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Big Battery Pack test

Hello and welcome to our first bigger Review! Today we want
to show you some battery packs and what you can expect
from them. Nowadays where our mobile companions need
a lot of power, battery packs come in handy.

Table of Contents

Introduction Page 1
Battery packs for mobile devices (Part 1) Page 2
Battery packs for mobile devices (Part 2) Page 3
Battery packs for mobile devices (Part 3) Page 4
Battery packs for mobile devices (Part 4) Page 5
Battery packs for notebooks Page 6
Verdict and score table Page 7

To get a bigger picture of each battery pack, click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures.

If you just want bare facts, check the last page for the verdict and score table.

The post has been paginated as it would be too long to scroll through.

Introduction

We all know it: We use our cell phone to capture moments, videos or just some quick research online and just as it ever so happens: the Battery is about to die.

For this case we have our battery packs that provide some extra juice so we can continue our online journey or whatever we just do with our mobile devices.

Our review will cover a wide range of batteries: Small ones which provide approx one third of the iPhone 7 battery capacity (1100 mAh) up to a whopping 10-times-charge (30000mAh)!

So anyway, what is a general recommendation for a battery pack? – Simple answer: There is none! First of all you have to ask for yourself: “What do I want to charge and how much autonomy do I need.

If you have the answer, then you’ll figure out also which battery pack you want to purchase. Keep in mind that good battery packs also have their price. For god’s sake and the health of you and your devices, don’t buy these cheap battery packs that promise 100.000mAh, 300.000mAh and even 500.000mAh capacity for just 20 dollars at the size of a battery pack that only provides one twentieth of the capacity. Most likely they do not provide the announced capacity and you also run risk of the cheap batteries inside to catch fire and that’s something we don’t want at all!

Oh and one more thing: If you plan to fly make sure the battery pack is stowed away in your hand luggage as it may not be placed in your regular luggage due to safety regulations. There’s also a limit on capacity: The battery pack may not be larger than 100Wh capacity (100.000mWh). Some airlines even limit these packs down to 50Wh (50.000mWh). Ask at the check-In counter for their safety regulations and have them confirmed for your return flight as well! Especially for flights to the USA: Make sure your battery pack is fully charged so that border customs see that it isn’t a possibly dangerous device for flying! You don’t want your expensive gadget to be disposed at the security check for the sole reason of a discharged battery! This also applies for your electronic devices such as tablets, music players, cell phones and the like!

The test is done with an iPhone 7 Plus, which has a battery size of 2840mAh. Before the charging process is started, the battery is drained to 10%. The “Charged-at” value is what you’ll see when the battery is all empty and the iPhone is stopping the charge process. The QI charge process is done with an iPhone X as it has similar capacity to the iPhone 7 Plus so the values are better comparable to each other

LiPo or LiIon, that’s the question…

While LiIon (Lithium-Ion) appears to be the more solid technology, the problem is that the charging technology needs to be very safe in order not to let the cells (mostly 18650 type) burst or take damage. LiPo (Lithium Polymer) is a bit easier to manage and the fact that you can form almost every shape with the polymer foil makes it first choice for battery packs that need to have a certain shape, thickness or the like.

The case holding the cells can be filled efficiently unlike it’s LiIon brothers whose limitation is the round cells inside. They result in gaps between case and cells.

The only reason why LiIon is still so frequently used is the optimal combination and alignment of the cells to produce a certain voltage. Each cell has 3.7V and thus you can build up any multiple of this voltage by putting 2,3,4… of them together in an array. With LiPo you can also build up any multiple of 3.7V but if one cell is smaller than the other one, then the smaller cell may suffer from faster weardown and thus the batterypack may loose capacity by time.

A Question of freshness

Some people complain about fresh battery packs not supplying the announced capacity…

That’s a normal process as a battery pack gains it’s full capacity when being fully discharged and charged three times. After that, the battery pack should be near announced capacity.

So if you think your freshly purchased battery pack doesn’t deliver what it’s package promises, make sure your battery pack has been “initialized” as mentioned above.

A word about storage

Keep in mind that the cooler or hotter a battery pack is stored or operated, the degeneration process may accelerate and thus end up in less capacity provided or worse, malfunctions.

If you need to store a battery pack for whatever reason, make sure that the cells are charged up to 90% and keep it in a cool place (15-25 Degrees) with a relative humidity of 35-80%.

This way your battery pack can survive an annual storage with ease. Make sure to check the charge level after 6 monts or so to avoid complete dischargement of the cells. That’s every rechargeable battery’s death, especially LiPo or LiIon batteries may die quickly.

A word about safety

LiPo and LiIon batteries are sensitive devices. Short-circuit, Overloading, Overheating, puncturing or other heavy physical use of these may end up bad for you. The worst case might be that the battery inside may catch fire and do much more damage to your goods or to yourself if you carry the battery pack on you. So make sure the battery pack isn’t exposed to any such bad environmental impact. Also keep in mind that extinguishing a burning liPo or LiIon battery with water is a very bad idea as Lithium is highly reactive with water. Should the rare case come true and your battery pack catches fire, try to extinguish the fire with a fireproof cloth or sand. Also a fire extinguisher that is made for electronic devices may suit you well but for heaven’s sake, never try to extinguish the fire with water!

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January 18, 2019 Netspark - 1594 posts - Member since: May 9th, 2011 No Comments »

RATING :
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