Charge battery through FireWire?

chucker

So,



the iPod is essentially usually powered up through a FireWire connection, or using USB2. I was wondering if it is possible to charge a *laptop* through FireWire? It would probably be much slower than an AC adapter (or so I figure, anyhow), but would it work at all? Also, would it be possible to combine that with IP over FireWire?



Because then, all you need for networking *and* power on your laptop is a single FireWire cable to your desktop...



Just an idea.

johnq

My guess is:



1. The speed at which the battery will be drained will outpace the speed that FireWire is capable of charging it.



2. The OS doesn't bother trying to charge the battery when connected by FireWire only, since Apple knows it will be too slow. (?)



But I don't know. Interesting. I'll give it a go on my iMac with my iBook.

nebagakid

it isn't supported, i believe, but it would be hella-cool... yes... hella-cool.



it would probably require some reworking of the message board, I mean the mother board.

ast3r3x

I through out this idea a while ago, saying that it would be nice to not charge the computer, but at least increase it's battery life.



But it's probably not worth it, because there isn't a lot of electricity and it would have to figure out which way to send the electricity (normally being from computer to device)

neutrino23

Firewire provides a relatively small amount of power compared to the needs of a laptop battery. You can look up the details if you are interested. A PB laptop adapter provides something like 60W. FW provides something like 5W or less. You probably couldn't even run the laptop off the FW connection let alone charge the battery.

chucker

Alright, that makes sense. Thanks

stevegongrui

what happens if I plug the ac adapter of the ipod and plug taht to my ibook?

ast3r3x

Quote:

Originally posted by stevegongrui

what happens if I plug the ac adapter of the ipod and plug taht to my ibook?

I'd guess nothing. But you can always try it and see. Nothing happens when the 'book is in target mode and you plug it into a computer.

karl kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power, so my guess is that they only have connections for 6 of the 8 pins that firewire allows for (the last 2 are for power). This would be the simplest and safest thing to do.



In this case it would not matter how much power you pushed through firewire, the powerbook would be totally unaffected (since those pins would not be connected to anything).



I was thinking that this is one of the nice things about the Sony iLink ports, they are simply 6 pin connections, so you never get confused and thing that the ports could provide power.

murbot

Quote:

Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power, so my guess is that they only have connections for 6 of the 8 pins that firewire allows for (the last 2 are for power). This would be the simplest and safest thing to do.

Too bad, because then you could just plug your iPod into that port to charge the iPod's battery! Damn!



Not quite an OSX topic, either. Moving to Current Hardware.

stevegongrui

Quote:

Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power



I was thinking that this is one of the nice things about the Sony iLink ports, they are simply 6 pin connections, so you never get confused and thing that the ports could provide power.

Troll!!!!

cosmo

Quote:

Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power, so my guess is that they only have connections for 6 of the 8 pins that firewire allows for (the last 2 are for power). This would be the simplest and safest thing to do.



In this case it would not matter how much power you pushed through firewire, the powerbook would be totally unaffected (since those pins would not be connected to anything).



I was thinking that this is one of the nice things about the Sony iLink ports, they are simply 6 pin connections, so you never get confused and thing that the ports could provide power.

What are you talking about?

Firewire (IEEE 1394a) uses either 4 or 6 pin cables. The extra 2 pins on the 6pin versions are for power. All of apple's that have shipped with FW starting with the B/W g3s have been capable of supplying power.

There are no 8-pin FW400 connectors. FW800 (IEEE 1394b) is capable of using other kinds of connections including hte 9-pin port that currently ships with the powerbooks and powermacs.

ghost_user_name

Looks like there is a new Caboose on the Man Train.



Choo choo.

torifile

Quote:

Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power, so my guess is that they only have connections for 6 of the 8 pins that firewire allows for (the last 2 are for power). This would be the simplest and safest thing to do.



In this case it would not matter how much power you pushed through firewire, the powerbook would be totally unaffected (since those pins would not be connected to anything).



I was thinking that this is one of the nice things about the Sony iLink ports, they are simply 6 pin connections, so you never get confused and thing that the ports could provide power.

Are you serious? Someone above pointed out how wrong you are but I thought I'd just heap on the "YOU'RE STUPID" messages, as well.



BTW, my powerbook's firewire connection does charge my iPod.

kraig911

Quote:

Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

I know that the PowerBook's FW400 ports do not supply any power, so my guess is that they only have connections for 6 of the 8 pins that firewire allows for (the last 2 are for power). This would be the simplest and safest thing to do.

The powerbooks firewire port does provide power, also there are only 4 and 6 pin variants of FW400.