Hacking Hardware Switch - Dual Battery Hack

[binkinator]

Are you like using the battery controller on each battery to keep them balanced or something?

Also is that Lipo?

I never had luck with lipos, all the ones I actually used from RC no matter the brand and having them with a low voltage alarm by each cell after many time all my batteries start to get very unbalanced and I always charged balancing them.

Also all the lipos I actually used eventually started to balloon and many even started smoking, I wouldn't even dare using LiPo and specially not without some kind of circuit that I know with 100% sure that it always balance both batteries and allow a balance discharging too sharing the load always balanced.

And even with Lion dual batteries I have many dead original Samsung and other brands from using in dual battery vapes but since I got a mod with balancing feature and one that seems to work I have been using the same Sony batteries for like 3 years and still going strong charging almost every day, the balancing circuitry made all the difference as it keeps them balanced wether it's discharging or idle (I always charge batteries separately too 1-by-1...).

Unlike the reddit thread where the guy ripped off the protection circuits I want to be safe and not lose body parts so i intend to keep the individual protection circuits in place to prevent (over|dis} - charging issues. Yes, most of the batteries pictured are LiPo and I share your caution. People can probably figure out which set I’m going to talk about last and indeed, they’re not LiPo. I briefly looked at vape circuits but most were serial and I need to run parallel to keep the voltage near the nominal 3.7V.

 

[ucupetuks]

dont use dual battery, use single 6000mah, i would try later but, last time i did in psp, its run unstable
dual battery in pararel would lost their juice in standby faster

 

[binkinator]

dont use dual battery, use single 6000mah, i would try later but, last time i did in psp, its run unstable
dual battery in pararel would lost their juice in standby faster

I’ve not been able to find the size needed to retain that much capacity without resorting to a custom battery that requires a bulk order. £¥€$!

 

[l7777]

Are you like using the battery controller on each battery to keep them balanced or something?

Also is that Lipo?

I never had luck with lipos, all the ones I actually used from RC no matter the brand and having them with a low voltage alarm by each cell after many time all my batteries start to get very unbalanced and I always charged balancing them.

Also all the lipos I actually used eventually started to balloon and many even started smoking, I wouldn't even dare using LiPo and specially not without some kind of circuit that I know with 100% sure that it always balance both batteries and allow a balance discharging too sharing the load always balanced.

And even with Lion dual batteries I have many dead original Samsung and other brands from using in dual battery vapes but since I got a mod with balancing feature and one that seems to work I have been using the same Sony batteries for like 3 years and still going strong charging almost every day, the balancing circuitry made all the difference as it keeps them balanced wether it's discharging or idle (I always charge batteries separately too 1-by-1...).

Not sure who this was directed at.

All my RC equipment is LiPo, primarily 2 and 3 cell. Lion and LiFePo4 also need to be balanced for long life as they will all drift out of sync with multiple cells in use. This is also the dirty secret of power tool and other battery powered devices. Some DON'T use a balance charge controller which practically ensures an early EOL for the device or battery pack. To further make things difficult some use fuses and triggers in the battery management system that prevent you from repairing the battery and putting it back in service.

If you're burning through batteries on a regular basis I would suspect over current, over discharge, or too much charge current. I have some that are 5+ years old. They probably don't have their original rated capacity any more but they are still plenty usable. I try to stick to a 1C charge rate and keep them above 3.2 volts/cell. Storage charge of 3.85 volts/cell when not in use. The ones that have died were either involved in a crash or I forgot to unplug them from the vehicle leading to an over discharge situation.

 

[binkinator]

Not sure who this was directed at.

All my RC equipment is LiPo, primarily 2 and 3 cell. Lion and LiFePo4 also need to be balanced for long life as they will all drift out of sync with multiple cells in use. This is also the dirty secret of power tool and other battery powered devices. Some DON'T use a balance charge controller which practically ensures an early EOL for the device or battery pack. To further make things difficult some use fuses and triggers in the battery management system that prevent you from repairing the battery and putting it back in service.

If you're burning through batteries on a regular basis I would suspect over current, over discharge, or too much charge current. I have some that are 5+ years old. They probably don't have their original rated capacity any more but they are still plenty usable. I try to stick to a 1C charge rate and keep them above 3.2 volts/cell. Storage charge of 3.85 volts/cell when not in use. The ones that have died were either involved in a crash or I forgot to unplug them from the vehicle leading to an over discharge situation.

So fast charging isn’t something I considered…should I limit charge to just the std USB 5V and not use PD with a custom battery pack?

 

[guily6669]

Not sure who this was directed at.

