External power source alternative to extra battery - Touch Diamond2, Pure Accessories

As there is much discussion about batteries, capacities and performance I thought that there may be interest in this item
http://www.directfoto.co.uk/shop/product/Juice-Bar-Solar-Mobile-Phone-Charger.aspx
I have one and it's very well made, gives excellent performance and has the ability to recharge/power a whole range of kit.
And the price is not 'out of the way', by any means.

Thanks for sharing, looks very reasonable.

solar energy from the moon, and any light bulb???? sounds too good to be true. has anyone tried this product to confirm this?

I if were you I wouldn't believe easily in miracles. Since I'm electronic engineer who knows something about solar energy harvesting I can advise you to avoid cheap solar solutions. Firstly, the size of solar panel matters when it comes to current delivery performance and the ability to charge your PDA. To put it briefly, your Topaz requires 1 A of current @ 5V to properly charge the battery (if you use USB port it will take 500 mA, but it won't fully charge - time limit will activate and interrupt the process). As a result, you need solar charger that will have its own energy reserve battery that will be able to provide 1A (or at least 0.5 A) of charging current. You can find such devices on ebay, but they're more expensive than 19 £. Also you would like to have battery capacity ~30% higher than your Topaz's to counter efficiency losses of charging circuits (usually there are two - one handling solar charger's battery and second inside Topaz). Depending on your location and weather you may require solar panel size as high as A4 paper format which is nowhere near the one you presented in the link.
(Un)fortunately in this case: bigger is better

jetbro said:
solar energy from the moon, and any light bulb???? sounds too good to be true. has anyone tried this product to confirm this?
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Click to collapse
Am I living in a time warp or what?
Read my first post and you will truly find that I HAVE ONE AND THE PERFORMANCE IS GREAT.
Still, if you have trouble reading then a solar recharge unit will be way out of your area of operation.
So, in case you had a bad night/morning, I will tell you that it will indeed recharge itself from a light bulb! (although very slowly)

Nol_ said:
I if were you I wouldn't believe easily in miracles. Since I'm electronic engineer who knows something about solar energy harvesting I can advise you to avoid cheap solar solutions. Firstly, the size of solar panel matters when it comes to current delivery performance and the ability to charge your PDA. To put it briefly, your Topaz requires 1 A of current @ 5V to properly charge the battery (if you use USB port it will take 500 mA, but it won't fully charge - time limit will activate and interrupt the process). As a result, you need solar charger that will have its own energy reserve battery that will be able to provide 1A (or at least 0.5 A) of charging current. You can find such devices on ebay, but they're more expensive than 19 £. Also you would like to have battery capacity ~30% higher than your Topaz's to counter efficiency losses of charging circuits (usually there are two - one handling solar charger's battery and second inside Topaz). Depending on your location and weather you may require solar panel size as high as A4 paper format which is nowhere near the one you presented in the link.
(Un)fortunately in this case: bigger is better
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What a load of total b**ls**t!
This unit provides 1500mAh capacity.
It has a solar panel rated at 5.5 volt/80 mAh.
And it works perfectly.
"Firstly, the size of solar panel matters when it comes to current delivery performance and the ability to charge your PDA"
It recharges the internal device cell, not the phone (who still calls them a PDA?)
"To put it briefly, your Topaz requires 1 A of current @ 5V to properly charge the battery (if you use USB port it will take 500 mA, but it won't fully charge"
It does not require 1000 mAh and it will fully charge from USB at 500 mAh. You are just plain wrong.
"As a result, you need solar charger that will have its own energy reserve battery that will be able to provide 1A (or at least 0.5 A) of charging current"
Yes, that's exactly what it does have. 1500 mAh! Isn't that odd?
" Also you would like to have battery capacity ~30% higher than your Topaz's to counter efficiency losses of charging circuits"
Now let me see. Original battery 1100mAh, charger battery 1500 mAh. 30% of 1100 = 330. Add them together and 1430. Bingo at least 30 % extra. Would you believe it!
"Depending on your location and weather you may require solar panel size as high as A4 paper format which is nowhere near the one you presented in the link"
Yes here I have to agree, especially in the rainy parts of the world you would get you A4 paper format all soggy. It's just a blessing that they haven't developed a paper solar panel
"Since I'm electronic engineer"
With all the respect that's due, I don't think so!
In any case it's electronics engineer.
The correct form is Ah and mAh.
.5 A should be 500 mAh etc etc.

Here is a link for the JuiceBar for US buyers: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/c5a7/?cpg=froogle
$49 US

pa49 said:
I will tell you that it will indeed recharge itself from a light bulb! (although very slowly)
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Click to collapse
relax grumpy, i was hoping to get someone elses opinion on the product since two reviews are better than one. but since you're the only one responding, what did you mean by "very slowly". i live in michigan, so that means that we get sunlight 3 days out of the year. so, the only way i can charge my cell phone is through light coming from a light bulb. my question is, if it takes me about two hours to fully charge my phone using a wall outlet, how long will it take me to fully charge it using this product and an average 75w light bulb? please don't give me an insulting answer because it's not very helpful to this forum..... and it hurts my feelings

jetbro said:
relax grumpy, i was hoping to get someone elses opinion on the product since two reviews are better than one. but since you're the only one responding, what did you mean by "very slowly". i live in michigan, so that means that we get sunlight 3 days out of the year. so, the only way i can charge my cell phone is through light coming from a light bulb. my question is, if it takes me about two hours to fully charge my phone using a wall outlet, how long will it take me to fully charge it using this product and an average 75w light bulb? please don't give me an insulting answer because it's not very helpful to this forum..... and it hurts my feelings
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Click to collapse
Far longer than is practical. I only pointed that out to burst the myths in previous post above.

pa49 said:
What a load of total b**ls**t!
This unit provides 1500mAh capacity.
It has a solar panel rated at 5.5 volt/80 mAh.
And it works perfectly.
"Firstly, the size of solar panel matters when it comes to current delivery performance and the ability to charge your PDA"
It recharges the internal device cell, not the phone (who still calls them a PDA?) and who said that I can't? / Nol
"To put it briefly, your Topaz requires 1 A of current @ 5V to properly charge the battery (if you use USB port it will take 500 mA, but it won't fully charge"
It does not require 1000 mAh and it will fully charge from USB at 500 mAh. You are just plain wrong. current is expressed in AMPERS !!
"As a result, you need solar charger that will have its own energy reserve battery that will be able to provide 1A (or at least 0.5 A) of charging current"
Yes, that's exactly what it does have. 1500 mAh! Isn't that odd?
" Also you would like to have battery capacity ~30% higher than your Topaz's to counter efficiency losses of charging circuits"
Now let me see. Original battery 1100mAh, charger battery 1500 mAh. 30% of 1100 = 330. Add them together and 1430. Bingo at least 30 % extra. Would you believe it!
"Depending on your location and weather you may require solar panel size as high as A4 paper format which is nowhere near the one you presented in the link"
Yes here I have to agree, especially in the rainy parts of the world you would get you A4 paper format all soggy. It's just a blessing that they haven't developed a paper solar panel
"Since I'm electronic engineer"
With all the respect that's due, I don't think so! I'm glad such people as you don't find their ways to universities to teach
In any case it's electronics engineer.
The correct form is Ah and mAh. lol
.5 A should be 500 mAh etc etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you knew anything about battery charging (especially Li-Ion) we could continue this discussion, but you simply don't. Every word I wrote is valid, especially electrical units you mentioned. Topic closed from my side.
P.S.
I really recommend using wikipedia to find out what's the difference between current and electric charge that is expressed in Coulombs or Ah...
xttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_current

