modern laptops are like 8w right? it's probably a few orders of magnitude lower than the power consumption of your appliances
this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
37 points (95.1% liked)
Linux
54269 readers
512 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
The converter says "Output: 65W" So it would be something, and a good place to start as the battery is there anyway and is plugged in all the time too, anyway.
That's the absolute maximum output, a typical laptop uses more like 2-6W while running.
Plus cycling the battery like that will wear it out faster, and they're generally only rated for 500 or so cycles. The replacement cost would likely easily over come any savings.
I think most laptops get thrown away before the battery is dead. In my case, I could just throw the battery to the recycling yard and go on without battery. As I already told, the laptop is plugged in 24/7.
i think you'd save more money/environment by selling the battery right now to someone that will use it, there's quite a lot of demand for new first party batteries
I don't know but is that power actually worth more than battery cycles due to discharging and recharging?
Well, you will have excess solar power during the day, so just keep it plugged in to the solar while solar is available. Then, just unplug the laptop in the evening until you get to 15-20%.
Trying to force the laptop to discharge while plugged in is colossally more trouble than it's worth.
Unplugging by hand is a bad solution. I want to have this even when I am not at home, it has to be automated.
I've got a 2021 Dell laptop. In uefi, you can set charge times and type of charge, 50%,80%, full, and smart. I think it's in like 1/2 hour blocks by day. By that I mean on (day of week) from 9:30am to 6:00pm charge full, different day may have different settings. .
@Intheflsun @Floopquist What I meant is that I do not think you can have it discharge the battery when AC is present without altering the PD chips firmware.
Some laptop battery firmware allows you to force discharge even when connected to AC, and if your laptop can use the tlp recalibrate or tlp discharge commands then yours is supported.
I use this to power my thinkpad servers off of their own batteries during a power outage, to reduce load on my UPS. Great feature.
Interesting setup. How would you tell your Thinkpads if there's a power outage?
The ups has data output to my firewall/router via usb, which the baremetal servers all connect to via apcupsd. When the ups loses or regains AC power, it broadcasts a message to all of them and they're each scripted to act accordingly: laptops run on their own batteries, vms migrate over to laptops, non-vital hardware shuts down, etc.
Sounds like a smart socket might do what you need, externally, with some coding.
Thank you, I like the idea. Will research in this way.