I could not grasp the “why” here, not for the life of me. A Mac mini/studio would have been so much straightforward for the actual cited problem of “needing to develop on Apple hardware”.
Sometimes we do things just for “the love of the game” and learn something along the way but I couldn’t help scratching my head the entire time while reading this
I once bought an apple silicon macbook pro logic board to use with a kvm. It was a fun adventure. Things to notice:
-laptop lid closed/open sensor.
-no lid screen at first boot was a pain to fix to external monitor.
-logic board only on first boot requires macbook pro trackpad and keyboard(case), connecting external keyboard and mouse doesn't work at login screen due to security.
Once up and running though it is an excellent, cheap compiling/local llm machine i use over ssh from another mac
> The battery bank from which I power my home is 12V (24V or 48V would be better and I’ll upgrade when the time is right). All my electricity comes from this battery bank.
> I have a power inverter, meaning I can use appliances with normal/household plugs, but the inverter wastes some power in the conversion process, stepping up from 12V to 220V. To then plug in a power brick, which will again throw away some power in converting 220V back down to whatever voltage a device uses, means double wastage, and a mess of plugs and wires.
Is this... a joke? How much freaking amps are you pulling? Average Canadian electricity consumption is 1270 watts. 1270 / 12 = 100+ Amps for one hour.
I'm guessing this is more of a third world situation and that electricity usage is much lower, but still...I fail to see how you would get to a setup like this. If you're fully off-grid then your generator or solar system could give you much higher voltage. If not, how are you charging the battery bank?
EDIT: From your CV, you are from the UK. I'm very confused.
It sounds crazy but pulling >100A from low voltage battery is kinda normal for a 6kw solar inverter (in 220-250V countries). It needs a pair of 50mm2 wires which is thick as a rope though.
I could not grasp the “why” here, not for the life of me. A Mac mini/studio would have been so much straightforward for the actual cited problem of “needing to develop on Apple hardware”.
Sometimes we do things just for “the love of the game” and learn something along the way but I couldn’t help scratching my head the entire time while reading this
Their power needs must be absurdly strict, considering they didn’t want the 12v -> 220v -> 12v loss for an M1 chip.
I inferred it was primarily a psychological need
Felt like a case of controlling what is visible to avoid some unconscious fear.
The relative tradeoffs (hacking together monitors, sketchy battery power, etc) don't seem to coherently add up to the stated goals.
Interesting read tho.
There are people “deshelling” Mac Minis and driving them via other power supplies
Here’s an M1 and somewhere in this guys Insta are photos of an M2 which is even easier as the cable is easier
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvP8FuLtzzr/
Edit: Here’s the M2 https://www.instagram.com/p/CxgRNuYrUyN/
I once bought an apple silicon macbook pro logic board to use with a kvm. It was a fun adventure. Things to notice:
-laptop lid closed/open sensor.
-no lid screen at first boot was a pain to fix to external monitor.
-logic board only on first boot requires macbook pro trackpad and keyboard(case), connecting external keyboard and mouse doesn't work at login screen due to security.
Once up and running though it is an excellent, cheap compiling/local llm machine i use over ssh from another mac
Why the hell would anyone live like this
> The battery bank from which I power my home is 12V (24V or 48V would be better and I’ll upgrade when the time is right). All my electricity comes from this battery bank.
> I have a power inverter, meaning I can use appliances with normal/household plugs, but the inverter wastes some power in the conversion process, stepping up from 12V to 220V. To then plug in a power brick, which will again throw away some power in converting 220V back down to whatever voltage a device uses, means double wastage, and a mess of plugs and wires.
Is this... a joke? How much freaking amps are you pulling? Average Canadian electricity consumption is 1270 watts. 1270 / 12 = 100+ Amps for one hour.
I'm guessing this is more of a third world situation and that electricity usage is much lower, but still...I fail to see how you would get to a setup like this. If you're fully off-grid then your generator or solar system could give you much higher voltage. If not, how are you charging the battery bank?
EDIT: From your CV, you are from the UK. I'm very confused.
https://mm-dev.rocks/series/my-working-environment/
Lives in a caravan and avoids using mains power.
It sounds crazy but pulling >100A from low voltage battery is kinda normal for a 6kw solar inverter (in 220-250V countries). It needs a pair of 50mm2 wires which is thick as a rope though.
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