Battery Not Staying Charged

[SuperSavvyTech]

I've read on here some people get 2-5 minutes of juice, mine wont even stay on long enough to perform simple nmap payload. Supposedly these things can get up to 10-15 minutes of juice?

When I first got this bad boy, followed start up video... had blinking blue... then solid blue. Put it in attack mode (magenta solid), plugged into network, ran script, turned off...loot right? Plug into laptop (arming mode), ssh into loot, boom it's in there! Unplug from laptop...charge...solid blue light.

Go to run new nmap scan, attack mode (magenta solid), then turns off before I can even plug into the network. I thought that it might not have been fully charged, so I go to charge it and I get a solid blue light. It was strange to me, so I plugged it into my laptop in arming mode (flashing green), ssh into the shark but quickly turns off. The only way it seems i can use this now is with the power source always connected.

Is mine just a bad batch of sharks? I nave several Hak5 products, love the concept of the shark... but it acted like a one and done. Anybody else got these issues?

***Has latest firmware btw

[Darren Kitchen]

@SuperSavvyTech you are correct that the battery should last some 10-15 minutes. This can be verified using a simple uptime payload similar to:

while true; do uptime >> /root/loot/uptime.log; sleep 10; done

I'm really sorry your Shark Jack battery isn't performing as expected.

At the factory all Shark Jack devices undergo a burn-in test as part of the QA process whereby the battery is fully cycled before being charged to a level suitable for shipping. In the vast majority of cases this process identifies any underperforming batteries - which are then replaced. While a finite number of charge cycles is inherent in lithium batteries, the issue you are describing indicates wear far too premature. Please contact support at https://shop.hak5.org/pages/support and we will get you sorted in short order.

[SuperSavvyTech]

Thanks Darren! I'll head over and check it out.

[RWG]

I have made the observation, that the Shark Jack ist not charged, if the voltage is to high. With a Raspberry Pi Powersupply (USB C 5,1 V; https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/type-c-power-supply/) it is "charged" after 60 seconds (solid blue LED) but it runs only for less then one Minute. With a "normal" USB-Powersupply the charge time is several minutes as expected and it operates over 10 minutes. Firmware is latest 1.1.0.

[Darren Kitchen]

On 1/19/2020 at 7:07 AM, RWG said:

I have made the observation, that the Shark Jack ist not charged, if the voltage is to high. With a Raspberry Pi Powersupply (USB C 5,1 V; https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/type-c-power-supply/) it is "charged" after 60 seconds (solid blue LED) but it runs only for less then one Minute. With a "normal" USB-Powersupply the charge time is several minutes as expected and it operates over 10 minutes. Firmware is latest 1.1.0.

The power specifications for the Shark Jack is 2.5W (5V / 500mA). The charger you linked is out of spec and may damage the device.

[flipchart]

is there any chance we can get the charge level (eg voltage) programmatically?

I have seen that the BATTERY command is only returning charging/full/discharging by accessing gpio40 and gpio41, any chance that one of the GPIOs is an analogue input which could return the charge level?

[Darren Kitchen]

There is not a way to get the voltage in software - but I'll take that into consideration.

[RB182]

What about creating one with POE support? 

[Darren Kitchen]

Why? The Shark Jack has its own internal battery - so it's compatible with both POE and the much more common non-powered Ethernet ports.

Is there a specific use case you have that would benefit from POE?

[PanicAcid]

On 6/6/2020 at 6:50 AM, Darren Kitchen said:

Why? The Shark Jack has its own internal battery - so it's compatible with both POE and the much more common non-powered Ethernet ports.

Is there a specific use case you have that would benefit from POE?

I was also thinking PoE would be a good feature to leverage where available. Drop the shark Jack into a PoE enabled port and forget about it. Like a lan turtle but without the need for USB power if you will (I also think PoE would be a great addition to the turtle for the same reason)

[Struthian]

I have worked in retailing hand held amateur VHF/UHF radios which have LiOn batteries.  I recommend to my customers that they fully charge new radios using the charger that comes with it and until the radio tells you it is charged (as defined in the instruction manual) before first use.  Conversely if someone takes their brand new toy and uses it until the battery dies - the battery (in my experience) may never be quite right.   LiOn batteries (unlike older technology) does not have a "memory" effect.   Therefore discharging LiOn batteries to "Condition it" from time to time is a bad idea and of no real use.

I have the Shark on order and expect to play soon.

