Nokia N900 Necromancy
Building a fake battery, adding a USB-C port, booting from SD card, and giving a new life to a classic Linux smartphone.
My friend Dima sent me his old-school classic Nokia N900. The battery is very old, and it does not boot as-is. So naturally, I wanted to see if I can resurrect it.
Step 0: Is such a thing even possible?
Yes it is! (Unless there are other hardware issues)
I ran a smartphone without a battery a few years ago.
Cut and soldered a quick prototype to connect instead of the battery. Resistors are to emulate the "normal" temperature by providing expected resistance between the third pin and ground. See link above for details.
Hooked up a large supercapacitor to the battery pins and to a +5V source. If I recall correctly, using a capacitor without additional power did not work.
And it boots!
Now, let's make something that can fit into the battery compartment.
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