Battery Pack Buffoonery

[Vagabound]

Hi,

This post feels a little bit like asking how to pour water out of a bucket, but I guarantee you it's bewildering.

I just recently tried to use a loaner and then purchased my first battery pack to charge smartphones with. 

Previous to those experiences, I would have imagined that the operating instructions would have been one sentence: plug in your thing to be charged.
However, when I tried to use the first one that I borrowed to do a trial run with my smartphone, the results were quite interesting. My phone was at about 80% before bedtime. I powered off my phone, and then plugged the battery pack into it. In the morning when I got up, my phone was at about 63%, which I think is worse than had I just left it on and not plugged it into the battery pack. I was joking that they should have named that device a battery vacuum.  I tried that same battery pack a couple more times and it was able to charge my phone, at least up into the 90% range. I don't think I did anything different after the first time, but the owner of the battery pack said you have to shake the battery pack to make it charge. That sounded pretty bizarre.

Based on that minor success, I thought maybe it would be okay to buy one. I went to Walmart and bought their mid-range, $20 unit capable of 10,000 mAh, which they said is good for five charges of an average phone.

Before use, I first charged that new battery pack from where I found it at 66% up to 100%. Then I connected it to my phone and it seemed to charge the phone just a little bit, which reduced the battery pack to 90%. It has an LED indicator. 

In any case, since that first attempt, my battery pack has remained at 90% and consistently refuses to charge my phone at all.

Although I'm tempted to ask if you need to hop on your left foot before you plug it in, I'm seriously asking if there's any operating necessity for these stupid battery packs other than just plugging your cord into your phone and then into the battery pack? Any other explanation for the frequent malfunctions that don't involve hallucinogenic drugs, etc?

Other than how to use them in general, I'm trying to figure out if I should just take my battery pack back to Walmart and try another one, such as the $40 Anker, or whether to just give up on battery packs as more or less unreliable devices for recharging a smartphone.

I'm pretty sure that the link below shows the one that I bought:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Blackweb-Power-Bank/508154088

Tom

 

[SternWake]

Hvaing no idea whether your battery pack is a complete piece of fetering donkey crap, or not, I would be condemning the USB cable or the connections on either end of that cable.


It is rather stunning the amount of crap I pull out of my USB connections, and how much better/faster my phone charges after I clean the connectors with Caig deoxit d5.

Here is a link to an all in one kit:

https://www.amazon.com/CAIG-LABORAT...id=1499313604&sr=8-17&keywords=deoxit+d5&th=1

Really one could get the Caig deoxit d5 spray and get some of these at their local pharmacy:

https://www.amazon.com/DenTek-Profe...ie=UTF8&qid=1499313815&sr=8-6&keywords=dentek

https://www.amazon.com/Tamiya-Craft...rd_wg=UN5sU&psc=1&refRID=F0092D9J0MYJ10KS1EC9


The only portable USB power source I have employs a 18650 lithium battery, and while it cannot recharge faster than 0.89 amps, it can and does fully recharge my android phone.

As fas as the Micro USB cables go, they do wear out and become intermittent, and while this should be obvoius, by the phone saying so, often they do not.

I recommend short quality cables from Anker, and keep the contacts clean.

I almost exclusively use the 1 foot long ones, and they do noticeable recharge faster, and my phone can only accept 1 amp maximum.

A neat tool for seeing what the phone is accepting from the USB, is this:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerJive-Vo...UTF8&qid=1499314095&sr=8-7&keywords=USb+meter

I don't have a link to my portable USB stick that is little larger than an 18650 battery(18 mm diameter, 65mm long.  They don't offer it anymore.

 

[KathyC]

This post feels a little bit like asking how to pour water out of a bucket, but I guarantee you it's bewildering.

I just recently tried to use a loaner and then purchased my first battery pack to charge smartphones with. 

Tom - your experience is a bit perplexing, but I found a video review on YT that might help you troubleshoot:

From what I can tell, there are two different charge outputs on your model -- one at 1 amp and the other at 2.1 amps.  This might be the root of your issue?
-Kathy

 

[jonyjoe303]

You might have a weak cable. A while back I bought a small usb tester to check my cables, because some of my phones weren't charging all the way even after being connected all night. When tested only one of my cables was actually good, the other ones were all weak, they weren't providing enough current. I never gave the cables too much thought, a cable is a cable. I use to buy them at the dollar store, and always blame the wallwart for the slow charging.