There's a lot of Solar power/USB charged external Li-ion battery solutions out there these days ....
I've tried a few of them and have had mixed experiences with them...
I have actually got a product like the Juicebar from Dealextreme and it was okay, with Solar Panels size does matter though, The solar panel on the juicebar WILL charge up the internal Li-ion battery but with a quick napkin calcuation it will take approx 20 hours of direct strong sunlight to charge up.
(Remember that a lot of these devices are designed as 'last resort' just to provide the power to get that ONE call out and you don't need a full charge for that)
I just usually use the USB charging feature and charge it up via a mains adapter or from a PC to charge the devices up.
My favourite at this moment is the Powermonkey Explorer, BIG Li-ion (2000mAh I'm guessing a 18650 cell) battery and decent size.... and the Solar Slave DOES charge my TD2 directly in the nice Aussie Sun
I've also had some luck with the Solio as well.
Of course there is the handcrank generators or the Hy-Mini wind powered ones as well... I'd just prefer to carry a retractable USB cable to charge off the nearest PC...

I did something completely different. I had a flood light outside that did not want any more. The floodlight came with a solar panel the size of a standard dvd case that was used with a battery for night time.
I got a 5.5V resistor and hooked it up since output was 12V, painted it black made it look nice, glued some cloth with magnets underneath it so it could stick to a car or anything without scratching it.
Works great, charges a dead battery in 2 hours.

The device posted by the pa49, without having any specs listed and simply going off the price, is garbage. Energy from moon light and light bulbs? Seriously? yes maybe a few ma but nothing usable. A solar panel that fits in your pocket would be lucky to be 0.25W. To be able to reliably charge the average PDA/Smartphone youll need at least a 5W panel (5V 1A) as stated by Nol, who BTW does know what hes talking about...

Related

Solar Powered Charger

Hi all,
I've been looking at a solar powered charger for my Jasjam, and the one that seems to catch my eye the most is this one called the "Scotty":
http://www.solartechnology.co.uk/acatalog/Scotty_Charger.html
I know that the limitation in USB Car Chargers about having to solder pins 4 and 5 to get it to charge will probably also affect this solar charger as well, but has anyone had any direct experience with either this one or another brand?
Can you get enough juice out of it to charge a Tytn / Jasjam?
Don't know about that one. But here's a recommended Solio one for mobile devices with press releases:
http://www.solio.com/v2/
thanks for that link, it looks pretty good as well, if not better given that it has a greater total solar panel area. The first one I found can swap the internal batteries for standard AA's for instant power if required which is what makes me lean towards that... hmm... decisions, decisions. I hate making choices like that! haha
galaxys said:
Don't know about that one. But here's a recommended Solio one for mobile devices with press releases:
http://www.solio.com/v2/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, just another FYI for everyone here... I ended up getting the Solio Solar charger (http://www.solio.com/v2/).
Many thanks to Galaxys for the suggestion. It charges to almost full after a full day of sunlight and stores 1 and a half full charges for my Jasjam. It's great for weekends away and is small and compact for that extra peace of mind of having a portable charge. Unfortunately, word has gotten around that I now have it and occasionally some friends of mine who forget to charge their phones ask to use it.
Dinty said:
Well, just another FYI for everyone here... I ended up getting the Solio Solar charger (http://www.solio.com/v2/).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iam looking for solar charger as well and got two questions regarding the solio. is the solio hard enough to take some outdoor activities (dirt/rain/drops) to a certain level and do i have to solder the pins in order to charge my tytn?
thanks
chaos42
chaos42 said:
iam looking for solar charger as well and got two questions regarding the solio. is the solio hard enough to take some outdoor activities (dirt/rain/drops) to a certain level and do i have to solder the pins in order to charge my tytn?
thanks
chaos42
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
g'day!
It's a well made and solid little device, but by no means is it indestructible... I store it in a ziplock plastic bag just in case it gets wet. If it's raining, then I won't pull it out to use because there won't be enough sunlight anyway (but I guess you could cover it in something if you really wanted to).
Also, in regards to the pin soldering, I haven't had to do that. So far it has worked perfectly each time without it.
It does have one interesting feature which is good and bad at the same time. Once it detects that the phone is fully charged, it stops sending power to the device. I assume it does this to conserve the power in it's own battery (but I guess this stops you from using it as an "extended battery" for the phone.
So far I've used it to charge my Jasjam, Bluetooth GPS and a couple of other Motorola phones and it has worked each time.
If you've got any more questions, let me know. Hope this is useful.
hiho dinty,
thanks for the quick reply. It was indeed very helpful.
I am going to order my solio right now and looking forward to my next trip to the desert in november
cheers chaos42
what about human/mechanical chargers? wouldnt those work good too? at least for short burst charges... u know like those devices u shake and stuff
Wind and Sun charger
Just found this site. There are about to release a wind and sun powered charger. looks quite promising.
http://www.hymini.com/
but no word about a release date or price rigth now ;(
cheers
chaos42
Maplin battery box hacked..
Maplin sell a battery box with solar panel in the lid.
I buy these, take out the panel which is on grp board & well made, wire a diode & charger plug & socket, & glue velcro loop all over the back.
They are cheap, give an open circuit output of 7.5 volts, and can flow up to 250 mA in bright sunshine.
They don't damage my phones or pdas, which in any case seem to have conditioning circuits in them.
Can buy at £15 usual price or £8 when on offer.
I am able to parallel any number of these together for more current, or in series to a cigar lighter smpsu to give a regulated 5 volts.
The panels can get wet, no problem, & the phone being charged stays dry inside a sandwich box.
I discovered that for Wizard/Hermes a current maximum of 1 amp has to be observed up to 80% charge, then reduce to 1/4 amp to top it. For other pdas the current max is lower.
Hope this helps.
Peter
Dinty said:
Hi all,
I've been looking at a solar powered charger for my Jasjam, and the one that seems to catch my eye the most is this one called the "Scotty":
http://www.solartechnology.co.uk/acatalog/Scotty_Charger.html
I know that the limitation in USB Car Chargers about having to solder pins 4 and 5 to get it to charge will probably also affect this solar charger as well, but has anyone had any direct experience with either this one or another brand?
Can you get enough juice out of it to charge a Tytn / Jasjam?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
chaos42 said:
Just found this site. There are about to release a wind and sun powered charger. looks quite promising.
http://www.hymini.com/
but no word about a release date or price rigth now ;(
cheers
chaos42
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The post is quite old, but nevertheless i will post a reply just in case someone bumps into it and thinks - Wow! a wind charger, let me search the web and get one for myself.
Well, in the latter case stay away from Uniross brand windchargers(I own one)
I have written a review in Amazon. Here it is:
Well, i was very excited to buy this gadget (costed me 30 EUR in Paris ). I bike a lot and this was also meant to be used for outdoor hiking activities.
But..
First of all the lack of any type of power meter renders the device unreliable to the point of uselessness. You take the charger (with a 1200 mAh battery inside) and you have no idea how much of the battery is filled. You can put it to charge from mains, and maybe be shure that it is charged in some 3-4 hours (not mentioned in manual). But then, if i needed an external battery, there are definitely better choices.
Second: You cannot charge your device and charge the device simultaneously, nor you can charge your device "on the go"-directly from wind..
Third: You cannot turn on the quite weak led lights in front of the device and charge it simultaneously (so, for example if you bike in the evenings when it is late, you have to chose, either you use it's light for safety, or you charge the device.)
Forth: in the description on Uniross site it is said "Can also be charged through a computer or through wall plug". Well, it can be only charged using supplied wall plug, no wire for computer charging..
Fifth: It almost has no effect on my HTC HD2 (1230 mAh). The charging current for my device is quite hight ~ 1 A. So make sure your device will agree on some 500 mA of charging current (most of them will probably)
Sixth: It does need quite strong wind to charge, it starts to charge when your speed (in no wind condition) gets around 15 km/h. People say it needs some 15 km of ride to be fully charged. How they managed to estimate that the charger is fully charged - i have no idea.
Seventh: The charging indicator (which tells you that the speed is enough for charging), is placed right in front of the charger, so to see if it does charge you have to dangerously lean forward or ask the aproaching bikers if they see a green LED light- truly stupid design flaw.
Eighth (the most annoying and stupid): YOU HAVE TO CHARGE IT FROM MAINS FOR SOME 20% BEFORE YOU CAN START CHARGING IT FROM WIND!! Can you imagine how dumb this condition is.. first - there is no way to know how long should i charge it from mains to get the necessary 20%. Then, when i am outdoor and lets say charging the phone - if i use all the juice - the charger will become useless, as there won't be a possibility for another startup charging. Then I have to charge till it is decreased to 20% and use the wind to charge it back. HA! there is now way to know that it is on 20%,10% or 30%... how dumb the design and functioning can be... This is truly a raw device they let out on market. Shame for Uniross.
(i will stop here because it is too late...)
I wish i would have read a review like this before i went and got this piece of ... something... Hope it helps someone else.
lusjash said:
.....
Seventh: The charging indicator (which tells you that the speed is enough for charging), is placed right in front of the charger, so to see if it does charge you have to dangerously lean forward or ask the aproaching bikers if they see a green LED light- truly stupid design flaw.
Eighth (the most annoying and stupid): YOU HAVE TO CHARGE IT FROM MAINS FOR SOME 20% BEFORE YOU CAN START CHARGING IT FROM WIND!! Can you imagine how dumb this condition is.. first - there is no way to know how long should i charge it from mains to get the necessary 20%. Then, when i am outdoor and lets say charging the phone - if i use all the juice - the charger will become useless, as there won't be a possibility for another startup charging. Then I have to charge till it is decreased to 20% and use the wind to charge it back. HA! there is now way to know that it is on 20%,10% or 30%... how dumb the design and functioning can be...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unbelievable, pal!
I could not stop laughing with tears (sorry for that) with their stupidity! Unbelievable and really ...funny, but sad at the same time.
Thanks for sharing!

