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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Android Support Forum
Thread: How to Recycle Android Phones for BOINC or Folding Rig Without Using Batteries |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 69
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sunk818
Advanced Cruncher Joined: May 10, 2018 Post Count: 66 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I'm taking advantage of Straight Talk's free phones w/ purchase of monthly service card. Each time I buy a month of service (that I use) I will tack on another quad core phone on the freebie list. Between myself and my wife's accounts, I'm essentially adding 2 phones a month for free. Oh, how do you do this? I got some phones thru TracFone, but had to purchase a $15 prepaid plan with each "free" phone. After selling the prepaid card (had to pay taxes on them), list on eBay, eBay fees, Paypal fees, shipping, etc... Each "free" phone cost me about $5. |
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cristipurdel
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Post Count: 158 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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small Christmas update, since it's all about sharing :)
----------------------------------------Best cold cruncher so far (last 6 weeks) for me is: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j7_v-8778.php I bought one from ebay US (Sprint model), payed 50$ for a broken screen but functional model, + 25$ takes + shipment, which I was not happy Cons: - no root, I updated 3 tine and forgot that Magisk does not work with Android 8. Pros: - even without root, it stays cold to the touch with 8 cores, temp around 40deg with CPU monitor - stable freq = 1.7GHz on all cores - 10k per week in WCG, https://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/host/detail/339668955/projectList - no need to install google play - no battery, just diode bypass |
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I'm taking advantage of Straight Talk's free phones w/ purchase of monthly service card. Each time I buy a month of service (that I use) I will tack on another quad core phone on the freebie list. Between myself and my wife's accounts, I'm essentially adding 2 phones a month for free. Oh, how do you do this? I got some phones thru TracFone, but had to purchase a $15 prepaid plan with each "free" phone. After selling the prepaid card (had to pay taxes on them), list on eBay, eBay fees, Paypal fees, shipping, etc... Each "free" phone cost me about $5. Not sure how I missed this, but I use Straight Talk service. So, I'm paying for the monthly plan regardless. By ordering online instead of going in store or using auto renewal, I can just add one of the free phones to the plan I'm already buying. The phone doesn't add any extra cost, so it is essentially a free phone each month. Since my household has 2 lines, I'm getting 2 phones each month for no extra cost. They have also had free shipping on them for quite a while.     |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Due to the batteries I started looking for this solution, which is more safe + efficient. Plus you could use a phone which has no battery or the screen is damaged :) Screen-damaged phone is sure to be more energy-efficient, but how on earth will you set up the BOINC application for its OOBE screen, if your screen is broken already? Not all phones support OTG-HID. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
From gearbest I bought a H96 Pro TV Dongle with 8 Cores for about 35 euros: advantages are teamviewer with full remote control, no battery, direct cable, easy flashing in case you brick it, small package for scaling up disadvantages are that for flasing you need to run Chinese software (not too happy although virustotal did not find any issues), not so efficient as stand alone phone charging (4W for 8 cores pretty sweet), gets pretty hot around 80 degC Quite sad that you said that, though my home country has indeed coded many ill-behaved software, doesn't mean all the software we wrote is malicious. (Though indeed, MANY, that even I cannot trust to use some on my computer) And if you are really that paranoid, you can try use it with a virtual machine, or a separated windows to go system. (and for your information, I'm extremely paranoid and use vm on a separated wtg system lol) I also do some digging on the "H96 Pro", and I think you only need to use the flashing tool once, by using tf-card as the flashing medium, you do need to use it to create a flashing disk, but then you can read the tf-card into an image file and re-write the image file to disk, and there's no need to use the tool again. I used to thought that this is sth. that can be dealt with adb/fastboot, I was wrong.  |
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cristipurdel
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Post Count: 158 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Due to the batteries I started looking for this solution, which is more safe + efficient. Plus you could use a phone which has no battery or the screen is damaged :) Screen-damaged phone is sure to be more energy-efficient, but how on earth will you set up the BOINC application for its OOBE screen, if your screen is broken already? Not all phones support OTG-HID. I was not accurate, I was trying to say broken glass. Even if there is slight damage to screen, and touch is still working, you could still use smth like scrcpy to gain access relatively easy  |
