Battery Powered Mini-PC

[Xychic]

I am in the process of parting out an small PC that I can power by a USB-C PD battey bank.

 

Current plan is to use an Asrock deskmini as it is small and runs on 19V DC which means it SHOULD be fine on 20V but this is something I need to double check.

 

I will need to source:

- Parts for the Deskmini

- A large enough battery bank that can do 100W of PD power

- A 20V USB C to DC barrel jack cable

 

Questions people have asked me:

    Q: Why?

    A: Because I haven't seen it done and I want an alternative to a laptop

 

    Q: Why not just get x laptop?

    A: Because laptops have basically no upgrade paths or repairability and I want to see if I can

 

    Q: Will it not be a bit impractical?

    A: Most likely

[Jeppes]

What battery bank? Anker one for example gives out 1.5A with 20V. Good luck running a desktop cpu with that.

[Xychic]

I have found this: NUCLEUS by OTG Technologies and E EGOWAY

[mariushm]

The DC In connector of that motherboard does not do Power Delivery, so the motherboard won't "talk" to your charger to configure the voltage higher than 5v.

 

Between the charger / battery bank and the device there's a communication, and the device tells the battery bank it can raise the voltage from 5v to 9v or 12v or 20v.

 

Your battery bank idea may work, IF you somehow find a chip or ready made board which can "lie" to the battery bank to always request 20v.

 

---

 

The motherboard will probably accept as little as 16v but won't be happy about it. 18v should be perfectly fine...

 

You'll be better off just buying a 5S lithium battery pack and optionally use a dc-dc converter to stabilize / convert that voltage down to 18-20v the motherboard expects.

 

In fact, it will probably be safe to power the whole system directly from a 5S battery pack, as the voltage will be 5x4.2 = 21v ... with the current draw of the computer, the voltage will drop to 19-20v almost instantly and the components on the motherboard will be rated for at least 25v.

 

You can also buy readily available lithium battery chargers which can do the load balancing for 5S battery packs.

See for example hobbyking website

example charger that can do 5S battery packs : https://hobbyking.com/en_us/imax-b6-dc-charger-5a-50w-copy.html

a slightly better model : https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-accucel-6-80w-10a-1-6s-balancer-charger-suitable-for-lihv.html

 

example battery packs (5S) : https://hobbyking.com/en_us/batteries-chargers/batteries/lipo.html#q=5s

 

[Jeppes]

17 minutes ago, Xychic said:

I have found this: NUCLEUS by OTG Technologies and E EGOWAY

Those could work if the specs are true. The efficiency will be horrible though and most likely max 1-2h of usage time. I would honestly just pick an Asus pn51 with 5500U. Its not like you can upgrade the cpu without investing heavily into something that can run high wattage cpu:s.

[Freakwise]

The usb pd will not give you 20v of output if you didn't have the necessary communication protocol between sink and source, granted there's this usb pd trigger board for cheap

https://m.id.aliexpress.com/item/4000282575556.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail

 

And connect that to your mini pc

(Note that you need volt meter to check the voltage when selecting through it's mode)

 

And for your mentioned power bank

Assuming the rating was true you technically can get decent battery life of

3 to 5-ish Hours (sorry if am wrong)

 

 

Funnily enough i also think about this idea just couple Hours ago for my nuc and also deskmini so i can use a "normal" usb c pd charger to power them

 

 

[Xychic]

28 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Your battery bank idea may work, IF you somehow find a chip or ready made board which can "lie" to the battery bank to always request 20v.

 

16 minutes ago, Freakwise said:

The usb pd will not give you 20v of output if you didn't have the necessary communication protocol between sink and source, granted there's this usb pd trigger board for cheap

I have been using a type C 20V trigger to lenovo slim tip connector to charge my laptop for some time now, I will use a similar cable from here to do the same thing for the PC.

 

 

 

[mariushm]

14 minutes ago, Xychic said:

 

I have been using a type C 20V trigger to lenovo slim tip connector to charge my laptop for some time now, I will use a similar cable from here to do the same thing for the PC.

 

Even so, battery banks are typically using a single 4.2v lithium battery / pouch or at best 2 such flat batteries in series... this means that a battery pack will have to boost 3v..4.2v or 6v..8v to 20v, so a lot of current will be pulled from the battery and the step-up converter will heat up substantially to produce those 20v at the current the motherboard wants.

 

Also you will do a step-up / boost conversion from 5v to 20v only to have this brought back down from 20v down on the motherboard, so there's two conversions, you waste power converting between voltages.

 

Laptop battery packs are  typically use 3 or 4 batteries in series because it makes it very convenient to get 12v for internal fans and to do one simple conversion from a higher voltage (12-16.5v) down to the voltage the processor needs (0.6v ...1.4v) and down to 3.3v or 5v needed for usb and internal pci-e / m.2 - it's only one conversion, and step down / buck (from higher to lower) conversion is much more efficient.

 

It would make more sense to follow what laptops do... you could have your 5S battery power the board directly and you could also charge this battery with a quick charge compatible charger or a regular charger or directly from a 90-120w laptop adapter.

 

 

[Xychic]

56 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Those could work if the specs are true. The efficiency will be horrible though and most likely max 1-2h of usage time. I would honestly just pick an Asus pn51 with 5500U. Its not like you can upgrade the cpu without investing heavily into something that can run high wattage cpu:s.

