-charging the battery. It typically drops to around 94% overnight from self-discharge, depending on the temperature, then immediately gets topped up to 100% during use. This is the worst sort of charge pattern for battery longevity, and happens every day despite the fact that I'm not even using the battery.
I'll have to try this when I'm on a newer kernel.
I agree, that's really bad for the battery longevity.
AFAIK, defining the charge thresholds isn't possible on a PineBook Pro (PBP). IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads have built-in battery charge controllers that allow such charge (and discharge) thresholds to be defined, but the PBP's charge controller has no such functionality.
There are some more things to consider...
USB Power Delivery 2.0 and 3.0 specifications allow only up to 3 A when operating at 5 V. As a result, the bad news is that even with hardware modifications there could be no improvements when using a USB Type-C charger, which is really sad. The good news is that the PBP's charging logic can already act differently (i.e., use different amounts of input power) when using the barrel port and when using a USB Type-C charger, which could be modified to limit the input current to 3 A when a USB Type-C charger is used.
Quite frankly, the charging of the PineBook Pro could have been made much better. Some improvements shoud be made to the overall design, IMHO.