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cristipurdel
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Post Count: 158 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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From gearbest I bought a H96 Pro TV Dongle with 8 Cores for about 35 euros: advantages are teamviewer with full remote control, no battery, direct cable, easy flashing in case you brick it, small package for scaling up disadvantages are that for flasing you need to run Chinese software (not too happy although virustotal did not find any issues), not so efficient as stand alone phone charging (4W for 8 cores pretty sweet), gets pretty hot around 80 degC Quite sad that you said that, though my home country has indeed coded many ill-behaved software, doesn't mean all the software we wrote is malicious. (Though indeed, MANY, that even I cannot trust to use some on my computer) And if you are really that paranoid, you can try use it with a virtual machine, or a separated windows to go system. (and for your information, I'm extremely paranoid and use vm on a separated wtg system lol) I also do some digging on the "H96 Pro", and I think you only need to use the flashing tool once, by using tf-card as the flashing medium, you do need to use it to create a flashing disk, but then you can read the tf-card into an image file and re-write the image file to disk, and there's no need to use the tool again. I used to thought that this is sth. that can be dealt with adb/fastboot, I was wrong. Well, the flashing guide was in English, but the tool was with Chinese characters, but still straightforward. It would have been nice if that tool was opensource on github. On the otherhand, also official boinc is on github since 2015, while androboinc and nativeboinc were avaialbe 4 years before  Anyway, it was also my error (long time ago) that I flashed a new rom to gain root, since it came directly with stock firmware. I opened the sticks and I will put some extra heatsinks to see how low could I drop the temps, but overall I am happy for the 40$ price I paid, and they ran with minimal issues in the last year or so |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Due to the batteries I started looking for this solution, which is more safe + efficient. Plus you could use a phone which has no battery or the screen is damaged :) Screen-damaged phone is sure to be more energy-efficient, but how on earth will you set up the BOINC application for its OOBE screen, if your screen is broken already? Not all phones support OTG-HID. I was not accurate, I was trying to say broken glass. Even if there is slight damage to screen, and touch is still working, you could still use smth like scrcpy to gain access relatively easy Oh, that. It would be very easy if touch is still working. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
From gearbest I bought a H96 Pro TV Dongle with 8 Cores for about 35 euros: advantages are teamviewer with full remote control, no battery, direct cable, easy flashing in case you brick it, small package for scaling up disadvantages are that for flasing you need to run Chinese software (not too happy although virustotal did not find any issues), not so efficient as stand alone phone charging (4W for 8 cores pretty sweet), gets pretty hot around 80 degC Quite sad that you said that, though my home country has indeed coded many ill-behaved software, doesn't mean all the software we wrote is malicious. (Though indeed, MANY, that even I cannot trust to use some on my computer) And if you are really that paranoid, you can try use it with a virtual machine, or a separated windows to go system. (and for your information, I'm extremely paranoid and use vm on a separated wtg system lol) I also do some digging on the "H96 Pro", and I think you only need to use the flashing tool once, by using tf-card as the flashing medium, you do need to use it to create a flashing disk, but then you can read the tf-card into an image file and re-write the image file to disk, and there's no need to use the tool again. I used to thought that this is sth. that can be dealt with adb/fastboot, I was wrong. Well, the flashing guide was in English, but the tool was with Chinese characters, but still straightforward. It would have been nice if that tool was opensource on github. On the otherhand, also official boinc is on github since 2015, while androboinc and nativeboinc were avaialbe 4 years before Anyway, it was also my error (long time ago) that I flashed a new rom to gain root, since it came directly with stock firmware. I opened the sticks and I will put some extra heatsinks to see how low could I drop the temps, but overall I am happy for the 40$ price I paid, and they ran with minimal issues in the last year or so I know, I know. Many manufacture's software don't tend to come with translations, they're even not supposed to be used outside the factory!  And... What went wrong during the root process? Did the root program you flashed in goes south with the firmware? Also, is that SuperSu? Superuser? Magisk? Or sth. else? |
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cristipurdel
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Post Count: 158 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Nothing went wrong. The flashing was not needed at the end, since the stick comes with root by default so I do not care which root it was (maybe it was SuperSu)
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