Anybody ever use their cell phones without a battery in them?

[Finished]

So, most of the time I use my cell phone to tether my computer to the Internet. But, it continually kills my batteries. So, I finally got tired of it and decided to do something about it.

Like many others, I quickly realized you can't start your phone without having a battery installed even if it's power cord is plugged in. So, I figured I could just buy a dummy battery with a separate cord and use that. But, they don't seem to exist.

So, today I decided to make one. First I CAREFULLY pried off the battery connector / mini circuit board from the cell phone battery. The battery itself was fully contained inside an aluminum can. So, I only had to cut away the two bonded connections. BTW, a fully charged battery is about 4.3vdc.

I tried several different methods to power up the phone and noticed that it uses up to 1.8 amps when operating. So, a standard 5V charger wouldn't work. I ended up using an old USB hub adapter rated at 3.5 amps and 5.2vdc. I put that through a step down converter. But, the phone didn't like that. It kept resetting. So, I end up using a 15amp diode to drop the voltage down to about 4.6vdc. I used a PCB board to perfectly fit into the phone with the connector I pulled off the battery soldered onto the PCB board. I drilled a small hole in the back case and ran a wire through it that gets connected to the old USB hub adapter.

Success! It works great. The cell phone shows 100% charged at all times with no battery installed in it. BTW, I noticed it bases the charge level on the voltage drop during usage. That's why if you use a lower current charger it'll show only 20% or so charged and the phone resets sometimes.

Just decided to post it here in case anybody was curious.

 

[okidoke]

So, most of the time I use my cell phone to tether my computer to the Internet. ........

What does that mean?

 

[Finished]

...

 

[Finished]

What does that mean?

I turn on my mobile data on my cell phone. Then I turn on USB tethering. Then I plug in a connector from my cell phone to my laptop. Then I can use my cell phone to access the Internet on my laptop. That way I can have Internet on my laptop anywhere there is cell service without the need of having home internet service. I just pay for phone service and that's it.

 

[okidoke]

ah right. i was wondering why you couldn't get internet on your laptop.

 

[Sci-Fi]

Yeah...I'm not gonna do that.

I rarely use my cell phone so battery charge isn't an issue, it lasts for days without having to charge it. I have my cell phone tethered to my desktop and chrome book so if I get text messages and I'm not close to my phone by have my chrome book next to me I can just access my messages on it. I do that all of the time when I have to get a pesky security code texted to me.

 

[Finished]

I posted this thinking a bot might pick it up or a search engine index it and it might help someone.

 

[Bam111]

maybe you can explain something to me, one time I was on the road and my phone completely dead. I was in a truck big rig and suddenly the driver stopped he said that the truck didn't feel right and he went to check the four back tired were flat we were in the middle of the mountains with the nearest town being far off we were stranded. He didn't have a phone and mine was dead I figured what the heck I press the numbers for emergency response and waited for someone to hopefully help us out. A couple of hours pass all hope of a car stopping to help seemed to be pointless as we were on a incline going up the mountain 2 hours pass and a officer pulls up and says we got a call from this location do you need help? I was amazed and told him the situation he called a diesel tow truck and we were out of there in a matter of an hour or less after it hitched the truck and drove us to the nearest workshop. (My question now) How the heck did they know where we were located?? I never had contact and my phone battery was dead lol.