All my RC equipment is LiPo, primarily 2 and 3 cell. Lion and LiFePo4 also need to be balanced for long life as they will all drift out of sync with multiple cells in use. This is also the dirty secret of power tool and other battery powered devices. Some DON'T use a balance charge controller which practically ensures an early EOL for the device or battery pack. To further make things difficult some use fuses and triggers in the battery management system that prevent you from repairing the battery and putting it back in service.

If you're burning through batteries on a regular basis I would suspect over current, over discharge, or too much charge current. I have some that are 5+ years old. They probably don't have their original rated capacity any more but they are still plenty usable. I try to stick to a 1C charge rate and keep them above 3.2 volts/cell. Storage charge of 3.85 volts/cell when not in use. The ones that have died were either involved in a crash or I forgot to unplug them from the vehicle leading to an over discharge situation.

I never over-discharged any battery cause I have a beeper from 1 to many cells and I set it to like 3.2V per cell if I remember well and stop using them as soon as 1 cell beeps, and I don't think I ever got anywhere close to their full rated discharge rate or get them burning hot.

I also always charged mostly at 1C or less and all the batteries were rated to take a lot more, also never charged Li-ion or Lipo manually to 4.3V but rather 4.1\4.2V depending on the battery spec, off course things like phones and other crap if the manufacturer doesn't bring a battery cap option it will charge to 4.3V most likely to get more juice out of it at the cost of cycles...

And at least Lipos just not using them for many time they will start to baloon which sucks.


I think I saw something for RC to balance discharge to keep the cells always balanced whether it0s idle or going trough discharge and probably also helps a slightly bad cell by putting more load on the others and keeping their voltage as close as possible between all, should also make the discharge power lower on the worse cell maybe making it give a full cycle better.

Anyway all I know is Lipos are far more explosive than Li-ion or other iterations of it, if it goes bad it really goes BOOM and in huge flames

So fast charging isn’t something I considered…should I limit charge to just the std USB 5V and not use PD with a custom battery pack?

If it's a good model from a good brand, check it's specs and stay within specs, also with 2 batteries sharing the load, it will surely take a high wattage between both.

But I should also advice that most batteries lie on their specs, there's a community post somewhere with true user full benchmarks of a HUGE amount of batteries and most batteries are a bit out of spec.

ps: if you find a good cheap tiny chip to keep both batteries balanced all the time post on your first post on this thread, should help a lot everyone that would want to try this mod (though I my self would always try to find the best single biggest battery plug-n-play instead of going this extreme, now if we were talking about cooling, it's a whole different thing).

 

[l7777]

So fast charging isn’t something I considered…should I limit charge to just the std USB 5V and not use PD with a custom battery pack?

You can still use PD as it is the charge IC that will control the charge current. Fast charging shouldn't really cause that much issue unless your trying to maximize the battery's useful lifetime as fast charging usually will increase the battery temperature. Since I'm almost never in a hurry to charge I check the box in Sys-clk-OC to prevent fast charging.

 

[guily6669]

If using Switch charging IC, the Fast charge will most likely be slow charge for such extreme dual battery setup and depending on their specs

Most likely you will never have Fast charge at all LOL

I mean is like 1C 1A charging for a 1000mah should be slightly more than 1H charge but the same 1A charge for a 4000mah battery turns into more than 4 hours and is no longer a fast charging.

 

[ucupetuks]

I’ve not been able to find the size needed to retain that much capacity without resorting to a custom battery that requires a bulk order. £¥€$!

buy power bank its cheaper and teardown the cell, keep in mind the approximate power bank size, buying normal battery from aliexpress is to expensive in shipping, cause there is special treatment for shipping batteries
here example power bank case https://gbatemp.net/threads/battery-case-mod-16000-mah.580448/

 

[binkinator]

buy power bank its cheaper and teardown the cell, keep in mind the approximate power bank size, buying normal battery from aliexpress is to expensive in shipping, cause there is special treatment for shipping batteries
here example power bank case https://gbatemp.net/threads/battery-case-mod-16000-mah.580448/

Appreciated. it looks like you opened a power bank and replaced the batteries with a larger set. Is that correct?