Solar Panels?

Hi, Bin looking at some of the mobile solar panels you can get for charging your phone on the go. Some seem quiet practical and strap onto backpacks etc.
Anyone have any experience with these? Do they work? How do they fare with our power hungry HD's?
I have Powermonkey eXplorer and it is so usefull! I had it with me on my trip to Bulgaria and for week I didnt have to use wall charger for my ipod nor Touch Diamond.
It requires lots of sun to charge from empty to full but it is very good if for example leaving on car hood (inside) to charge battery.
For straight solar panel -> phone or other device it is good for retaining or slowly charging device. When I was on beach I listened music almost all the time and it solar panel kept battery full always.
Remember, solar panel needs sun! Here Finland it is pretty useless except now that summer comes.
Bought mine from inkino.co.uk for 45£ and always keeping it with me when going little farther from wallchargers.
I have one as well. If your battery is near empty it will recharge to about 25% before draining completely, still enough to get you out of an emergency. You should know that it takes about 10 hours to charge using the solar cells but you can use a notebook USB port to charge it in about an hour. I would say definitely a useful device, I use it mostly if watching movies on my HD.
Thanks Guys, Are there any that will fully recharge the battery from dead?
I've seen some that come with a 1000mAh and you can get replacement batteries for bout £10.
Rekon its worth gettin one with a few batteries n charging each o them? I'm planning a trip where I'm not going to be able to charge the phone during the day, so charging a secondary battery would be useful.
If you dont mind messing with a soldering iron, you might want to try this out.
Not sure if it'll work on our baby, but it looks interesting and fun.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/800000/solar_powered_usb_charger_cheap_and_easy_to_make/
At least its cheap 8O)
Vey Nice! Maybe as a summer project just to see how well it works. Might try it out on my old wizard 1st
In the meantime! any1 else had any experience with the commercial ones? I'm worried they wont have enough clout to charge a touch HD
I've got the Power Monkey solar charger mentioned above but it only discharges my battery. I have never seen it recharge as it should. Probably not powerful enough.
How about the onion trick? Will be interested if that one works
Done It!
Hi, got an old garden solar panel given to me. Just hooked it up to a USB cable and voila!
Even managed to charge two phones at once!
Follow Link for Images
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/CarlBanbury/USBSolarCharger?feat=directlink
Hi,
Here is some information on free loader charger.
Free Loader charger absorbs the suns energy quickly and can store it as electrical charge for up to three months.
The Free Loader is 120mm long when fully extended, and 17mm thick, made of smooth aluminium. The solar panels slide out when you want to charge it, and can alternatively be charged via USB if the sun hasn’t got his hat on. Then you add on one of the various included adaptors, connect it up to your chosen device and voila- extra juice! It can run a phone for 44 hours, an iPod for 18 hours and a PSP for 2.5 hours. Apparently.
I've tried the Soldius1 and Solio units.
The Soldius1 is a foldable panel with no battery. That means it's a power source only in direct sunlight., so you'd have to carry them around or leave your HD where you leave the chargers.
Unfortunately, one of them wasn't strong enough to actually charge the HD. External power is detected, and the HD wil indicate that it's charging, but any power it thinks it has will appear to be drained in a couple of minutes, so it's just some voltage thing it measured rather than actual charge!
They're relatively cheap however, so i just bought two of them and made myself a cable that connects the two Soldius units in parallel, and this time it actually worked pretty well I put the HD nice and cool in the shade and put the two Soldius1 units in the sun with a USB extension cable, and they were able to charge the HD up to half its capacity in about 2 to 3 hours. Only thing is you'd have to get two of them and make your own cable like i did.
So even though this works, i didn't like the hassle with the working but poorly built cable, so i bought a Solio Classic as well. This is a collapsible charger that has three rotating blades that can form a flowerlike shape when unfolded. This one does have a battery pack, so if you charge it before you go it's even useful if you don't see a single ray of sun In addition, you can leave your Solio out in the sun while you run around with your HD and charge it overnight at the end of the day, since the Solio has been gathering its charge on its own.
It turns out that the Solio can charge the HD up to full capacity if the Solio was fully charged itself. However, i wasn't able to charge the Solio for more than half of its capacity during the day. I left it unattended, so there may have been shadows and clouds, and i only did this for two days (i drained its charge into the HD each time, so it started out empty both times). Then again, they weren't particularly sunny days, so you might get more out them.
In any case, if you live somewhere where there is a lot of sun you can do with the Soldius method if you don't mind fiddling with wires and cables. If you want a more compact unit and want the added advantage of having a backup battery pack, go with the Solio.

