The original DIY laptop design used a small UPS with a home-made lithium ion battery pack. This works, but has a potential safety issue. There's no way to guarantee that the batteries you buy are authentic and of high quality without doing your own testing. Poorly made counterfeits could spontaneously ignite or explode, and that would be bad for everyone.

So, I'm testing a new way to power the laptop:

  • Use a 100Wh USB-C battery pack. Its manufacturer has the equipment to ensure the quality of the batteries they buy
  • The battery pack is connected to the DIY Laptop's power-supply via a USB-C power sink board
  • The battery itself can be recharged using a 100W USB-C charger

Assuming all works well, the new power system design will look something like this:

The LCD panel and controller are connected via a lower power USB-A port so that the motherboard has a higher maximum power draw limit.

NOTE: All of this assumes that everything works as planned. A full test with the actual battery pack will come later...

The Battery Pack

EDIT: Links to the battery pack & charger deleted because of problems identified during further testing. Details will be given later...

Click here to sign up to the laptop mailing list to be notified of updates.