 

[ucupetuks]

Appreciated. it looks like you opened a power bank and replaced the batteries with a larger set. Is that correct?

yes just like that, for normal switch/oled using battery case like that it is to heavy, instead change internal battery is more likely to do, its very tempting , oh yeah cannot find datasheet for power regulator switch, there is max battery capacity as far i know

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2023

bit nervous try in oled, because when charging&playing at same time power regulator hit 65c compared v2 switch only 50c, my v2 just barely one week from i bought so still waranty, but my oled (7monts old) i sent to service guy to reball the emmc and makes it permanent dat0, will do the mod for oled but considering 65c charging temp, and putting bigger amps battery it would kill the regulator,

so if i mod oled battery, cannot playing when charging, thats might the rules for regulator safety
my lite broken because usbc pin bent, and killing the cpu cause regulator fail, thats my worries.

for v2 is consider ok in temp

 

[l7777]

yes just like that, for normal switch/oled using battery case like that it is to heavy, instead change internal battery is more likely to do, its very tempting , oh yeah cannot find datasheet for power regulator switch, there is max battery capacity as far i know

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2023

bit nervous try in oled, because when charging&playing at same time power regulator hit 65c compared v2 switch only 50c, my v2 just barely one week from i bought so still waranty, but my oled (7monts old) i sent to service guy to reball the emmc and makes it permanent dat0, will do the mod for oled but considering 65c charging temp, and putting bigger amps battery it would kill the regulator,

so if i mod oled battery, cannot playing when charging, thats might the rules for regulator safety
my lite broken because usbc pin bent, and killing the cpu cause regulator fail, thats my worries.

for v2 is consider ok in temp

The capacity of the battery should have no impact on the charge IC. While the IC may keep track of mAh and stop charging after a maximum amount, a larger capacity battery of the same voltage will simply take longer to charge than a lower capacity. The charge current will be the same.

 

[binkinator]

Added specs for the Liter brand batteries on the bottom right. One more set to go and then we get into the choice and how we’re going to wire them up. Parts are ordered and I’m thinking about having a flexible printed circuit made. It will be my first ever flex circuit and the results will be public so I’m both excited and nervous at the same time.

 

[marhalloweenvt]

Added specs for the Liter brand batteries on the bottom right. One more set to go and then we get into the choice and how we’re going to wire them up. Parts are ordered and I’m thinking about having a flexible printed circuit made. It will be my first ever flex circuit and the results will be public so I’m both excited and nervous at the same time.

If your circuit requires bending over with the curve of battery shape, you will need flex pcb. If not, you can print normal pcb with minimum thickness. For many hardware battery modifications (GB, GBA, GBC, Vita, IoTs, ...), I always use normal 2-layer pcb with thickness of 0.6 mm, because they are easier to handle and somehow helps me fulfill blank space and tighten battery in case.
But if you would like to try with flexible pcb, I would advise oshpark for prototype, really cheap, affordable and beautiful.
P/s: If you need help/advise in designing PCBs, just DM me.

 

[LipefipeFelps]

Ayy so, after a month, any news on your battery research?

 

[binkinator]

Ayy so, after a month, any news on your battery research?

I know. I'm a slacker! Got sidetracked w/ rebuilding a Switch Lite for this Pikofly thing (IF it ever happens I'm ready.)

I have one more set of batteries to review...they are the ones I'm going to use for this mod. That's all I'll leak at the moment.

I ordered special connectors for them from AliExpress and they've arrived already so I know I'm running behind for sure...

smh

Appreciate the reminder...I absolutely will finish this mod.

 

[LipefipeFelps]

I know. I'm a slacker! Got sidetracked w/ rebuilding a Switch Lite for this Pikofly thing (IF it ever happens I'm ready.)

I have one more set of batteries to review...they are the ones I'm going to use for this mod. That's all I'll leak at the moment.

I ordered special connectors for them from AliExpress and they've arrived already so I know I'm running behind for sure...

smh

Appreciate the reminder...I absolutely will finish this mod.

Thanks for the feedback. This post is the best stuff we have as documentation for switch battery mods. After doing some search by myself, its indeed complicated to find a single cell that fits the switch space lol.

Did you cut the metal shield for space? Or nah?

 

[binkinator]

Thanks for the feedback. This post is the best stuff we have as documentation for switch battery mods. After doing some search by myself, its indeed complicated to find a single cell that fits the switch space lol.

Did you cut the metal shield for space? Or nah?

Agreed. There’s a dearth of battery information for the Switch. It’s been quite a bit of trial and error.

I do plan on cutting the midframe to make horizontal space. I have a spare from another project gone awry. There is an extra ~2mm of space to be had there and overall battery volume is key.

 

[LipefipeFelps]

Agreed. There’s a dearth of battery information for the Switch. It’s been quite a bit of trial and error.

I do plan on cutting the midframe to make horizontal space. I have a spare from another project gone awry. There is an extra ~2mm of space to be had there and overall battery volume is key.

any news?

 

[Hayato213]

any news?

binkinator haven't been here for about half year.