[lawn dart]

I would like to support some of the observations here.  I have just received a shark jack and charged it from a Mac.  It only took 30 seconds or so to go solid blue but also got rather warm.  It did stay charged long enough to run the Nmap scan on my home network but would not do anything else.  Wondering if something was wrong I plugged it back in the Mac, which dropped the port and put a too much current (power?) error on the screen.  The shark jack got very warm.  I plugged the chart jack into a USB two on an old PC and it took about 120 seconds to solid blue and only got slightly warm.  It lasted long enough to update to the blinking LED's and to get the loot off.  So, power it gently.

 

[btblueskies]

A battery question on the shark jack...

It says not to overcharge the battery. Does the charging circuitry keep charging when the light is solid blue? How about running the device off a USB cable while I am exploring the device; can I leave it plugged into USB for long times while it is in arming mode? Attack mode maybe?

thanks...

[chrizree]

I usually leave it powered on using a "charger" that doesn't exceed the limits of the Shark Jack (i.e. not using a USB port on the PC even though it should work well, depends on the type of port of course).

When charging, the Shark Jack is pulling about 0.2A with my setup, then less and less as the charging progresses (just like an old school car battery charger).

When the Shark Jack is still attached to the charger, but not charging (i.e. solid blue LED), it is consuming about 0.00 - 0.01A, i.e. stops charging but still powered on.

I can't say anything about the charging circuitry and any "intelligence" built into that. I'll leave that to Hak5 to answer.

[T Hyde]

While I have only had my SJ for a little over a month now, I would second a vote for POE on a future redesign - in fact, lose the battery in the unit altogether. A LOT of the users guide, marketing, how-to's forum comments, troubleshooting notes etc push heavily on how delicate the battery situation is in the SJ. If that doesn't denote a design flaw (as a hdwre designer myself), I don't know what does. Truthfully, I was very skeptical once I started going through all the YT videos on "don't overchange, don't walk away, don't walk away, whatever you do don't walk away, don't exceed 0.5A charge block etc" that I was going to brush it off as simply lack of knowledge on the presenter's part, but I did put it on a low-rate charger with a usb monitor and did follow the guidelines anyway.

Good thing too - it got hot - really hot. On a dinky little 2 watt charger. While I was watching the how-to videos! With a USB-C connector on the device, it should by proper design practices be able to handle a 12w charger and also be able to communicate to handle the bevvy of quick/smart charge (high-rate charging) options. Moreover, as some have reported, the battery doesn't last too long at all. I did get about 6 minutes on my first full charge on the stock firmware and payload. I then looked at the published payloads (I was hoping this would be a pocket CDP helper as I can get the IP address from a port serving up DHCP or run a nmap with a $6 usb eth dongle attached to my phone) -- my run time immediately dropped to only a minute and change - barely long enough for a CDP message to get captured and sent on.

That aside, the real challenge is the battery doesn't have any life in "off" mode - If I charge it, then remove it from charge (you must do this, else evil death happens), put it on the table in off mode, then come back the next day to my bench, the unit has self-exhausted, no battery power at all. To that end, POE makes all the sense in the world since the only way I can use the SJ right now is to connect it to an external battery pack.

I also just ordered a Shark Cable - this says it gets power from the host phone as well as having a live terminal into the Shark for cable connectivity. I do wish I had known the Shark cable was going to be a product, I would have waited for it instead of getting the standalone Jack. I also see the original Jack is out of stock, perhaps it's being discontinued in favor of what appears to be a design evolution.

I'll probably tear open my original SharkJack and either build in a better battery or a POE module and rehouse it with a cat5 tail. I don't see a problem having a module off to the side of a port or sitting on a shelf; if you're pen-testing "surreptitiously" then the last thing you want is a black stubby thing with a blinking lightshow sticking out from the target switch - you want a cable that looks just like all the other cables. (@Hak5: If I can mod my original SJ to have a serial console connection, would you mind letting me know?)

I like the capabilities intended in the Shark Jack, and am really surprised that the designers were able to get it all in such a compact package. Unforch, it seems the marketing of physical size took higher precedence to usability.

Ted

[lawn dart]

My battery is fried, without constant power I lose the SSH connection in less than a minute.  I'm powering it from a USB-C in the computer I'm using for Arming.  I'm going to need to change the battery to keep this useful.  The problem is, how do you take the SJ apart without seriously damaging it.  Any ideas?

[PanicAcid]

4 minutes ago, lawn dart said:

My battery is fried, without constant power I lose the SSH connection in less than a minute.  I'm powering it from a USB-C in the computer I'm using for Arming.  I'm going to need to change the battery to keep this useful.  The problem is, how do you take the SJ apart without seriously damaging it.  Any ideas?

A chap on the discord replaced the battery on one not long ago with part numbers and everything. Check out the sharkjack channel on the discord.