Back cover with a magnetic battery lid
Lars Lorenz's remix of the stock back cover adds a magnet-held lid over the cells, so 18650s can be swapped without taking the cover off.
What it takes
- 3D print
- Disassembly
- Purchase required
Difficulty 2 of 3 — moderate.
Details
A straight modification of the original back cover: the battery area becomes a separate lid held by eight 5 × 1.5 mm magnets, and the kickstand screws into an M4 × 4 mm threaded insert instead of the metal cover's thread. Print it, add the magnets and the insert, and the four cover screws stay put between battery swaps. Published on Printables in July 2024 without print settings, so treat it like any other full-size cover print. bored99's open backplate takes the same idea further with a cut-out for a CM5 heatsink.
Links
Open at Printables — uConsole back cover with battery lidRelated mods
bored99's one-piece replacement back leaves the CM5 heatsink open to the air and covers the cells with a magnet-held plastic lid for quick swaps.
UJW's deeper printed back fits two 10,000 mAh 146074 pouches and a Waveshare CM5 active cooler over the HackerGadgets boards — designed in CAD, not yet built.
Any genuine branded 3,000–3,500 mAh 18650 works, flat-top or button-top; listings claiming much more than 3,500 mAh are fakes.
The 21700 version of HG's NVMe battery board fits the stock backplate and roughly doubles runtime: 4 h 31 min of 1080p playback against 2 h 27 min on 18650s.
hotellonely's Python script logs the PMIC's voltage and current every 0.1 s until the console dies, giving a real watt-hour figure for any cell or pack.
Swap the two 18650s for a single 10,000 mAh 9858102 pouch — 24–31 Wh measured — but only with a protection board that survives the uConsole's 5 A peaks.