This is very similar to the Asrock Deskmini, which I am planning to get and use a Ryzen 5 4650G inside. I like the idea of a ready made solution but as it compromises on upgradeability I don't think I will go for it.

[Xychic]

So it has been a while and the project has made a lot of progress.

 

I have built the PC and have ordered parts to make a PD 19V power supply. 

 

The build is as follows:
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600G

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws 2x8GB

Cooler: Noctua NH-L9A chromax.black

WiFi: AX210

All inside the Asrock DeskMini X300

 

The system is set to run in 35W mode in the bios which should keep the system well below the 100W limit of USB PD.

 

To get 19V from a USB PD power supply I will use a 20V PD Trigger, 9-36V to 19V regulator, and a standard 5.5x2.5 barrel jack

 

As soon as the part arrive for the regulator I will be soldering it together and testing it

[wormite]

On 10/2/2021 at 2:37 AM, Xychic said:

So it has been a while and the project has made a lot of progress.

 

I have built the PC and have ordered parts to make a PD 19V power supply. 

 

The build is as follows:
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600G

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws 2x8GB

Cooler: Noctua NH-L9A chromax.black

WiFi: AX210

All inside the Asrock DeskMini X300

 

The system is set to run in 35W mode in the bios which should keep the system well below the 100W limit of USB PD.

 

To get 19V from a USB PD power supply I will use a 20V PD Trigger, 9-36V to 19V regulator, and a standard 5.5x2.5 barrel jack

 

As soon as the part arrive for the regulator I will be soldering it together and testing it

Hi Xychic did you succeed in building this? How's the battery life time?

[Xychic]

21 hours ago, wormite said:

Hi Xychic did you succeed in building this? How's the battery life time?

Hi! I am currently typing this on the PC powered by USB PD! The 19V regulator caused more problems than it fixed as it struggled to quickly adapt to an increased load, which triggered over current protection and required everything to be unplugged and replugged. Instead I am running it on 20V directly from a PD trigger. 

So far the battery life is around 4-5 hours of normal use. When being benchmarked it uses around 50W which means it would last just under 2 hours.

Overally very happy with the system, any questions feel free to ask!

[wormite]

On 11/28/2021 at 12:31 PM, Xychic said:

Hi! I am currently typing this on the PC powered by USB PD! The 19V regulator caused more problems than it fixed as it struggled to quickly adapt to an increased load, which triggered over current protection and required everything to be unplugged and replugged. Instead I am running it on 20V directly from a PD trigger. 

So far the battery life is around 4-5 hours of normal use. When being benchmarked it uses around 50W which means it would last just under 2 hours.

Overally very happy with the system, any questions feel free to ask!

That's very nice! Can you explain further on how you did it? I found 100W 20V power banks on amazon but not sure how this would integrate with the deskmini.

Powerbank(output 20V?) -> 20V PD Trigger ->5.5x2.5 barrel jack->deskmini?

Also can you both charge the powerbank and use the deskmini still? Or do you charge the powerbank separately and only switches over manually by changing the cables?

Thanks again for being willing to answer my questions.

 

[Xychic]

18 hours ago, wormite said:

That's very nice! Can you explain further on how you did it? I found 100W 20V power banks on amazon but not sure how this would integrate with the deskmini.

Powerbank(output 20V?) -> 20V PD Trigger ->5.5x2.5 barrel jack->deskmini?

Also can you both charge the powerbank and use the deskmini still? Or do you charge the powerbank separately and only switches over manually by changing the cables?

Thanks again for being willing to answer my questions.

 

You have the idea down, I have been using this cable and this adapter to power the deskmini as they combine the trigger and the barrel jack in one.

 

The power bank I have been using only has one type-c port so cannot charge itself and power the PC at the same time. I have seen some power banks that support passthrough (I believe the baseus blade does) but sometimes charging the device causes it to renegotiate the PD, which would cause the PC to shutdown. This is also a problem with some multi-port type-c chargers (I found out the hard way). 

 

If anyone else wants to replicate this I would love to see their results, but I want people to recognise the risks. I am powering the PC with an incorrect (albeit only very slightly incorrect) voltage and from a source it wasn't designed for (batteries). I am willing to accept this risk and have had no issues thus far but will keep you updated if anything changes!

[a4mula]

Hi, thanks for the frontline bleeding edge willingness to try these things out.  

 

I'm in the process of planning out a portable handheld windows build myself.  

 

My plan is to start with a mini pc from china, It's a 9300H and mobile 1650.  The form factor is larger (222*195) but it will also afford for a 10.1" screen vs the more common soc 7" builds. With joycons attached It'll build out to be almost exactly the size of an iPad pro 12.9, albeit much thicker and heavier.  1-1.5 kg (ughh).

 

Here's the kicker.  19v 150w DC in.  I know usb-c caps at 100w.  I'm fairly certain with some aggressive undervolting and fps locking I can keep the system to about 50w load with peaks under 90w.  I just don't know if the system will throw a fit if I try to run 100w into the jack when it ships with a 150w power brick.  

 

Also, I'm assuming windows fails to recognize when you're using the battery, hence no switching power profiles based on wall power and battery?

 

Last question, have you come across any good sources of people hardwiring this type setup?  If I can bypass the 19v 150w DC input all together and just run straight from USB-C > Batteries > system, with passthrough it'd be my ideal setup.

 

Thanks for any thoughts.