Now I been buying the tronsmart cables, they use the 20 awg wiring on them, even the 6 foot cables charge my phone quickly. They cost more but you get better quality. 

I would blame your cables before I blame the powerpack. 

This is a picture of he usb tester I bought, it cost about 4 dollars. It will tell you how much voltage /amps are being used. If you have a weak cable the milliamps being used will be very low.

 

[Vagabound]

Tom - your experience is a bit perplexing, but I found a video review on YT that might help you troubleshoot:

From what I can tell, there are two different charge outputs on your model -- one at 1 amp and the other at 2.1 amps.  This might be the root of your issue?
-Kathy

Thanks for pointing out that review. The reviewer seriously needs to take some review Viagra, but I might have learned a thing or two.. You might have hit the nail on the head about the two different output ports on the battery pack. I just noticed in the last day or so that it had two output ports and just began wondering if they were different somehow. I first assumed they were just two of the same port to charge more than one thing at a time. You know the old saying about assumptions. ;-)

I'll do some more experimenting with the two output ports and see if it helps. 

--------

Thanks everyone for the cable information. Like has already been said, I wouldn't have given the cable much thought at all, just assuming it was a cable that would always work. A cable is a cable is a cable. What could go wrong? Learn something everyday.


Tom

 

[SternWake]

The 1 amp port and the 2.1 amp port will only vary in the maximum available output. It would NOT stop a phone from chargng all the way, it would only slow down the charging in the 0% to ~90 to 95% charged range depending on temperature and the exact phone.

The best USB cables are rated at like 10,000 bends before the wire stranding inside become compromised. The provided cables are rated at a fraction of this amount of bending cycles in the same spot.

Get a new quality micro USB cable. If the same behavior occurs, then I would condemn the walmart acquired powerpack.

stick withthe better known name brands where lithium batteries are concerned, in my opinion.

 

[tripper]

Most cheapie usb cables are 28 AWG, which means they have very few strands of thin wire inside, barely capable of charging at 500 mA rate. If you are using the phone at all it could be pulling from 500 mA to 1200 mA of power; a cable charging at 500 mA would mean your phone is slowly draining.

There are some good size 20 AWG cables available, such as on Amazon: Micro USB Cable, Tronsmart [6 Pack] 20AWG Durable Charging Cable for Nexus, LG, Motorola, Android Smartphones (Black, 1ft x 1,3.3ft x 2,6ft x 3)

20 AWG can make use of the 2.1 amp ports. (up to 2.5 amp claim this particular cable)

20 AWG usb cable

 

[BradKW]

 I don't think I did anything different after the first time, but the owner of the battery pack said you have to shake the battery pack to make it charge. That sounded pretty bizarre.

This reminds me of the time there was a new employee at the paint store when I was buying 6 rattle cans of paint. As he was ringing them up, I said "aren't you going to shake them up?"

Assuming he was forgetting an obvious step, the new guy took the cans to the paint shaker and tried to get his head around how they could possibly be made to fit in there. Another contractor hopped on the bandwagon, and told the kid that "of course they don't fit in the machine, you have to shake those by hand for no less than 90 sec each".

When the kid started shaking a can, we both offered advice on how to shake more vigorously and how to shake two cans at once. By the time the manager came out from the back, we had the kid working up a sweat shaking rattle cans while we offered pointers on how an experienced painter could tell by the rattle sounds when a can was thoroughly shookin' up. Needless to say, as soon as the manager let out a "WTF are you doing???" ...we lost it. Had the giggles for a long time. Now the new kid doesn't believe anything I tell him...  

 

[sephson]

I've got two battery pack phone chargers. They work great! They were SWAG I picked up at a convention.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Back to basics.

As mentioned make sure there are no fuzzys or crud on the connectors or ports.

Make sure the phone is ON but the display is OFF, or will time out shortly.

Plug them up, and then make sure the juicepak is actually powered up and ON.


The charge indicator on your phone should show charging status.

 

[Vagabound]

After watching that YouTube review of an older model similar to my battery pack, I tried another charging test run.

This time, I plugged the same phone with the same cable into a different USB port on the battery pack. The one in the video had 1.0 amp and 2.1 amp charging ports. Mine were not clearly marked, but I plugged into the one I think I didn't use before -- the one labeled "Tablet", which I assume is the 2.1 amp port.

