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 Forum index » Advanced Topics » Additional Software (PETs, n' stuff) » Utilities
Batterup - A Laptop Battery Monitor
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 08:42    Post subject:  Batterup - A Laptop Battery Monitor  
As laptop batteries age, they may start to misreport their information to the computer, causing the Puppy battery monitor to fail.

Batterup is a very simple replacement that will keep working. It displays the time remaining until shutdown and pops up a warning message when the battery is getting low.

Please note:
1.The Batterup tray icon does NOT change its appearance with the status of the battery.
2. It will start to show the time remaining AFTER you unplug the charger and the battery begins to discharge.
3. If you need an icon to tell you if your charger is plugged in, this tool is not for you.
4. Your laptop has an LED indicator that tells you when the battery is fully charged. If you need a tray icon to tell you the same thing, this tool is not for you.

Anyone who wants to try Batterup should send me a PM.

--------------------------------

The default warning time is 10 minutes, but you can easily change it.

1. Go to the folder /root/Startup
2. Open the file batterup_start in a text editor.
3. Line 3 is:
Code:
WARNTIME=10   # minutes from shutdown

4. Change the 10 to whatever time you want.
5. Run Utility > Batterup Restart

-----------------------------

Update: If the warning message pops up while the machine is unattended, it will stay up for two minutes. If no action is taken during that time, the machine will power down.

-----------------------------

Update: Batterup uses two methods for triggering a warning. The primary method is to estimate the time remaining in minutes. But some batteries cannot provide the information required to make that calculation. Then the fallback method is to compare the remaining charge to the battery's own "design capacity warning" value.

But some batteries also fail to provide that information reliably. So here is a third method. It uses the battery voltage as an indicator because voltage tends to drop as batteries discharge. This has been confirmed to work by Don604.

Open /usr/sbin/batterup in a text editor and find line 51.
Code:
WARNCAP=$(grep "design capacity warning:" $BATPATH/info | awk '{print $4}')

Delete it and insert these lines.
Code:
UNITS="mV"
WARNCAP="10000"
REMCAP=$(grep "present voltage:" $BATPATH/state | awk '{print $3}')

This will take some trial and error. Adjust the "10000" to get a good warning point for your battery.

--------------------------------
screenie.png
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 Viewed   1322 Time(s)

screenie.png

Last edited by rcrsn51 on Fri 09 Oct 2015, 09:43; edited 31 times in total
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mikeb


Joined: 23 Nov 2006
Posts: 11071
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 10:20    Post subject:  
looks neat...quick test on 4.12 was fine so nice an compatible.

One feature I noticed is its easy to alter where it gets the battery info from...I had to make a custom vattery for one persons machine.

mike
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 10:56    Post subject:  
Thanks for testing this.

When working with zaivala here, I discovered that some batteries report their data in mWh instead of mAh. I believe that Batterup should also work with these batteries, but it has not been verified.

If you have access to this type of battery, could you please test it?
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mikeb


Joined: 23 Nov 2006
Posts: 11071
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 11:10    Post subject:  
Well as it happens this notebook does use mwh.... incorrectly (it actually should be mAh) but the time remaining is correct. And yes its a battery in a poor state...gets 25 minutes max Smile...so perhaps a good test.

I like the flexible wrapper/config

mike
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nilsonmorales


Joined: 15 Apr 2011
Posts: 863
Location: El Salvador
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 12:50    Post subject:  
Spanish translate
mo&po.tar
Description  md5sum 658a1408f8362d2ba87f03b96e6f01e8 mo&po.tar
 tar

 Download 
Filename  mo&po.tar 
Filesize  10 KB 
Downloaded  336 Time(s) 

_________________
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Fri 27 Dec 2013, 13:02    Post subject:  
mikeb wrote:
Well as it happens this notebook does use mwh.... incorrectly (it actually should be mAh) but the time remaining is correct. And yes its a battery in a poor state...gets 25 minutes max Smile...so perhaps a good test.mike

Thanks. Since P=VI, I was pretty sure that it would work.

@nilsonmorales: Here is the source.
batterup_tray.c-1.2D.tar.gz
Description  Updated 2013-12-30 for v1.2D
 gz

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Filename  batterup_tray.c-1.2D.tar.gz 
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Last edited by rcrsn51 on Fri 09 Jan 2015, 18:25; edited 2 times in total
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Sun 29 Dec 2013, 07:16    Post subject:  
Batterup v1.1 is posted above. Please read the Update information.
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Mon 30 Dec 2013, 08:34    Post subject:  
Batterup v1.2D is posted above. Please read the Update information.
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Fri 17 Oct 2014, 15:23    Post subject:  
Batterup v1.4 is posted above. Please read the Update information. Additional test results would be appreciated.
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sheldonisaac

Joined: 21 Jun 2009
Posts: 586
Location: Philadelphia, PA
PostPosted: Thu 08 Jan 2015, 14:22    Post subject: ver 1.4  
rcrsn51 wrote:
Batterup v1.4 is posted above. Please read the Update information. Additional test results would be appreciated.

