Optimal Power Bank Size

[quixoticgeek]

I had kind of assumed it would just trickle charge constantly rather than doing what it's doing? Charge was defo going in, but I'm going to struggle to get anything more than a little top up from the dynamo when on tour.

I would say you're going to struggle to get much charge out of the dynamo.

This is where it gets very annoying that everything is measured in mAh rather than watt hours.

My 10000mAh battery pack I got in ikea yesterday (€17 with a ikea family card...), has a more useful capacity rating of 37Wh.

At max output, a USB-WERK takes the 3W 6V AC and produces a 5V DC 500mA/2.5W output.

37/2.5, gives 14.8 hours to fully charge it. That's assuming you're going fast enough for the hub to be outputting 3W. Which depending on the dynamo might be a faster speed than you cruise at, esp if fully loaded touring.

The largest power pack Anker sell, their Powercore II 26800 is 96.48Wh (To be under the 100Wh max for taking on an airplane). At max output of a 3W dyno hub, and max output of the USB-Werk, is going to be 38.6 hours.

Usefully, said 96.48Wh pack has 2 2A inputs, allowing you to charge it twice as fast when you do get to power. This may be worth considering for those who are worried about getting a power pack fully charged over night in a hotel.

I see people talking about "surely it doesn't matter if your phone charges slow". But I've found having the option to put a load of power into the phone is really useful, as is having small packs you can have plugged into the phone, charging it in your jersey pocket. I have my phone playing podcasts or music at me when I'm cycling, and it doesn't have the battery life to go a whole day doing this. So I have need to be able to charge while I ride. Downside of the larger heavier packs is it becomes awkward to carry it in the jersey pocket for prolonged periods of time. On the plus side, hydration ports on packs can double as a place to route out a usb cable to plug in...

J

[Kim]

EDIT 2: That doesn't explain why the USB werk wouldn't power the GPS. I would expect it to. I've also successfully charged a smart phone in the past with it. Hmmmm... Maybe it is broken....

The USB Werk has a ~100mAh LiFePO4 battery in it.  If it's been in a drawer for years it'll have self-discharged below the safe cut-off voltage.  In this state, the USB-Werk will trickle-charge the battery until it's back above the threshold, and then resume normal operation.

Take it for a bike ride of at least half an hour, without a load, and see if it comes back to life.

[bobb]

Take it for a bike ride of at least half an hour, without a load, and see if it comes back to life.

Yeah, I did ride with it not plugged into anything for a bit for this reason, but probably for less than half an hour, so I'll give it another go tomorrow for longer.

Dumb question, but for the sake of neatness in the cockpit, could I plug the USB-werk into the output of the Luxos? Or is that going to blow shit up? Or pointless?

[Kim]

I don't think that's likely to work.  I expect it can cope with DC (it might even say in the manual - I know the e-Werk is rated for e-bike battery voltages), but it probably needs more than 5V.

[bobb]

I don't think that's likely to work.  I expect it can cope with DC (it might even say in the manual - I know the e-Werk is rated for e-bike battery voltages), but it probably needs more than 5V.

OK, ta. I guess what I'm getting at is not wanting to have two sets of wiring - one for dynamo to Luxos and one for dynamo to USB-werk. What I could do is have just the one but the USB werk takes a round connector thing (dunno what you call them) and the Luxos has spade connectors. So.... I could get the B&M E-werk Cable kit and use the cable shown below with a couple of spade connectors for when I want to connect to the Luxos.



So my wiring would be brick to female round thing. USB werk would plug straight in to that. To go into the Luxos I use a short length with male round thing to spade connectors.

That would work, right?

EDIT: This is assuming that:

a. The USB werk is actually werking (which I'll test later)
b. I can be bothered

[Kim]

Oh, I see.  Yeah, don't see any problem doing that.