Results: The battery pack dropped from 90% down to 71% of its own charge, while simultaneously charging my phone up to 100%. 

I think my earlier problem might have been a combination of two things. First, I was plugged into the wrong port. I read what Sternwake wrote about the ports, but in my case, it made a night and day difference. Second, I turned the battery pack on. ;-)

Time will tell now if this good result was a fluke or if I figured out how to use it. Thanks to everyone for all the great info about battery packs and cables.

Tom

 

[Classpro]

There is one more thing to know - not all usb is the same. Apple uses a different charging system than everyone else, and there are many charging varients for android. There are newer smarter chargers that do a better job detecting the proper charging protocol for faster charging, but there is a bit of a tower of babble thing going on where chargers don't communicate correctly with devices. First thing to always check is whether your device is charging. Usually the device will turn on when plugged in, and the battery level indicator will show that it is charging. If it doesn't show charging, it probably isn't charging. Try a different port or cable. Some devices need special charge only cables to fast charge.

 

[Vagabound]

There is one more thing to know - not all usb is the same.... there is a bit of a tower of babble thing going on where chargers don't communicate correctly with devices. ...

Thanks for explaining that. That was one reason that I started this thread. My radar was telling me that something else was going on, or certainly could be. Although these things are not complicated exactly, there is more to getting them to work right than meets the eye.

Tom

 

[johnd]

Hi,

This post feels a little bit like asking how to pour water out of a bucket, but I guarantee you it's bewildering.

I just recently tried to use a loaner and then purchased my first battery pack to charge smartphones with. 

Previous to those experiences, I would have imagined that the operating instructions would have been one sentence: plug in your thing to be charged.
However, when I tried to use the first one that I borrowed to do a trial run with my smartphone, the results were quite interesting. My phone was at about 80% before bedtime. I powered off my phone, and then plugged the battery pack into it. In the morning when I got up, my phone was at about 63%, which I think is worse than had I just left it on and not plugged it into the battery pack. I was joking that they should have named that device a battery vacuum.  I tried that same battery pack a couple more times and it was able to charge my phone, at least up into the 90% range. I don't think I did anything different after the first time, but the owner of the battery pack said you have to shake the battery pack to make it charge. That sounded pretty bizarre.

Based on that minor success, I thought maybe it would be okay to buy one. I went to Walmart and bought their mid-range, $20 unit capable of 10,000 mAh, which they said is good for five charges of an average phone.

Before use, I first charged that new battery pack from where I found it at 66% up to 100%. Then I connected it to my phone and it seemed to charge the phone just a little bit, which reduced the battery pack to 90%. It has an LED indicator. 

In any case, since that first attempt, my battery pack has remained at 90% and consistently refuses to charge my phone at all.

Although I'm tempted to ask if you need to hop on your left foot before you plug it in, I'm seriously asking if there's any operating necessity for these stupid battery packs other than just plugging your cord into your phone and then into the battery pack? Any other explanation for the frequent malfunctions that don't involve hallucinogenic drugs, etc?

Other than how to use them in general, I'm trying to figure out if I should just take my battery pack back to Walmart and try another one, such as the $40 Anker, or whether to just give up on battery packs as more or less unreliable devices for recharging a smartphone.

I'm pretty sure that the link below shows the one that I bought:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Blackweb-Power-Bank/508154088

Tom

Im happy with my Anker. You get what you pay for.....

 

[Ballenxj]

This reminds me of the time there was a new employee at the paint store when I was buying 6 rattle cans of paint. As he was ringing them up, I said "aren't you going to shake them up?"
<-------->
...we lost it. Had the giggles for a long time. Now the new kid doesn't believe anything I tell him...  

Aw man, you guys aint right. Can't blame him for not believing you guys now.

 

[Vagabound]

UPDATE:

Since I had my epiphany in the last post, I have successfully charged my phone 8 or 10 times using that same battery pack. My guess about the reasons for success were correct -- I used the right USB port on the battery pack (2.1 amp) and I turned the battery pack on. Previous to that experience, I had never used any type of battery that needed to be turned on.

Thanks again for the help solving the mystery.

Tom

 

[Ballenxj]

UPDATE:

 Previous to that experience, I had never used any type of battery that needed to be turned on.

I'm betting it's a disconnect switch to keep it from discharging when not in use.