[Aug 7th] Investigation of battery capacity claims. EVO AMZER serious ripoff everyone

We all want better battery life, no question, more than processor speed (some of us even underclock), resolution, 3D drivers; pretty much everything takes second place in our hearts to battery life. In response to that demand there are a lot of companies out there selling batteries for our phones either at the same mAh rating of the OEM (the one that came with the phone), a higher mAh rating but the battery's the same dimensions as the OEM and does not require a deeper cover and batteries that are both larger in capacity and physical size -- or so they allege. Usually these batteries are cheaper than the OEM's, mAh for mAh at least. By the way, mAh ratings, or milliamp hours, think of it in terms of the size of a gas tank you installed in your car. The higher the figure, the longer you can use your phone.
Got a Nexus One? Say hello to our sister thread! No wait, just go straight to forum.batteryboss.org right now, forget this thread.
There are battery threads all over XDA but only with vague data so I invested in equipment to rate the batteries myself, under the guidance of electrogeniuses as you can read in this thread, in order to tell you what to expect in addition to giving you figures such as how many amp hours you get on the dollar as maybe a cheap battery with an exaggerated or oddly defined rating is worth getting over an expensive and better one if you're on a budget. Not counting all the man hours that Telek, amit77 and I have put into coming up with the most reliable way to produce data, so far I've spent over $200 on different equipment to get to where we are now. By the way, OEM = made by the people who made the battery that came with your phone. I'm not asking you to donate yet or reimburse me for my troubles, rather I'd like you, the next time you buy a battery I haven't already tested, to mail it to me first so I can run a couple tests after which I will FedEx it to you at my expense. If that interests you, PM me. If you are a battery manufacturer or reseller and you stand by your claims and trust me to run legitimate tests on it that are consistent with every other test I publish in terms of procedure, PM me or post publicly.
The procedure:
I am using the Computerized Battery Analyzer III. The software which is somewhat sophisticated plots out milliamp hours (mAh) burnt over the descent of voltage from 4.14V to 3.5V which we have determined to be the level of voltage in the battery at which point the phone decides to stop charging itself and decides it's time to turn itself off because it's too low on juice. The CBA software plots out data in graphs, PDFs, CSVs, the whole deal. Looks a little like this:
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In order to produce the best real-world information, numbers that are relevant to you and not just to academics, I charge the batteries with the phone as you do until the phone decides the battery is charged which for the Rhodium/Touch Pro2/Tilt 2 is 4.14 volts regardless of capacity rating. I hook the batteries up to the CBA which is plugged into my computer. With the software that came with the CBA I have the CBA test the batteries at 250mA, a current in the neighborhood of what the average user would average were he to do his thing (including having push-mail fired up with the screen on bright, downloading and browsing rss feeds, the occasional call, bubblebreaker etc) without interruption. To get a better idea of what kind of current you're using when doing various things use the attached acbPowerMeter software. I'm not Geraldo Rivera out to get the third party guys that exaggerate their numbers a little bit nor am I here to rewrite Wikipedia's take on capacity calculation industry standards. If you're a manufacturer or a battery company sympathizer and want to break my balls about voltage cutoffs, read this simple explanation which I feel sums up our position well. The point, in short, of all of this is to supply you with information that will help you choose which battery to buy.
Doug Simmons
Test results and other information.
This table is a hotlinked image to data on the mother site of this, batteryboss.org on which the actual links work. Hit refresh if you've been here before in case your browser cached the image of the table.
Updates:
August 7th: First did a dry run then I the AMZER 1800mAh for the EVO. So far it's in first place for being the biggest ripoff on the gallon. First place.
August 5th: Received Carl's AMZER 1800mAh for EVO, doing a dry run discharge now, hopefully get some data for you tomorrow morning.
July 28th: Finished Carl's Seidio 3500mAh for EVO 4G. Seems the Seidios all rate at 81% of their claim.
July 6th: Completed round one of EVO stock (John Doward). Got the coveted Amzer 1800 and a Seidio 3500, both EVO, en route thanks to Carl Willi.
June 12th: Completed first run of a Mugen 3200mAh for the Hero. Both disappointing and unsurprising. Most cost ineffective battery I've tested.
June 11th: Jasper and Dan's batteries on the way back to them. Thanks again. Hey, Mugen 3200 for Hero and EVO 4G stock on their way! Another update, just received that Mugen 3200, charging now.
June 10th: Completed testing for a no name Hero battery and the stock Incredible battery with the EVO 4G stock on its way. Nice. Returning those batteries to my man Dan and my other man Jasper.
June 9th: Seems a seller I linked may be committing fraud. Please read.
June 7th: First test complete of an oversized no name Hero battery, second one in progress.
April 26th: Got some press. And a little more.
April 15th: Hoo-F'ing-ray, we have a winner, Wade's HTC 2150mAh clocks in exactly at 2150! high five, HTC!
April 14th: Taking the HTC 2150mAh for a spin right now. Finally! Thank you Deathmonkey!April 12th: Rotohammer's Seidio 1600mAh for the N1 has arrived, charging. Exact dimensions as OEM, wish I had a scale.
April 9th: In a continued effort to outdo himself Rotohammer just ordered a 2400mAh-rated Cameron Sino, on its way to me. Lucky I got his attention. Extremely helpful. Thanks.
April 8th: N1 Seidio 1600mAh should show up today, thanks to Rotohammer.
April 3rd: Finished N1 Seidio 3200mAh, five runs. Learned that it's rated slightly more honestly than Mugen (not saying much) but is the most expensive battery per tested amp hour. Still, highest capacity. I got a new and fast and really badass server and now have a our own forum which you can fire up at forum.batteryboss.org. Finished the new Andida for the TP2, pretty weak, but for some of you the price may be right.
March 30th: Completed dry run of a Seidio 3200mAh for the N1. Not fantastic but Seidio has taken the lead against Mugen in honesty.
March 29th: Mugen "engineer" responds (see table). Rotohammer's Seidio arrived, charging now baby, yeah! Should be very interesting. Thanks Roto.
March 27th: Shawn's OEM a fake (but a well performing fake). Activity building in the Nexus One thread. Mugen sent me an exchange for Jeremy's and it sucks even more.
March 20th: Just ran the first test of the Nexus One's OEM, not bad.
March 18th: Just ordered a Google Nexus One. I got an extra battery so the first thing I'm using this for is to prepare a battery for testing. Need to figure out if it has different voltage cutoffs, need to figure out how to present the data and what to do with my site, .. hmmm.
March 16th: Mugen wants me to send me another battery to test, I agreed and mailed them back Jeremy's battery. Also mailed Sean/Telek his OEM 1500mAh. Thank you both fellas. Also DeathmonkeyGTX offered to sponsor a test of the HTC 2150mAh -- thank you!
March 13th: Finished no name #2 3600mAh (2466mAh ). In search of voltage cutoffs for Touch Pro/Fuze, please help.
March 12th: Mugen has expressed interest in sending me another battery to test, I expressed willingness. And to you I express curiosity into which device to expand the testing.
March 8th:Finished round two of no name #2 and fake OEM #2. Waiting on another ebay OEM to verify authenticity and a fresh Andida courtesy of my main man Shawn Martell.
March 7th:Added intriguing head to head chart matches.
March 6th:Completed a few more including fresh standard legit OEM, also discovered two counterfeits.
March 2nd: Completed no name #1, cheapest per mAh so far. Dropped Jason's battery off in the mail as promised.
Feb 28th: Completed tests of the Seidio, mailing it to jasonweaver.
Feb 27th: Just received Seidio 1750mAh from jasonweaver in addition to 1500mAh no name ebay cheapo. Nice.
Feb 27th: Mugen 1800mAh testing completed, table updated. Thank you very much jcr916 who bought the battery and had it shipped to me, now I'm going to mail it to him.
Feb 22nd: Thank you jasonweaver and jcr916 who are hooking me up with a barely-used Seidio and a brand new Mugen 1800mAh respectively. Those test results should be interesting as from what I've gathered those two brands have the best reputation and are priced accordingly so let's see if they deserve it.
Telek and I just laid down some dough for five more batteries this weekend. So I'll have a lot of testing to do shortly. Stay tuned for the results!
Batteries I would like to test next so PM me if you want to help. New and used batteries welcome.
AT&T/HTC 2150mAh Pricey worth it. Really want to test this one. *En route*
HTC 2150mAh - Same model as AT&T but cheaper, doesn't come with door. *En route (same battery)*
Cameron Sino - Found five favorable/neutral reports.