[bobb]

No, I did genuinely ask if I could plug the male round input thing of the USB werk into the female round thing output of the Luxos 

Anyway.... Tested again this morning. Gave it about 40 minutes before trying the USB werk. Nothing. I am however a little suspicious of the wire to the dynamo. Surely that's more likely to be broken than the ewerk unit itself? So I've ordered a replacemnt from SJS. Once it arrives I'll try that out...

[bobb]

If anyone is remotely interested, I ended up taking the two 20.1 Ah Ravpowers and a couple of smaller (3 and 6) Ankers. That was more than enough. Pretty much every campsite had a socket I could use to give my phone a blast and I only charged the Ravs 3 times I think and they never got below 50% anyway. I absolutely hammered my phone - photo uploads, watching football and just general constant use. Never had a problem.

I used the dynamo to power the gps pretty much all the time. I occassionally gave my e-snout batteries a blast on it, but that wasn't essential due to the availability of power everywhere.

So.. In conclusion - if you're concerned about about keeping stuff charged in western Europe, you needn't be. I met an Aussie guy who was cheating touring on an e-bike and he said he had no problems at all finding places to charge every night.

There were maybe 3 or 4 places I stayed out of about 30 that didn't seem to have anywhere to charge, but that's when the Ravs came in. Other than that - plain sailing...

[fhills]

I absolutely love my Aukey 20000 mah. It's been going over a year and still holds the same charge.

I've got a 16Ah one.  That's a bit optimistic as I only get 9Ah or so at the output, which seems a bit low (I'd expect 10-11), but it's otherwise been flawless.

Anyone else got an Aukey?

Am pondering getting one as a cheaper alternative to another Anker (I already have one of theirs) but there are some, I stress only some, negative reviews on Amazon).

By the by, 7day shop has just got stock of this Anker.

https://www.7dayshop.com/brand/anker/filter/category/categories/batteries-power-chargers

[fhills]

I absolutely love my Aukey 20000 mah. It's been going over a year and still holds the same charge.

I've got a 16Ah one.  That's a bit optimistic as I only get 9Ah or so at the output, which seems a bit low (I'd expect 10-11), but it's otherwise been flawless.

Anyone else got an Aukey?

Am pondering getting one as a cheaper alternative to another Anker (I already have one of theirs) but there are some, I stress only some, negative reviews on Amazon).

This for instance?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/20000mAh-Portable-Charger-Lightning-Micro-USB-Black/dp/B0183K0GZC

seems like a good price though must admit the built-in torch makes we wonder if it's a quality product. Why would I need a torch built into a powerbank? Sounds gimmicky.

By the by, 7day shop has just got stock of this Anker.

https://www.7dayshop.com/brand/anker/filter/category/categories/batteries-power-chargers

[Kim]

seems like a good price though must admit the built-in torch makes we wonder if it's a quality product. Why would I need a torch built into a powerbank? Sounds gimmicky.

For looking for, or changing the batteries in, your proper torch (particularly when loitering within tent).  It's always handy to have a backup that takes up basically zero additional space and is likely to actually be charged.  You don't have to use it.

(These days there are single-chip solutions for USB battery pack electronics, and most of them offer the torch feature.  The cost of the underwhelming LED is minimal, and it means the marketing people can put another line on the feature list.)

[quixoticgeek]

So.. In conclusion - if you're concerned about about keeping stuff charged in western Europe, you needn't be. I met an Aussie guy who was cheating touring on an e-bike and he said he had no problems at all finding places to charge every night.

Aye, tho it gets a bit more interesting once you get up into fennoscandia. My big trip in September is going to see me pass doing stretches where I'm wild camping for 2 nights between huts/hotels/hostels, so I'm gonna need to carry enough power for 3 days of use, tho I'll get about 20Wh of power from my dynamo daily.

This is why I have the anker 26800mah pack, plus a 10000mah pack from ikea, and I'll probably stick the emergency backup 5000mah in the bottom of my bag, just in case. But then I will be charging phone (airplane mode as audio source), irridium device, gps and 2 cameras. Should be just enough...

J