You'd said
Quote:
Update: Batterup uses the battery's present rate of discharge to calculate the time remaining. But some batteries do not report this information. In that case, v1.4 displays the amount of charge remaining in mAh or mWh and triggers a warning message when the charge drops below the battery's design capacity warning level.

I just installed ver 1.4 on this Dell Latitude E6410, Lucid Puppy "Super 2".
Hovering over the yellow icon shows
Quote:
Battery BAT0: stopped charging
Does that seem OK?

Thanks,
Sheldon
_________________
Dell E6410: LuPu Super 2 & various Puppys; Dell D610: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2, Carolite
Intel D865GBF: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2
Acer Aspire One: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2; ASUS P5A: MS-Windows 98SE, Puppy Linux 2.14X
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Thu 08 Jan 2015, 14:31    Post subject: Re: ver 1.4  
sheldonisaac wrote:
Hovering over the yellow icon shows
Quote:
Battery BAT0: stopped charging
Does that seem OK?

Is the AC currently plugged in? That message appears when Batterup checks the "charging state" of the battery and gets the report "charged". That means that the battery is not currently discharging. Batterup needs to see the battery discharging in order to determine how much time is left.
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sheldonisaac

Joined: 21 Jun 2009
Posts: 586
Location: Philadelphia, PA
PostPosted: Thu 08 Jan 2015, 14:39    Post subject: Re: ver 1.4  
rcrsn51 wrote:
sheldonisaac wrote:
Hovering over the yellow icon shows
Quote:
Battery BAT0: stopped charging
Does that seem OK?

Is the AC currently plugged in? That message appears when Batterup checks the "charging state" of the battery and gets the report "charged". That means that the battery is not currently discharging. Batterup needs to see the battery discharging in order to determine how much time is left.
OK, I unplugged the charger.. AHA! Now it says
Quote:
BAT0: 152 minutes left

_________________
Dell E6410: LuPu Super 2 & various Puppys; Dell D610: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2, Carolite
Intel D865GBF: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2
Acer Aspire One: Windows XP, Puppy Linux 5.2; ASUS P5A: MS-Windows 98SE, Puppy Linux 2.14X
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Thu 08 Jan 2015, 14:54    Post subject:  
Excellent. Now you need to experiment a bit. You currently have 152 minutes, based on your CURRENT rate of discharge. If you start watching a video, your discharge rate will increase and your remaining time will decrease quickly. So the default warning time of 10 minutes may not give you enough time to shut down before the battery dies. I originally had it set at 5 minutes but it sometimes wasn't enough if the discharge rate suddenly jumped.
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darry1966


Joined: 26 Feb 2012
Posts: 898
PostPosted: Thu 08 Jan 2015, 17:20    Post subject: Re: Batterup - A Laptop Battery Monitor  
rcrsn51 wrote:
As laptop batteries age, they may start to misreport their information to the computer, causing the Puppy battery monitor to fail.

Batterup is a very simple replacement that will keep working. It displays the time remaining until shutdown and pops up a warning message when the battery is getting low.

Please note that the Batterup tray icon does NOT change with the status of the battery.

--------------------------------

The default warning time is 10 minutes, but you can easily change it.

1. Go to the folder /root/Startup
2. Open the file batterup_start in a text editor.
3. Line 3 is:
Code:
WARNTIME=10   # minutes from shutdown

4. Change the 10 to whatever time you want.
5. Run Utility > Batterup Restart

-----------------------------

Update: Batterup uses the battery's present rate of discharge to calculate the time remaining. But some batteries do not report this information. In that case, v1.4 displays the amount of charge remaining in mAh or mWh and triggers a warning message when the charge drops below the battery's design capacity warning level.

--------------------------------


Excellent will try with 3.01 and AnitaOS based on Mikeb's report will be excellent if it reports a true reading, great work thanks.
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rcrsn51


Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 10984
Location: Stratford, Ontario
PostPosted: Fri 09 Jan 2015, 17:54    Post subject: Re: Batterup - A Laptop Battery Monitor  
darry1966 wrote:
Excellent will try with 3.01 and AnitaOS .

No reply? There has been almost no feedback on this project. If it has no practical value, I will remove it.
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