A new Seidio 1750mAh - Tested a used one already but need data on a fresh battery.
Google Froogle search for more.
Tips and other reflections:
AT&T people, beware that if you order a battery that requires a deeper back cover but is for the Touch Pro2 and not the AT&T Tilt 2 that the cover may not have a hole for the PTT button nor may it latch on. Maybe you can burn one through with a hot screwdriver or you could just crazy glue. Beware of the usual dangers of ebay obviously, only use sellers with high ratings and consider buying straight from the company's website or Amazon or a name you've heard of. I have found over two counterfeits from sellers with high ratings. Read your phone's warranty before using a third party battery. Get the return policy before you buy. If you do get burnt with a counterfeit OEM, immediately give negative feedback using language like "counterfeit" and email the seller requesting both immediate restitution and that they remove their listings of that particular battery or at the least any reference in the listing to the battery being either an OEM or giving an OEM-like serial number, anything misleading, and in return offer to neutralize negative feedback. Reporting fraud to ebay is up to you but I would take those steps first. It's a longshot but the information we really want from the dealer is their supplier but so far I haven't been able to get any of them to cough that information up. If you're not sure if the thing's a counterfeit and want to find out, send it to me to test.
Testing hardware:
I am using the West Mountain Radio CBA III (Computerized Battery Analyzer) which you can buy along with some toys from these guys for $149. I bought something else from them, didn't like it and they offered to shave the cost of the thing I didn't want off the price of the CBA III without even asking me to return it. Good people. The CBA III is the most accurate and reliable device we could find for these testing purposes and we spent many hours arriving at the final testing procedure. No corners cut. There is no indication whatsoever that the results it's produced are inaccurate, certainly not relative to each other given its consistency. All testing procedures were identical including the current of 250mA, starting voltage and bottom cutoff (4.14V and 3.5V respectively, the top and bottom cutoffs of the Touch Pro2, which I use to charge the batteries with original HTC wall charger). The 250mA current may be a little high and won't produce as flattering a result versus a 100mA current, but it's both a normal current we burn when we're doing stuff on the phone, it keeps each of the three tests inside six hours usually and most importantly we use that current on every single test of every single battery so this is a standardized test. Finally the OEMs get 95% of their claimed rating on this current so we believe that that current is the sweet spot to supply you with information to use to buy your next battery.
Doug Simmons
Excellent thread - although from my experience with LiIon devices:
- the device itself typically has poor ability to determine battery usage
- you really need an actual external ammeter to monitor usage
With payment terminals that I used to work on the external ammeter (which I assume was accurate) was up to 15% off what the terminal itself reported - and wasn't consistent depending on the amount of current draw. The ability for the batteries themselves to accurately report their % remaning was also highly inaccurate and can only be used as a guideline. YMMV.
Thanks .. though you may realize this, my main interest is not in current at a given point but in total consumption from a full charge to when it dies. You're saying in order to get a definitive result, solid enough to recommend one thing over another, I need such a device to get beyond bad indications and confounding variables? Or with a difference between a few hundred mAhs over a few trials sound like enough to determine a clear winner, but ideally have an ammeter? Any cheap ammeters that not only clock the current but plot it down over time or do whatever it takes to yield the total? Not too familiar with these things, just a quick glance at wikipedia.
Well honestly I have no idea how either the battery or the TP2 fares for current reading.
I think you'd have to do a benchmark - find some way of running the same task on the TP2 that will use the same amount of battery power and run it a few times from a full battery charge. See if the mAh readings are consistent. My guess, however, is that the readings are going to be quite different which will be a combination of the battery AND reporting method. Even using an external battery reconditioner we'd get +/- 10% on successive runs with the same battery. The only way you could tell that the reconditioner was working was the batteries would go from 30 mins runtime to 90 mins after reconditioning.
Back when I did my testing I used a custom designed unit - had a arm7 microcontroller and threw a resistor in series and constantly monitored the voltage drop to determine current usage and plotted it that way. Most multimeters that you can hook up to your computer don't have high enough sampling rates or are too expensive.
how the frak do you delete messages? duplicate post...
Telek said:
how the frak do you delete messages? duplicate post...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dupe all you want, need this thing bumped.. working hard on it, getting some good info together.
As Telek said an external test is the only reliable way to get accurate results. The best way to do this to apply the same resistive drain to all of the batteries and charging them all with the same charger. A .5c drain should be safe enough to drain in a reasonable amount of time with out over heating the battery.
The main factor we need to know as far as the device is concerned is what the cutoff voltage is set at. LI-ion batteries can be drained down to less the 3v safely and most good ones have protection circuits that cut them off above 2.7v. None of that will matter if HTC has the device set to cutoff at 3.2v or higher.
Once the cutoff V is known then you time the drain from full charge to C/O.
I've done a lot of battery pack building and maintaining in radio controlled hobby's. With out having access to the right equipment this is going to be a daunting task and quite possibly more expensive than buying a few batteries. Hopefully the right person will see this thread and will step up to do the testing.
anit77 said:
As Telek said an external test is the only reliable way to get accurate results. The best way to do this to apply the same resistive drain to all of the batteries and charging them all with the same charger. A .5c drain should be safe enough to drain in a reasonable amount of time with out over heating the battery.
The main factor we need to know as far as the device is concerned is what the cutoff voltage is set at. LI-ion batteries can be drained down to less the 3v safely and most good ones have protection circuits that cut them off above 2.7v. None of that will matter if HTC has the device set to cutoff at 3.2v or higher.
Once the cutoff V is known then you time the drain from full charge to C/O.
I've done a lot of battery pack building and maintaining in radio controlled hobby's. With out having access to the right equipment this is going to be a daunting task and quite possibly more expensive than buying a few batteries. Hopefully the right person will see this thread and will step up to do the testing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay well in the interests of making this thread epically informative I am almost willing to buy myself an ammeter. Could you please recommend one that is both cheap and capable of getting the job done for something smaller than a car battery and a device with such settings to fine-tune? Something that I can rig up to the battery's contacts which are so thinly spaced together without a soldering iron? Here's a list...
Well for starters do you want to test the phone + battery or just the battery?
Testing the battery alone will be a LOT easier - in fact a general test can be done with just a heavy duty resistor and a voltmeter. Watch how long it takes the battery to go from full charge to C/O and you've got your mAh rating. I'd recommend this as it's easy and cheap.
If you want to check actual phone usage time and compare it to whatever reading you get via software you'll need to build a little rig that allows you to place the battery externally with leads running to the battery contacts in the phone. That part is not as hard as it sounds. However what that you're going to need some sort of way of tracking the current flow with high precision and high frequency. If you're any good with microcontrollers that can be done easily, otherwise I'm not sure. I'll check and see if I can find anything that would qualify.
Telek said:
Well for starters do you want to test the phone + battery or just the battery? Testing the battery alone will be a LOT easier - in fact a general test can be done with just a heavy duty resistor and a voltmeter. Watch how long it takes the battery to go from full charge to C/O and you've got your mAh rating. I'd recommend this as it's easy and cheap.
