Kindle Battery Surgery [Success!]

[geekmaster]

Battery charge complete (using external LiPo charger). USB cable disconnected. Inserted LiPo into PW3. Booted to diags (because ENABLE_DIAGS remains from low-battery CRP boot loop problem). Luckily, touchscreen is working at the moment, so disabled diags. Rebooted to main. Frontlight LEDS are dim but not off (directly visible without bezel). Started KUAL. Launched my frontlight control extension. Pressed "Frontlight OFF" button. And the LEDs turned completely off.

Yes, it is running on my repaired PW2/3 battery, with the LiPo replaced with a 500mAh quadcopter battery (with its own thermal protection circuit). Such LiPo batteries can be purchased for just a few dollars, and much larger ones for not much more.

So, this thread proves it can be inexpensive and relatively easy to repair a dead kindle battery, for probably any kindle (certainly a K2 and PW2/PW3), for just a few dollars. This may well be how those cheap Chinese "aftermarket" kindle batteries are made, or perhaps another way, but certainly available as simple DIY method for beginning hardware hackers.

EDIT: Now I need to take the time and effort to migrate my pictures from the albums to an external website (because many folks reported they cannot see most of the embedded images in this thread, even signed-in members). I strongly believe that creating a second account for the wiki probably also falls within mobileread guidelines, which is forbidden (but I find the guidelines more than a little confusing, and other members here have told me the "rules" are confusing to them too). So even wiki images are probably off limits. Anybody have suggestions for what external website I should move my mobileread images to, to stay within our stringent guidelines here?

[geekmaster]

I also know from previous experience that the PW3 should charge the repaired battery just fine, as long as it does not get stuck in a diags boot loop that repeatedly discharges the battery. I plan to remove CRP and try this again with a fully (mostly) discharged battery. If it works, I will see if I can make needed changes to CRP.

EDIT: A low capacity battery such as I used is functionally identical to an old "real" kindle battery with low remaining capacity. It is possible that the CRP trigger is sensitive to remaining capacity, and booting with the frontlight LEDs at full brightness (and remaining so in diags) causes this charge/discharge boot looping condition. There should be a relatively simple software workaround for this obscure problem. I am curious why the kindle is repeatedly booting with a low battery, when I have not pressed the power button to start it.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Battery charge complete (using external LiPo charger). USB cable disconnected. Inserted LiPo into PW3. Booted to diags (because ENABLE_DIAGS remains from low-battery CRP boot loop problem). Luckily, touchscreen is working at the moment, so disabled diags. Rebooted to main. Frontlight LEDS are dim but not off (directly visible without bezel). Started KUAL. Launched my frontlight control extension. Pressed "Frontlight OFF" button. And the LEDs turned completely off.

Yes, it is running on my repaired PW2/3 battery, with the LiPo replaced with a 500mAh quadcopter battery (with its own thermal protection circuit). Such LiPo batteries can be purchased for just a few dollars, and much larger ones for not much more.

So, this thread proves it can be inexpensive and relatively easy to repair a dead kindle battery, for probably any kindle (certainly a K2 and PW2/PW3), for just a few dollars. This may well be how those cheap Chinese "aftermarket" kindle batteries are made, or perhaps another way, but certainly available as simple DIY method for beginning hardware hackers.

EDIT: Now I need to take the time and effort to migrate my pictures from the albums to an external website (because many folks reported they cannot see most of the embedded images in this thread, even signed-in members). I strongly believe that creating a second account for the wiki probably also falls within mobileread guidelines, which is forbidden (but I find the guidelines more than a little confusing, and other members here have told me the "rules" are confusing to them too). So even wiki images are probably off limits. Anybody have suggestions for what external website I should move my mobileread images to, to stay within our stringent guidelines here?

Well, some people must have missed my posts about how to make the album pics visible -
Bring up the advanced editor (either to create a reply or to edit a post) -
That is all that is required - you can cancel out of the editor once it opens.

The bring up the advanced editor evidently loads some CSS or Javascript that is otherwise missing (but required) in a normal page view.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

Well, some people must have missed my posts about how to make the album pics visible -
Bring up the advanced editor (either to create a reply or to edit a post) -
That is all that is required - you can cancel out of the editor once it opens.

The bring up the advanced editor evidently loads some CSS or Javascript that is otherwise missing (but required) in a normal page view.

Folks who do not have an account (there are a lot of no-account lurkers, based on comments in my debricking thread) cannot do that. And those lurkers see the ads that pay the bills (but they do not see my embedded pictures).

[shalym]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Folks who do not have an account (there are a lot of no-account lurkers, based on comments in my debricking thread) cannot do that. And those lurkers see the ads that pay the bills (but they do not see my embedded pictures).

Why can't you just attach the pictures to the post, rather than embed them from a different site?

Shari

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by shalym

Why can't you just attach the pictures to the post, rather than embed them from a different site?

Shari

Then they are not in order, I cannot subtitle them, and they are not embedded. I guess the main reason was that when I tried that long ago, I was very dissatisfied with the results I was able to obtain. Could you point me to an example of images of selected size embedded in text like mine, where these images are stored as attachments? If so, I am very interested in seeing how they did it. If not, I can experiment with that again. I was a total noob here last time I tried that so likely I overlooked something obvious way back then.

