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Possible batteries for desktop?

Tags:
  • Battery
  • Desktops
  • Power
  • Computers
Last response: in Other Consumer Electronics
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October 15, 2014 1:22:06 PM

Could this battery power a desktop computer?
If not, why?

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Rechargeable-Lithium-bat...

Thanks in advance.

More about : batteries desktop

October 15, 2014 1:25:59 PM

If it was inside a ups.
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October 15, 2014 1:28:23 PM

That web site is blocked at work. Off the top of my head, there are two ways a battery pack can power a computer. One is to use it to power a UPS. Unless the pack is very large and the computer uses little power, your run time will be measured in minutes up to an hour or so. The other way is to use AMD's new 25W AM1 platform, specifically using ASRock's mobo that has a laptop power connector on it. You'll need to attach a 12V car socket to the battery, then plug a laptop power adapter into that in order to get the 19V or 20V that motherboard needs. I suspect then you'd have a run time measured in hours, perhaps even a day or so. This arrangement won't support a powerful graphics card though (any needing PCIe power), nor a stack of drives.
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October 15, 2014 1:30:58 PM

Bruce Hugo said:
Could this battery power a desktop computer?
If not, why?

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Rechargeable-Lithium-bat...

Thanks in advance.


You would need to wire this into the power supply after the rectifier and before the voltage regulators. But if you didn't already know this, you shouldn't be opening a power supply any way.

From a practical point of view there is no EASY way to power a conventional desktop from a DC voltage battery without the UPS as was mentioned before.
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October 15, 2014 1:42:19 PM

As stated, that would power a weak computer for maybee an hour, if gaming it would power it for minutes.

Just calculating volts*amps so 14.8v * 20 amps (20000mah/1000) = 296 watts.
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October 15, 2014 1:45:12 PM

Would a power inverter work?

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October 15, 2014 1:46:26 PM

Pretty much need an inverter for this, modern PFC supplies also need a very good approximation of an AC sine wave to work properly which limits you to some pretty expensive UPS and they will come with batteries.

20Ah battery isn't that large and it appears to be 10, 2000mAh cells put in parallel. Without proper circuit protection that isn't exactly the safest thing to do. A single bad cell could start a fire. Might be able to run a low-power desktop for about 10-15 minutes.

UPS would need to have a lithium ion charging curve at the right voltage to effectively make use of it as well. Plugging these into a UPS designed for lead acid would have interesting consequences to say the least.
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October 15, 2014 1:50:22 PM

If you are using a small form factor, low power PC like the AM1 mentioned above you can rig up some options.

If you have a normal computer not gaming you are going to use 100 watts to power it not under a heavy load.
If you have a gaming computer it will use 300-600 watts depending on what you have in it.

Car computers (or game consoles) are able to run on dc power because they have an alternator constantly recharging them, and even then many cars with a lot of electronics need 2 batteries plus the alternator to recharge them.

Honestly, dont you think if there was some way to power a full desktop computer all day off of some batteries, dont you think everyone would be doing it?
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October 15, 2014 1:53:38 PM

Right now you are trying to rig together $250 worth of parts to get half the ability of a $150 UPS, not to mention the questionable saftey.
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October 15, 2014 1:57:03 PM

given the 296Wh calculation above, you'd get 1 hour out of a 300W load. So PC idling/doing basic stuff + screen for 1 hr. not worth the hassle, realistically you'd be lucky to get 1/2 that.
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October 15, 2014 2:16:33 PM

A power inverter would work, sort of, if it's a good one, and then basically you're describing a UPS without its own battery. Most inverters provide a simple square wave, and a lot of modern APFC PSUs see that as bad power and won't run. You could spend more and get something like a Xantrex true-sinewave inverter, but then you run into what boosted1g points out: you're going to a lot of effort and expense to duplicate what a good (but small) UPS already does.
Have you considered just using a laptop for your application? You'll get an unplugged run time that should be measured in hours. Additional storage can be provided by external USB 3.0 2.5" drives, which should not need separate power adapters. Connect a laptop car adapter to a battery pack if you need to extend the run time even more.
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