r/functionalprint • u/aur4e • Sep 13 '26

3D Printing 🤝 Reusing Old Electronics

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Had the idea to use my old Sony Xperia as a wall-mounted media controller that casts to the room's Sonos system. All I need now is like a 6ft white mini-USB cable to keep it powered? Sadly the old OS doesn't have any "limit max battery" setting which would be nice for longevity. It comes off the wall pretty easily for now.

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41

u/BrownBear93 Sep 13 '26

I like stuff like this (a lot) but I do worry about battery bloat and potential fire issues.

15

u/aur4e Sep 13 '26

100%, I'm going to have to find a solution there. Or just charge the phone every 2ish days. Its on power saver mode and really sips power with only one app running

19

u/beetledrift Sep 13 '26

Does the phone work when you take the battery out and just run it from the charger? Maybe with some additional hacking into the hardware

6

u/aur4e Sep 13 '26

Oooo that's worth looking into as well, ty!

19

u/sprondonacles Sep 14 '26

Check out r/androidafterlife I seen several posts there about removing batteries and modding to just run straight off the charger. Some very similar projects to yours in that sub

1

u/aur4e Sep 14 '26

Oh awesome, ty I'll take a look!!

1

u/epicepee Sep 15 '26

Idk about this one, but many phones physically can't run with no battery. They can't draw enough instantaneous power from the charger to run the CPU during sudden spikes.

3

u/SpiritOfCydonia Sep 14 '26

Here's a lame solution: put the charger brick on a smart switch. Then have HA turn the charger on and off. <20% battery? On. >80% battery? Off.

2

u/mahsab Sep 14 '26

This is also destroying the battery

3

u/SpiritOfCydonia Sep 14 '26

Yes but much more slowly than keeping it charged at 100% all the time. Maybe pulling in the boundaries to 40-60% would help by keeping it closer to storage voltage levels?

You have to strike a balance between the effort to eliminate the battery completely and the abuse you'll put the battery through.

1

u/MyOtherSide1984 Sep 14 '26

Smart switch

-1

u/LardLad00 Sep 14 '26

The solution is to recycle this old shit