I will test it now, using a copy of the first post, but using the attached images.

[geekmaster]

This is a re-test (suggested by shalym above) of storing my embedded images as attachments (as I tried and abandoned long ago). For comparison purposes, this is my first post from this thread, with image URLs changed to point to the attachments.

---<snip, [ATTACH] method follows>---

This is the battery from a PW3 (identical to that in my dead PW2, whose battery is now in my PW3), with the outer label peeled off, and the metal "tray" removed. It was inflated (like most dead LiPo batteries). I tore the foil pouch opening it. I hope the gases I inhaled were not TOO toxic.

---<and here, [IMG] linking to attachment below>---

Here is a cropped closeup from that the photo above, showing circuit details.

---<snip>---

Okay, now here is where I have a problem with this "image attachment" method. How do I get rid of that jumble of "too small to be useful" thumbnail images below the body of this post? I know how to (mostly) hide things with a SPOILER tag in the main body, but how can I do that outside the body, in the "Attached Thumbnails" block? This is the main reason I abandoned this obvious method early on, before I learned about the wiki (and later profile albums), both of which have their own drawbacks, but at least I can control them.

EDIT: Just a thought, but feedback would be appreciated: should I wrap images in a [SPOILER] tag (Show button), like in this post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...09#post2101509

[knc1]

You don't -
In fact, you don't want to.

The in-line photos can't be downloaded and viewed with something other than the web browser, the attachments can be.

If your concerned about photo theft - watermark them before posting.

[geekmaster]

As you can see, the post above this has a big block of image thumbnails taking up more visual space than a forbiddenly-large signature. In addition, the thumbnails hide detail important to the post, and therefore serve no useful purpose here. If I wanted thumbnails, I would have embedded them in my post, with links to much larger images.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

You don't -
In fact, you don't want to.

The in-line photos can't be downloaded and viewed with something other than the web browser, the attachments can be.

If your concerned about photo theft - watermark them before posting.

I have no problem downloading embedded images. Right-click / Save-as... On my phone, I think holding the image gives me a "save" and a "view in separate tab" option (though I need to try it on these images). VERIFIED. I pressed an embedded wiki image from a post above, from my android smartphone, and the popup options are "Save image, Open image in new tab, Search Google for this image, Share image".

I am not particularly concerned with image theft. I am concerned with image size and placement (and the abillity to place them in a SPOILER tag when I want to). None of that works with attachments.

If image downloading is a problem, I can wrap the embedded images with a URL to the (perhaps bigger) image, which I have done when I have a larger external image. I could do that with normal (600x600) images here too.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

This is a re-test (suggested by shalym above) of storing my embedded images as attachments (as I tried and abandoned long ago). For comparison purposes, this is my first post from this thread, with image URLs changed to point to the attachments.
- - - - -

In the quoted post, you are using the broken [IMG] tags

It is the [IMG] tags which require you to open the advanced editor at least once since first viewing Mobileread in your current browser instance.

#10 600

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

In the quoted post, you are using the broken [IMG] tags

It is the [IMG] tags which require you to open the advanced editor at least once since first viewing Mobileread in your current browser instance.

Nobody told me that [IMG] tags are broken. They work fine for wiki images, and also for offsite images.

How are the [IMG] tags broken? And why only for album images? And why does the advanced editor make them work again?

#5 863

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Nobody told me that [IMG] tags are broken. They work fine for wiki images, and also for offsite images.

How are the [IMG] tags broken? And why only for album images? And why does the advanced editor make them work again?

#5 863

I did, in replies to your post where you first complained about them.
Issybird replied that it was a known problem.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

I did, in replies to your post where you first complained about them.
Issybird replied that it was a known problem.

I read all that. The point was in those posts that they are only broken for ALBUM images, and I had unfortunately used album images throughout this post, and it would be a lot of work to move them all and edit all those posts. We must find alternative solutions, because the only reliable options that work for me (other than offsite images) also violate the mobileread "multiple accounts" rule, so I cannot "legally" use wiki images until somebody gets authority to fix my broken geekmaster wiki account. The test above shows that attached posts add an annoying (to me) block of thumbnails that I cannot hide.

Though here is an idea for another way: I could create an image storage post somewhere, and stick hundreds of images in it, and link all my other embedded images in other threads to those. Although, I am not certain if that will work because the attachment uploader only has five buttons, so if that is a problem my storage thread would have many posts each with five images. The problem is that each new image-holder post would bump the thread, which is also annoying.

And now that I know the rules are not to be taken literally, but are subject to moderator interpretation, I do not dare to test some things, like tall multi-segment images where each segment fits the 600x600 guideline, but the appearance in a post is the same as one single tall image. Such things are how computer programmers get computers to do those "impossible" things -- just simple workarounds to us. However, here, I plan to avoid anything that could have painfully unpredictable (to me) consequences.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

I read all that. The point was in the pissy posts that they are only broken for ALBUM images.

I thought that I later clarified that it was ANY use of the [IMG] tags.
If I didn't then, I am doing so now.