If you want to check actual phone usage time and compare it to whatever reading you get via software you'll need to build a little rig that allows you to place the battery externally with leads running to the battery contacts in the phone. That part is not as hard as it sounds. However what that you're going to need some sort of way of tracking the current flow with high precision and high frequency. If you're any good with microcontrollers that can be done easily, otherwise I'm not sure. I'll check and see if I can find anything that would qualify.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
C'mon man, obviously I want the easier way that satisfactorily satisfies what I want to know without crazy wiring and microcontrollers. Just want to know how many milliamp hours these two suckers and any other batteries I might get along the way compare to each other, a drag race. I'll leave that other stuff to the guys from Popular Mechanics.
We also need to consider the resolution needed for such a device.
For example a 5.0V ADC (providing 0-5V range) at 16-bit resolution for a current shunt designed to provide a 50mV drop at 1A is going to give you 1.53mA resolution (5V 16-bit = 0.0763mV resolution; 0-50mV range = 655 binary range = 1.53mA range). Conveniently a 3.3V range for the ADC gives almost exactly 1mA resolution which is perfect.
However I can't find any cheap ready-to-go data loggers with that resolution and range.
Now if you wanted to make the setup a little more complicated and toss a simple op-amp into there you could probably get away with something like this:
http://www.dataq.com/products/startkit/di194rs.htm
$25 plus a few bucks to build a simple op-amp circuit (check out http://www.chem.uoa.gr/Applets/AppletOpAmps/Appl_OpAmps2.html with values 1kO and 2000kO V1=0.005V and V2=0) use the computer PSU to provide +/- 12V to the amp will give you ~ +/- 10V operational range (perfect for the data logger) and you'll get 2mA resolution with 240Hz sampling - far from perfect but sufficient to actually do some decent measurements of actual current draw from the phone. Log both the shunt resistor voltage drop through the op-amp and the raw battery voltage and you've got a nice little power monitor that can give you detailed measurements of how much power every little thing in your phone takes.
Ok so grab yourself one of these:
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=HPC1210JCT-ND
Or any generic 10 ohm resistor capable of dissipating at least 5W (wire-wound will work). Ask at your local electronics shop and they can probably help you. Should cost less than $20 including the multimeter.
It'll draw about 700mA and dissipate about 5W (so it'll get hot, should put a small fan on it) and should dissipate your battery in about 2 hours. Combine with a voltmeter where you write the measurements down at least every couple of minutes and that will allow you to plot the voltage drop curve and calculate the mAh rating of the battery.
Well if you can come up with what you think the right standardized procedures and various levels of this and that, again standardized, to use to test multiple batteries from multiple manufacturers of varying mAh claims (but presumably of the same voltage?) just to get a total mAh versus that of the OEM, and then tell me which device to buy to make that happen, I could contact these various companies, tell them to send me their superbattery for me to test accurately to see if they are legit and, in exchange for sending me the battery, I'll list the results on either of my sites which are fairly trafficked, enough for a company to want to give away a battery if it meant getting their claims verified in front of an audience thirsty for milliamp hours.
You see where I'm going with this?
Telek said:
Ok so grab yourself one of these:
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=HPC1210JCT-ND
Or any generic 10 ohm resistor capable of dissipating at least 5W (wire-wound will work). Ask at your local electronics shop and they can probably help you. Should cost less than $20 including the multimeter.
It'll draw about 700mA and dissipate about 5W (so it'll get hot, should put a small fan on it) and should dissipate your battery in about 2 hours. Combine with a voltmeter where you write the measurements down at least every couple of minutes and that will allow you to plot the voltage drop curve and calculate the mAh rating of the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got a Radio Shack down the block. But 700mA is maybe unnecessarily/excessively strong -- firstly because running batteries hot and heavy wears them out over time so if I keep testing new batteries against one oem .. ahh nevermind i guess that wouldn't batter but normal usage is between 30-400mA. How many ohms might yield roughly 250, 300mA? Think I'd get lucky at RatShack?
Running batteries at 1/2 their capacity is generally pretty safe for full discharge - so a 1500mAh battery discharging at 700mA should be fine - not really considered "hot & heavy".
You could go 20 ohm (2.5W discharge 350mA) and monitor over 4-5 hours then, just means more work for you since you're going to need to record the voltage over time.
I somehow doubt that RadioShack would carry any sort of resistors like this, but a general purpose electronics hobby shop should.
Thanks you very much with this test. Very instructive.
A question:
What is the best PocketPC software for mesuring mAh. I've try AbcPower, but I don't think it's very accurate when charging. normally, 500mA via PC USB.
powerguard
I believe it's powerguard which is frickin' awesome for all things battery-related (.. born on xda) but I can't get the consumption thing to tally which doesn't really help this project. That's either because the software doesn't like our phone or because the shareware is crippled not to do that among some other things. Other than this powerguard and abcpowermeter, I am unaware of any other WinMo app that will count up the consumption. So I sent the guy some euros (five, he asked for three) to get a registration file hoping that will do the trick but man he went out of his way to make it a pain in the balls to register this thing. Hope he checks his email soon because I want this thing unleashed.
By the way for those of you living in 10% increment land on your battery meters, grab Chainfire's 1% battery driver for Euro and apparently AT&T Touch Pro2s (gsm?) or Quentin-'s 1% driver for Tmo, Sprint and Verizon (I guess any cdma tp2). After you install either of those you'd better check your battery drain to make sure you didn't install the wrong one (you can tell if you notice your phone is using a lot more juice). If you did, not to worry, they are uninstallable.
Doug
anit77 said:
Hopefully the right person will see this thread and will step up to do the testing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I want to be that guy. I'm willing to put the time, money and patience into it. Only snag is is that I'm not a physicist/electrical engineer like you two.
What I want to set out to do here is have a means of performing standardized testing with the same equipment with the same settings with me doing the same things (including how frequently I watch it and what math I do at the end) each time in order to get true and consistently true mAh until c/o ratings, true enough to satisfy third party battery companies/dealers (and people who actually read and use what I post) that I've got a fair and trustworthy procedure to see if their batteries live up to their claims, posting tables of batteries, mAh, cost of the battery and cost per mAh, something like that, both here and on my website for people to read and copy to their own sites and forum threads.
I reread your comments a couple more times. What I guess I need to do is find out what the cutoff voltage is for this phone (do I do that by eyeballing the mV readings on this powerguard software until the phone clicks off or is additional equipment necessary?). Then I need to get myself this data logger -- nope, just a 10 ohm resistor and maybe this voltmeter or perhaps something like this would make this simpler? What's my shopping cart?
Once I have some setup like that I fully discharge a battery then charge it up with the phone off then connect it both to the resistor and the voltmeter, plot out the readings every three minutes until it hits the voltage cutoff point, repeat X amount of times, then crank out some math to figure out a total mAh reading from start to cutoff point (we'll discuss that later...) and finally I'm good? Something like that? How am I doing?
Just hit me with the shopping cart and I'll get that out of the way and read this while it all ships then check back here.
The goal is to generate and disseminate valuable information on something very mysterious and dubious. People who make these things know we have no idea how to do what we're fixin' to do in this thread so why not claim wild ratings for the same dimensions and get more people to buy our stuff? Let's tell 'em why and maybe score some free batteries along the way for our troubles.
This looks like it'd be perfect. but it's $120. You be able to test most any battery too. There's tons of this type stuff in R/C and electronics hobby sites. It just doing the searching needed to find what your looking for.
I'd say make a new thread for taking donations to buy one. PM a mod or Flar and ask where to post it or if they'll put links to the thread in some of the sub forums and you'd get people with other phone that'd be interested too. Could be a way to make some extra cash as well. If you don't want to deal with a progect of this size I'm sure you'd be able to find someone who is.

