Reversible power switch on the HackerGadgets battery board
beams' MSK12C02 slide switch uses the pads HackerGadgets reserved on the NVMe battery board to cut the cells — and the NVMe — without a hole in the case.
What it takes
- Disassembly
- Soldering
- Purchase required
Difficulty 3 of 3 — advanced.
Details
HackerGadgets' own instruction for a hard switch is to desolder R14 and put a push-lock switch on J6. beams' version fits an SMD MSK12C02 slide switch that sits at the side panel with the actuator protruding about 0.1 mm — reachable, but not in the way of expansion cards — and cuts the cells off at the board's battery connector; he calls it non-destructive and reversible because nothing on the console itself is cut or drilled. The full procedure is written up on jing.io. Two notes from the thread: the tiny resistor is hard to remove (one builder struggled with it), and the switch also cuts power to the NVMe drive, so shut down first.
See davefrommars' microswitch and null's paperclip switch for two other takes on the same J6 pads.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
A Crouzet 83170.4 microswitch on the battery board's J6 pads, reached through the rear antenna hole, gives a CM5 a reset button without drilling.
null glued a lever-less D2MSL normally-closed switch behind a small hole in the case; a paperclip press cuts battery power when the console locks up.
bryank7bat's take on HackerGadgets' R14/J6 provision: a 2-pin connector on the board and a toggle or push-lock button in a hole drilled in the case bottom.
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.
CRANK's 6 × 18650 plan: strip the holders off the battery board, wire two banks of three cells in parallel through bus bars, and house them in a printed back.
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.