Re: SolarJolla
 

Start on the side, below the volume buttons - the same with all harder TOHs.

Re: SolarJolla
 

All my real-life testing suggests it's a dud. Last four days in mexico/belize with 28 celsius on average jolla has not gained a single percentage of battery. It probably is because jolla on charger goes full throttle, not disconnecting its ssh daemon etc, and since it goes ladida even when not facing the sun it results in worse battery life overall. Oh and turned off, even midday sun never results in the second animation, you only see the cable about to be plugged in, never inaide with thw percentage :(

edit: I wonder if through addition of nfc sticker you could signal to jolla that solaroh is connected and to not go overboard/full steam when current is detected, no idea about the off charging though, doubt nfc is active then

Re: SolarJolla
 

So no one has experienced any issue with network reception when using Solaroh or Diptoh as Clovis and me have experienced? The results were quite clear for both of us that these OHs were the cause of the bad (or null) reception, after several weeks of intensive use, I admit I'm a bit concerned about how the reception will be with tohkbd.

Re: SolarJolla
 

Nothing as drastic as what you had, but that would depend on the city/network. Didn't see jolla going null reception, but maybe 3/4 when without solar it was full. Haven't noticed this with tohkbd v1, so I hope v2 will be fine as well

Re: SolarJolla
 

Unfortunately I have a bad experience with SolarTOH :(
Twice tried this in the sunny day and twice it just eaten my battery like a crazy frog...
I checked top and found "system_service" process speed up CPU up to 90+% and my battery quickly empty.
I stopped using this TOH :(

Re: SolarJolla
 

I just received my Solartoh today (thanks Dirk!), but unfortunately I have the exact same problem I had with my Diptoh, and same problem Clovis had with Solartoh: no network at all when mounted. I had no issue at all the days before with my prototype Toholed (not the same plastic) and my official TOHs. I removed my Solartoh, and pouf, back to 4G network. :/

Re: SolarJolla
 

The same as Schturman. The solar toh actually drains the battery much quicker :/

Re: SolarJolla
 

Jolla about solar charging

issue is with phone hw&sw..

Re: SolarJolla
 

Oh wow, that's pretty shitty, did ask them at fosdem and they were supposed to look, guess it didn't look to good. Wonder if we can still 'fix' it from userland, with underclock to 125mhz/disable all network interfaces/display/sensors/kill all unnecessary processes, would maybe this bring the power consumption below what the panel gives on a sunny day? At least then it would be an option for a camping trip to get those few percentage points

Re: SolarJolla
 

Just some thinking, maybe totally off track:
is it possible to charge via usb and pins at the same time? Would this add up or actually conflict in some way?

Re: SolarJolla
 

Wonder how much is the answer accurate or if they want to just get rid o the problem. He says "the phone cannot sleep". It would be useful to know which part of phone (CPU?) and which work exactly is done to control the charging. Are all the possibilities really exhausted? E.g. couldnt the phone go sleep for 5 minutes then wake up for 1s and do the work and go sleep again?

Btw on my old openmoko i connected the solar panel straight to the battery and it worked pretty good. Overcharing the battery can be quite easily done in SW (just wake the phone when battery is over 95%). Wonder why this does not work for Jolla - the battery seems to be not charging by default - maybe it needs some command to start charging?

For me "solar charging not possible" is disappointment - it's one of the reasons i bought jolla, because i believed it would be working. Thankfully the rest of Jolla is very possitive for me, so i dont regret buying it :)

Re: SolarJolla
 

I also wonder if there's really no way to work around this "phone doesn't go to sleep"-issue. I remember that in the earliest phase when this idea evolved, someone published a kernel patch... So we know there's at least one way. Playing around with the kernel might not be what most users are comfortable with. so maybe there's something else that could be done?

The idea is just so appealing, the project was so much fun and so much work was invested... It just cannot be that some software issue now reduces its usefulness.

Think, people, think! :)

Re: SolarJolla
 

But the kernel patch didnt help much. I am quite sure that CPU was sleeping, but there can be other HW which has to be put to idle mode (USB controller?).

Having good kernel sources would might help here - those sources on github are really crippled because of missing commit history. Is it some legal problem to publish commit history?

I aggree that having this working would be cool - we have nice HW, but it's quite useless for now...

Re: SolarJolla
 

As far as I saw the problem seems to be the phone trying to charge while there's not enough energy. I wonder if that behavior could be tuned, a quick look showed maybe relevant interfaces at /sys/module/pm8921_charger/parameters - Did anyone try to play around there yet?

//EDIT: On the other side I just discharged the phone with the original charger, so energy design seems to be just bad.

Re: SolarJolla
 

I been very interested in solar stuff lately. I have setup a big solar panel at my balcony since balcony is on the south side in my new home :D I am still tweaking with it. Right now I have one too small 12v battery. I plan to upgrade ASAP. I will use it for charging my laptop, mobile, and hopefully also lighting(leds only) in my home in winter. Will be interesting to see how well this work in winter since I live in north european :/ Anyway back to topic:

Do you have any plan to add a tiny NIMH/Litium battery to your solar in next iteration of your project?

I think it could be an idea. Why? Because when you phone is fully charged you can use sun to charge the extra battery. Also it make charging of the phone more stable if there is a "backup battery"?

I don't know how much extra electric needed to make that work. I realize the costs will get higher and the solar heavier but....

Re: SolarJolla
 

@mikecomputing, your suggestion sounds a bit like one of those solar charged power banks. That may be an even better idea as it is a separate device. You can leave it charging in the sun whilst keeping your phone with you (in the pocket/purse, using it, whatever...). If someone "finds" (read: steals) it, they have only got your charger but not your phone.

Re: SolarJolla
 

Actually as it happens this will counter the nasty problem that currently haunts the solar TOH; on low lighting the TOH produces so little current that the Jolla device actually consumes more than it gains as it has to keep in active state to moniotor the charging process.

How this concept should work:

• If there is not enough current from the solar panel, the system is separated from the input circuit of the Jolla phone and the solar panel charges the TOH-integrated LiPo battery with trickle current.
• When the charge in the TOH-integrated battery is high enough or input of the solar panel is sufficent, the system connects to the Jolla phone and starts charging it.

Re: SolarJolla
 

Got mine, seems to work from what I've been able to test. However, the green colour of the plastic has already become quite yellow in the places where it touches my hands after just a few days. Is this normal, how do I fix it, does it fix itself, etc?

Re: SolarJolla
 

I wonder if this could be hacked to our already existing SolarTOH.
To charge a lipo bat from solar there is max1811.
Sadly it is at least 1.3mm thick according to the sheet so we would need another 3d printed TOH also.
My ideal solution would be: .stl files available to selfprint a thicker version of the TOH with space to hold BL-5C or other standard lipo we all have laying around or can acquire cheap.
Plus a pcb with max1811 or comparable to charge the toh-bat via solar and a yet "undetermind" circuit/IC to release charge from toh-bat to jolla-bat if enough juice is available. Some selfsoldering and adaption would be acceptable for this "upgrade".
Already throwing money to my screen but nothing happens :/