Using power banks to charge your phone

Hi Guys,
I’ve no experience of using Power Banks ever so here is my queries and doubts. As far as I know as much the mAh the power bank have, it can hold more current and charges other device for long. Is that correct?
# My primary question is it safe to Power Bank to Charge your phone?
# Also is it safe to use a higher mAh external charger like 10400mAh? The stock charger shows 2amp output.
# Could it damage the battery for longer use? (I love my phone very much and I scare to use non branded after market stuffs)
I found this product Xiaomi Brand Power Bank 10400MAH (please google it and see the description) and it has 10400 mAh, and looks like best for Note 3’s giant 3200mAh battery. So is it safe to go for this product?
My purpose of using this, like once in every two full charge. Please advice, thanks
a "power bank" is nothing more than an external battery. Almost every cellphone manufacturer makes one. The bigger the mAh, the more power it holds and the more devices it can charge..
In my experience, it is safe to use them. I have a few that i have used over the years. I would recommend getting one where the mAh is more than the battery in the device you want to charge.
I have a Motorola external battery that is rated at 4000 mAh. I use it for my Note 3, but it will not change the Note 3 t0 100% if it's starting from 0%. Even thought the Note 3's battery is 3200 mAh. But other external batteries I have used have been able to. I assume it's because their mAh is higher (9000 mAh and 10400mAh).
As for the specific one you are looking to get, all I can tell you to do is read the reviews, and if possible, search the reviews for any references to Note 3.
RemyL75 said:
a "power bank" is nothing more than an external battery. Almost every cellphone manufacturer makes one. The bigger the mAh, the more power it holds and the more devices it can charge..
In my experience, it is safe to use them. I have a few that i have used over the years. I would recommend getting one where the mAh is more than the battery in the device you want to charge.
I have a Motorola external battery that is rated at 4000 mAh. I use it for my Note 3, but it will not change the Note 3 t0 100% if it's starting from 0%. Even thought the Note 3's battery is 3200 mAh. But other external batteries I have used have been able to. I assume it's because their mAh is higher (9000 mAh and 10400mAh).
As for the specific one you are looking to get, all I can tell you to do is read the reviews, and if possible, search the reviews for any references to Note 3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your feedback. Yes I’m looking for reviews specificly for Note 3. Just two question, any external power bank charger charging rate/speed is similar to the adapter (If its mAh is higher than the device battery)? Or its more faster or slower to charge full?
The one I’m looking for its specification shows Output voltage: DC 5.1V and Output current: 2.1A (TYP) which is slightly higher than the OE power adapter. So is that safe? However it says it can automatically adjust the output power according to be charging devices. Don’t know how far its true.
My only concern is it shouldn’t reduce the stock OE battery life.
I use this one and have no issues using it to charge the Note 3 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHEEFWY/
Unless it's big enough to fully charge it twice I don't see the point in getting one.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Xiaomi-Power-10400mAh-batteries-Sensation-Silver/dp/B00IL7VD1Y
Is this the powerbank you are planning to get one? Looks good.
Yeah honestly anything with a 2 amp port and 10000 MAh will charge your note 2 twice I would say maybe a 11000 MAh charger just to make sure since I believe there is a loss of power during the transfer which causes the external battery brick to discharge faster and causes there to be a significant loss of charging capacity at least in my experiences
I use this one. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003ZBZ64Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1400257970&sr=8-1
It will definitely charge your note 3 two times and it has a 2 amp port and a 1 amp port. Under $40.
Sent from my SM-N900T using XDA Free mobile app
Has anyone tried this combination?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400541343713
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-4-6-8-1...-Ionen-Wiederaufladbare-Akku-HP-/131152525573
4x 6000 mAh = 24000 mAh
doesn't sound bad for 16$
soumen.sam said:
Thanks for your feedback. Yes I’m looking for reviews specificly for Note 3. Just two question, any external power bank charger charging rate/speed is similar to the adapter (If its mAh is higher than the device battery)? Or its more faster or slower to charge full?
The one I’m looking for its specification shows Output voltage: DC 5.1V and Output current: 2.1A (TYP) which is slightly higher than the OE power adapter. So is that safe? However it says it can automatically adjust the output power according to be charging devices. Don’t know how far its true.
My only concern is it shouldn’t reduce the stock OE battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never had one reduce the battery life of an OEM battery for any phone I have used. I have heard however, that the capacity drops for the external battery over the course of time. The first one i had (Motorola P793) had this issue, but I opened it up and replaced it with a larger battery (THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!). It lasted for another 2 years and before I opened it up I had it for about 18 months.
As for the Voltage, it needs to meet or exceed the voltage for the OEM charger. Also, make sure the miliAmp (mA) or Amp (A) rating meets or exceeds the OEM charger. That way you will get a similar charging speed. Cannot say it will be exactly as fast, but it will come close.
Why use power bank with galaly note 3 when it has removable battery? Spare battery would be much more convinient. No wires, smaller size and you will not have to wait till it charges the phone.
Lorettaa said:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Xiaomi-Power-10400mAh-batteries-Sensation-Silver/dp/B00IL7VD1Y
Is this the powerbank you are planning to get one? Looks good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is the one I’ve selected, it has 10400MAH so I think it should charge the Note 3’s 3200mAh giant battery twice. Also it has kinds Apple looks and I will get it here at around $28USD
But actually I was looking for something which I can carry with the phone attach or I can still use the phone when it charging the phone even if can charge single time. That would be great user friendly. I really liked this one (attached image) but it has only 2200mAh which cant do a full charge sadly.
I just dislike when I’ve to leave the phone away for two+ hours for charge and I missed calls and messages.
gunflight said:
I use this one. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003ZBZ64Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1400257970&sr=8-1
It will definitely charge your note 3 two times and it has a 2 amp port and a 1 amp port. Under $40.
Sent from my SM-N900T using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this one looks good, but i like the Xiaomi one, it has a apple product like looks.
RemyL75 said:
I have never had one reduce the battery life of an OEM battery for any phone I have used. I have heard however, that the capacity drops for the external battery over the course of time. The first one i had (Motorola P793) had this issue, but I opened it up and replaced it with a larger battery (THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!). It lasted for another 2 years and before I opened it up I had it for about 18 months.
As for the Voltage, it needs to meet or exceed the voltage for the OEM charger. Also, make sure the miliAmp (mA) or Amp (A) rating meets or exceeds the OEM charger. That way you will get a similar charging speed. Cannot say it will be exactly as fast, but it will come close.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, thanks for the details, I will keep those in mind. And yes I heard too these power banks performs good for 1st 6months as its battery quality is not great like the OEM phone battery.
polzavotel said:
Why use power bank with galaly note 3 when it has removable battery? Spare battery would be much more convinient. No wires, smaller size and you will not have to wait till it charges the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes that was my most preferred way, I love to stick with OE equipment. But the issues are:
I use this leather flip cover and I love it too, I have to remove this and then again the stock back cover, also power off the phone. Those will be long process to replace the battery, not a convenient way for me.
I'm using the 15600mAh A-Solar XSTORM Power bank. I use it to charge my Note 3 and my NotePro. http://www.xtorm.eu/EN/xtorm-power-banks/xtorm-power-bank-15600-646.html
So far I've been using it intensively for 5 months and it hasn't started degrading yet.
You appear to be mistaking mAh for Ampere charging rate. The Note 3 battery is 3200mAh, it charges at 2A. Basically, it's an 80 litre gasoline tank and you can fill it at 0.5 liter per second.
- Yes, you can use it safely. There's no damage risk.
- Pick one with a 5V 2A port, because anything lower than that is not powerful enough to charge the Note 3.
- No, it can't damage your battery. The phone doesn't draw more power than it can handle.
Anything below 10.000mAh is not worth the money, in my opinion.
I also have an additional battery. Which is wonderful, but not very useful when you're in the middle of something. Changing the battery during a call is not convenient.
I was using the Rav Power 10400mah power bank since last year and it helps when I am out on the road or on a plane (13 hour flights.. yeah it helps!) Thats 2 to almost 3 charges for my note 3.
I gave it to my wife so she can use it, I got the Zerolemon for my note 3 now so I dont need it as much
The reason why a power bank makes sense, at least to me, is that it's not device specific. I'd rather buy a power bank and share it with my iPad or my Nexus or whatever phone my friend may have, rather than having to randomly carry around a spare battery that can only help me (and it's kind of hard to justify carrying around a battery when I could carry around something that could charge multiple devices simultaneous). It is also one hell of an inconvenience to have to find a safe place to take my case/cover off and swap out the batteries. To each his own, right?
DAvid_B said:
Unless it's big enough to fully charge it twice I don't see the point in getting one.
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lol! The zerolemon 18000 mah charges my note 3 atleast 3 times. I bought it a month ago. Charged the external battery all the way once and probably charged my phone it 3-4 times by now and i still see the portable pack to have 1 bar out of 4 left on the charge meter . This thing is a beast to the max
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polzavotel said:
Why use power bank with galaly note 3 when it has removable battery? Spare battery would be much more convinient. No wires, smaller size and you will not have to wait till it charges the phone.
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If you are into good case covers for the phone, then you know it sucks to have to replace batteries. If you're gonna be out for the whole day and you have no access to outlets and still need to use you phone a lot, then you'll need a power bank.
Thanks for all your feedback. Yes definitely higher mAh power source should charge multiple times. Like gutlessmerc said, if one can do full charge 3 times then definitely that is worthful.
Actually while traveling except Flight I don’t have power issues, I mostly use my car for traveling and use car charger. But the great thing would be if I could carry the power bank in my pocket when its doing its job. That would be great for me. So I don’t have to leave the phone for charging. So beside the mAh I’m also looking for a slim one. Not a bulky stuff.

