Hi Guys,
Was looking for a low cost, small sized suitable candidate, and I've settled on a second hand Notebook, as they have the grunt, are low power, small in size, and built in UPS with it's battery pack!
The only thing I had to overcome was how to auto restart after power loss, as I wasn't able to find a Notebook BIOS which supported this like desktop PCs. And in that regard I've found a solution by building this module which provides the momentary power switch press upon receipt of a 12v signal (also checks to see if laptop is already on, and doesn't momentary press the power button):
I've got 12v in the system as I'm using it for something else, thus when power is restored, on goes the Cortex PC if it was off.
Also in case you anyone was wondering, (as a long time Thinkpad fan for robustness) I went for a Thinkpad T61, with a dock station, and wired the momentary power into the dock station power button (so I don't have to butcher the notebook).
Additionally (though I've not tested how well it works in real life), Lenovo has a utility to monitor the health and intelligent maintenance of the Thinkpad battery to try and maintain it's longevity if always plugged into mains power.
Hope someone finds the above of use!
Marcus
Was looking for a low cost, small sized suitable candidate, and I've settled on a second hand Notebook, as they have the grunt, are low power, small in size, and built in UPS with it's battery pack!
The only thing I had to overcome was how to auto restart after power loss, as I wasn't able to find a Notebook BIOS which supported this like desktop PCs. And in that regard I've found a solution by building this module which provides the momentary power switch press upon receipt of a 12v signal (also checks to see if laptop is already on, and doesn't momentary press the power button):
I've got 12v in the system as I'm using it for something else, thus when power is restored, on goes the Cortex PC if it was off.
Also in case you anyone was wondering, (as a long time Thinkpad fan for robustness) I went for a Thinkpad T61, with a dock station, and wired the momentary power into the dock station power button (so I don't have to butcher the notebook).
Additionally (though I've not tested how well it works in real life), Lenovo has a utility to monitor the health and intelligent maintenance of the Thinkpad battery to try and maintain it's longevity if always plugged into mains power.
Hope someone finds the above of use!
Marcus
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