Toggle power button in the bottom of the case (R14 + J6)
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.
What it takes
- Disassembly
- Soldering
- Drilling / permanent
- Purchase required
Difficulty 3 of 3 — advanced.
Details
After some misbehaving code locked the console, bryank7bat removed R14 from the HackerGadgets battery board and soldered a two-pin battery-style connector with 90°-bent pins to J6, so the switch wiring unplugs. The button sits in a hole drilled in the bottom of the console and is glued to the back cover. He chose this over wtsh's mainboard fix because the board's pins are far easier to solder; wtsh's advice in reply is to check every joint for continuity with a multimeter before powering on.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
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.
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.
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.
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.
Reference thread for anyone touching the battery board: J1 and J2 are identical, the two 18650s are simply paralleled, and the AXP228 is a single-cell charger.
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.