40w Charger, Safe to use often?

Hi,
I love the speed this charges … up 12% in the time it took me to make a coffee but that got me thinking...
Is it safe for the longevity of the battery to use whenever its time to charge or your phone or should you really only be using it in them times you really need a fast charge and keep a puny 2a 5/9v for them longer periods, such as overnight
EDIT: and now that's about 40% and the charger is pretty toasty, battery warm to touch also
Let be any Lithium batteries, slow is generally safe and will guarantee longevity of battery. 40W is a Huawei's throw in the face answer to OnePlus, that's it. So I would suggest 5V-2A to be good. 500mA laptop output is safest in my opinion, slow yet tension free.
rakesh2002 said:
Let be any Lithium batteries, slow is generally safe and will guarantee longevity of battery. 40W is a Huawei's throw in the face answer to OnePlus, that's it. So I would suggest 5V-2A to be good. 500mA laptop output is safest in my opinion, slow yet tension free.
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But 500mAh from laptop is not stable and clean enough. It should be high quality charger
No, of course it's not safe to use it often. I'd limit it to once a year, personally.
[/sarcasm]
If it was risky, Huawei wouldn't offer it, particularly after the Note 8 disaster.
David Horn said:
No, of course it's not safe to use it often. I'd limit it to once a year, personally.
[/sarcasm]
If it was risky, Huawei wouldn't offer it, particularly after the Note 8 disaster.
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Well Dave, I said for its longevity... not is is at risk of catching fire like the Note 7.... and that was do to with their faulty batteries and not their chargers
yeah it would degrade the battery faster than a slow charger if you use it daily and keep the phone for 2 years you might notice it. I'd suggest a slow wireless charger for overnight charging (it also causes more heat that plugging it to a cable doing 5V and 0.5-1A but it is pretty convenient to just put it in the pad right before going to sleep and in the morning just pick it up with one hand) and 40W for fast boost when you need them
I think they've done their homeworks and it's safe to use for longevity. Looking at numbers in AccuBattrry, it charges as fast as 7000mah at first but once it gets around 90%, it slows down to like 500-1000mah (note I didn't check this over and over thoughrouly) to help battery longetivity.
That said, I don't think anybody here can often anything more than a personal opinion. Unless we can find a technical document from Huawei regarding this, I'd say nobody knows and we'll see in a year or two...
That said, the phone battery is supposed to be 4200mah but so far AccuBattery always reports 4000mah after each charge (it used to be accurate on my old s8).
Wonder if I'm the only one? Or is Huawei 100% charge actually stopping at 4000mah and saving the last 200mah for better longevity so it takes more months or years before it feels like the battery lasts less time?
I'm sure they know what they are doing. If you look into how batteries work (any batteries, the same rules apply to your car battery) they can be fast charged without harming them up to a certain percentage. After that, trying to cram the juice in reduces longevity. This is all well understood at this point, and they wouldn't ship the phones with the 40W charger if it meant a chance of evidence coming out that this harmed the capacity or longevity (number of charge cycles) anytime soon. At max charging speed the phone barely gets warm, which was always a tell-tale sign of overcharging.
On a side note, the 2013 Nexus 7 (which had a terribly underpowered SOC/battery for the screen) was so terrible at drinking the battery that custom firmwares gave you the option to only charge the battery to 95%. Note that this has nothing to do with charging rate, or any of that - simply a cap on that last 5%. The result of this was an estimated SEVEN TIMES bigger amount of charge cycles for the battery. In other words, even when you trickle charge a battery for that last few precious percent, you are doing damage - that is inherent in the design of all batteries.
The efficiency of this Kirin 980 is *ridiculous*. They said that the battery would last 2 full days. They didn't mean it *could* last 2 full days, they meant it *will* last 2 full days - even under fairly heavy usage. It is almost impossible to believe how advanced power consumption efficiency has become, especially given that this is an 8 core (on the main 'CPU') fab capable of performing 5 TRILLION floating point operations per second. I don't think people realize the scope of that number - it makes an S9 looks like an 8 bit Nintendo by comparison. Like the A12 Bionic, it is nearly 10 times the raw processing power of the iPhone X, which was already handily kicking in the ribs of any other phone by orders of magnitude.

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