Mac mini Sans Wires - Batteries Inside the Case

An anonymous reader writes "Running Debian (or Linux generally) on a Mac mini is old news. Silas installed rechargable batteries inside the case, delivering a couple of hours of runtime while retaining the small form factor. Although it runs fine without wires, he had to plug in the monitor to be able to show that it was really up."

iMac

[Mensa Babe]

Using an iMac would be a better idea, for it has a monitor already included.

Re:Quiet Macs

[freeplatypus]

Wake up Neo. This is a dream. This is a big lie!

If You think that 20dB from the PC case is a lot then maybe You should think it over.

Re:Quiet Macs

[clontzman]

Er... yeah, tell that to the wind tunnels I've had under my desk for the past couple years -- first an MDD, now a G5. Nice, yes, but quiet they ain't.

PC's engineered to be quiet are quiet. My Dell is nearly silent. Macs engineered to be quiet are also quiet. It has nothing to do with the platform.

Re:sniff sniff

[hey!]

Not quite, cause you'd have to get it up there right before the packets you were interested in hit the network.

However -- figure out some way to parasitically power it off the wiring going to the flourescent lights, in a way that can be installed in one or two minutes, then you'd really have something.

4Ah 20V battery and 1:50 runtime = 40W draw?

[Anonymous Coward]

The author says he measured 14-20W for the mac mini under load, but his 80W-Hr battery only lasted 1H:50M, implying a 40W+ power draw.

Am I missing something?

Re:Quiet Macs

[jrockway]

We have "silent" MPC computers in one of our computer labs. The silence is a copmromise between noise and melting the processor. Once in a while, we install a gaming image onto these machines... but it's pretty much useless because every single machine crashes solid after about ten minutes of gaming.

Silent != good.

Re:External Batty pack + VNC

[jamie]

Macs are sometimes a little too smart for VNC -- if they do not detect a monitor connected, they do not create a console display and the VNC server will fail because it does not have a display

Old Macs, maybe. I had to plug in a display dongle to a Mac IIci server back around 1995. But the Mac mini doesn't need one. I have a mini in my basement, and it works fine over VNC with nothing plugged into its video port.

Re:Quiet Macs

[adam1101]

> With a PC, just listen for the fan noise.

One of the biggest reasons that Mac-PC hardware comparisons are doomed to fail is that there is no such thing as "a PC". Most PCs are loud. But there are many PCs that are quieter than desktop Macs. Many PC laptops are heavy, loud, hot and have short battery lives. But there are PC laptops that are lighter, cooler, quieter (fanless 1.1ghz Pentium-M) and have longer battery lives than any Mac 'Book. Mac fans invariably pick the worst PCs to compare with while PC fans pick the best (which are usually more expensive as well). More on topic: I've been running a fanless 1.4ghz Athlon XP-M on my desktop for over a year. I doubt any Mac is more quiet.

Server batteries

[scrotch]

I've often wondered why there aren't servers with batteries built in for a few minutes of power after the UPS goes down.

Apple could get especially good results from doing this because of their hardware-software integration. Imagine an xserve with ten minutes of battery power built in. Can't you see the interface where you have the computer run a script that emails you after it's been on battery power for two minutes? Imagine hooks for when battery power starts to be used, and when a clean, painless shutdown begins, or when power is restored before the battery runs out.

This would be of great value to me anyway. I know some UPS software offers this (though I'm not sure what the state of Mac-compatibility is), but Apple could surely do a better, more thorough job.

Re:And the use would be?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

That, and you could always use both. UPS's are nice, but once they fail, wouldn't you like another few hours? (Especially on a cheap UPS where plugging a monitor into it will drain the battery in a few mins)

Moving it to another room

[Space Coyote]

One of the things I tend to use the battery in my laptop for most is to keep the thing on when I move from one room to the other in the house and then plug in again. Seems like a sensible thing someone would want to do with a mini, to go from a desk in a study over to the bedroom or to the stereo to play some music for a while without having to shut down and restart.

Re:Yes, but

[WD_40]

A small-footprint webserver with a built-in UPS.

Re:4Ah 20V battery and 1:50 runtime = 40W draw?

[enosys]

The author says he measured 14-20W for the mac mini under load, but his 80W-Hr battery only lasted 1H:50M, implying a 40W+ power draw.

It's not that simple. It's not like the batteries supply 80W-Hr of power at their rated voltage and then shut down. With most types of batteries the voltage drops slowly as they discharge. Batteries also aren't perfect voltage sources. They have internal resistance, which means that if you draw more current the voltage will drop. I suspect the voltage got too low because of these two factors and the Mac Mini crashed or shut down. The batteries might still be able to power a flashlight.

Re:Yes, but

[danigiri]

A lot.

I am working on a research project that deals with Augmented Reality (basically VR goggles that are see through).

AR deals with guys that hang around somewhere and use the following simultaneously to do some shit:

- GPS receiver: to know where one is going and have data referenced following position

- See-thru goggles that display geographical information (coming from an VGA port)

- PDA or some sort of input/otput device

- Wireless: for network stuff and group behaviour

- Database: some sort of sane data repository that can be updated

- Bluetooth: problably to connect all these devices together and not strangle the users with cabling

Yeah, an small/light non-custom-built machine that can deal with all this easily would be great indeed. Oh, and sane developer tools as well.

Once proof of concept and prototyping is done, someone else will find the funding for embedded custom development.