Hardware Wiz replacement battery


alxm

Still making GP2X and Pandora games, stay tuned!
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Jul 11, 2013
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Hey there,

Haven't used the Wiz much in the past couple of years, and now the battery lasts less than an hour. It's ok for now, but I'll have to find a replacement once it dies off completely. I don't have much experience in this area, does anyone have any tips or recommendations?

The Wiz battery has a thermistor pin just like Pandora's, should I take a look at spare cellphone batteries? I figure whatever I'll learn here I'll be able to use later to revive my Pandora and Caanoo, too.

Thanks a bunch :wiz:
 
I have been thinking about this as well. I don't think you'll find something that just fits. Even if such a battery exists, sites selling batteries typically only list them by the device they are meant to be used in, and often don't have good pictures or precise measurements, let alone technical drawings.

Electrically, there are plenty of options (it even says "Standard Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery 3.7V" on the original battery), so wiring up a different battery is possible and has been done before. But it is not without risk.
 
Thanks for linking to that thread, wiring a smaller different-sized battery is what I had in mind. With the advent of Adafruit and all the maker stuff, it got easy to find LiPo batteries that fit inside the Wiz case. I was wondering about the thermistor (T) pin though, it sounds like it's not a dummy and I'd have to find a battery that has it if I wanted to safely charge it with the Wiz itself. All the generic batteries I found only have the +/- pins though, so are 3DS spares my best option?
 
Alxm: Well, I dunno if it'd be in good condition (could try putting it in my new wiz and seeing how long it lasts), but I have a wiz that hasn't worked in a few years that still has a battery in it...

On another note, I know there was a company that made replacement tapwave zodiac batteries with higher capacity a few years back and they even talked about making custom batteries to user specs, might be another option if nothing else quite matches...
 
Hmm, I doubt the quality of a battery that's been left in a device for a couple of years. I've even had batteries out of devices that I've forgotten to recharge for that length of time, and they've been basically dead on trying to use them again.
 
Alxm: Well, I dunno if it'd be in good condition (could try putting it in my new wiz and seeing how long it lasts), but I have a wiz that hasn't worked in a few years that still has a battery in it...
Ouch, I'd check on that forgotten battery ASAP, I left one in a bricked Wiz for a few years and it had burst by the time I checked on it. Granted it was unlabeled and from a prototype, so maybe it was of worse quality to begin with. It's really too bad the Wiz doesn't run off the charger without a battery, but between pixel plague and lack of long-term support from GPH I suppose that was the least of its problems :oops:
 
Also, you could try asking jumiss on ebay if they have access to any more batteries... used to sell them but out atm...
 
ouch! Is it a deal or a steal? 3GB of roms probably, I remember when I got my caanoo from them, cost me ~$250 for it and most of the games off of fungp (minus the only one I wanted, bloody cross as it apparently was a corrupt download and GPH refused to fix it at that point :p)
 
It's really too bad the Wiz doesn't run off the charger without a battery
It does actually (at least all mine work without battery with just the charge cable) but it turns off when processing something that demands too many resources (like launching a rom under an emu for instance). usb power (5V/500mA) might not be enough I guess, don't know.
 
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It does actually (at least all mine work without battery with just the charge cable) but it turns off when processing something that demands too many resources (like launching a rom under an emu for instance). usb power (5V/500mA) might not be enough I guess, don't know.
You're right! I just had to hold the power switch a little bit longer than when on batteries for it to boot, otherwise the blue LED would just flicker. Well that's a nice surprise :)
 
I will try the charge cable with my usb<>wall adaptor (500mA vs. 1A) to see if it still turns off or not. May be useful one day when all my batteries are dead. :)
[doublepost=1496774886,1496759169][/doublepost]Ok I just tried again with standard usb cable (no wall adaptor) and it finally seems stable without any battery. Don't know what caused reboot when I tried a few months ago (was not the same Wiz though). Nice. :)
EDIT: Ok I found 'the way' to make it reboot, all you need not to do is to put speakers very loud, it should reboot while on usb charger w/o battery.
 
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