{"id":1925,"date":"2025-06-25T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2026-07-21T21:50:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:50:54","slug":"refusing-to-let-this-repurposed-android-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/25\/refusing-to-let-this-repurposed-android-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Refusing to let this repurposed Android die"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally posted to r\/techsupportmacgyver with 302 upvotes and 47 comments<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I use this ancient Android phone as a custom security camera connected to my home server. If it dies, I have to rewrite my code. I\u2019d rather solder in an old vape battery than write code. \ud83e\udd23<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I couldn\u2019t figure out how to get that charger module from AliExpress to play directly with the battery terminals on the phone. So I disassembled the original lithium cell from the battery controller and soldered the old vape cell in its place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got this home, I realized part of the problem is the USB port is getting loose. So I wired in the protection board with a seemingly large 47,000 mF capacitor (because that vape cell will eventually go ‘spicy pillow’) but I cannot get it to work with this phone! Tried with both a capacitor and a battery on every combination of B+\/B- and OUT+\/OUT-.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With power connected on the loose, onboard USB, the phone will complain about not having a battery and then attempt to charge when I push the terminals into place, but after letting it charge or connecting power to the new protection board and pushing the power button to start the phone, I just get a blinking backlight and no other indication. \ud83d\ude16<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Author’s notes from the future: Contrary to my post on Reddit, I eventually declared this thing DOA. I lack the time to deal with it and I have slightly less old Android devices that can take it’s place. It was a fun attempt at doing a battery to capacitor mod and it gave me great experience at reclaiming lithium pouch cells; which has been incredibly useful since then.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were LOTS of comments sharing nostalgic memories of the LG Optimus being people’s first smartphone. There were also a few comments suggesting using AI to write out new webcam code, which is something I plan on doing but haven’t found the time for yet. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted to r\/techsupportmacgyver with 302 upvotes and 47 comments I use this ancient Android phone as a custom security camera connected to my home server. If it dies, I have to rewrite my code. I\u2019d rather solder in an old vape battery than write code. \ud83e\udd23 I couldn\u2019t figure out how to get that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-techy","tag-reddit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.woodchuckhunters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}