Headsup! 15000mah Cheap PowerPack

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
Curious... the ebay link above now says it's a 12,000mAh pack, not 50,000.

So far so good - I've had 3 charges off the 15Ah pack I bought - 2 of them from approx 75% full battery on the phone to full battery and one from ~1% to 62% (ongoing). The pack's built in indicator still believes it's between 100% and 75% full with all four lights showing. I'll not be recharging it until it gets down to 25% to 0% (id est only one light showing) and will report back.

Note: They've gone up a couple of quid. Now £24 not £22 - I noticed when I went back to buy another for a friend.
 

Midnitehound

Silver Trader
Jun 8, 2011
2,121
30
AREA 51
Just a word of caution when buying these 5v USB style power banks, be careful which you buy.

According to numerous reports the ones with cheap built in solar panels can explode/leak when exposed to intense direct sunlight. You will more likely get a better product concentrating on a good non-solar version, the capacity of the panels means it takes forever for them to charge that way, not really viable. Better to buy a better quality higher capacity flat or folding solar panel with a 5v USB output that can charge a separate power pack.

If you buy a cheap bargain 50,000mah power pack then you have probably been done, particularly if it feels really light.

A good quality power pack will feel solidly built and reassuringly heavy in your hand. It's capacity will probably be a more realistic 10-15000mah. A cheap 50,000mah is most probably a fake. As always, read the feedback.

Regular cheap batteries that claim to be high capacity are usually not and don't weigh much, same goes for these power packs. The Lithium cells just don't contain very much Lithium.

Just my two pence worth and experience.
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
Basically the going rate of lithium is 0.2 watt hours per gram, or 200watt hours\kg, across all platforms of batteries. Milliamps is related to the voltage. The scientific maximum is 300watt hours a kg but that's without casing wiring solder etc.

A couple of scams, most lithium battery cells are around the 3.7v mark, not 5v. a current of 3.7v has higher millliamp hours than 5v from the same battery, thing being most manufacturers just add the cells up. To get wattage hours, times amps (milliamps divided by 1000) by voltage. Then divide it by the weight in grammes, and bear in mind that the case of thebattery will weigh a bit. The larger the battery thecapacity the less the battery housing factors.

Another scam is the the capacity, usable capacity and total capacity two different measurements of the same battery.

If you aim for 150w/h a kilogramme for the battery, including case, indicator, wiring, solder, you should know if it's a scam amd by how much. But this can vary from 0.1wh a gram for a small capacity (10 watt hours) to 0.16wh for a large capacity (200 watt hours).


Going by the weights I'd say that the battery mentioned is probably rated from a 3.7v perspective, so a little over rated, realistically about 11000mah @5v, so an Iphone about 5 times, but that depends on which I phone.
 
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gobfish1

Member
May 3, 2009
27
0
63
mancherster uk
Iv two 12000mah off ebay , payed about £12 or 15 each for them 2 years ago i get about 8 to 9 charges from one 12000mah unit
now i dont run my phone flat each day so cant say im getting or needing a 100% recharge each night

i use a old n8 when im out in the sticks , so for 12 quid i can use my phone all week to take photos, have music and maps / gps even a pdf
and take / make the odd phone call

watch the odd film if im power flush , lol

edit

last time i was on the road for 10 days and i got 9 charges from one unit ,
 
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