Anyone know the battery format? That is, are there enough cells to make 18.5V (5 cells) in a format that might fit in the power pack of a drill (B&D HPB18)? The HPB18 is just a touch smaller (5x2.5) so probably buying 4 or 5 banks and stacking them wouldn’t work. A 50Ah drill battery pack would be somewhat awesome. You could use it to build you off-grid house, on one charge! I’d settle for 5-10Ah.
@ergomeh They won’t be the high current cells that a tool pack would use, even if they are the right format. This pack is also too thin to have 18650’s inside. I’ll guess that it has prismatic or pouch cells of some sort.
@phr@dvermilion I rebuilt one pack with a small (2500mAh) RC pack - five prismatic pouches. I added a 15A 5S BMS (all ebay purchases). The BMS will cut out on the drill if the battery is fully charged and you pull the trigger all the way fast - current surge into the motor at startup. Otherwise, 15A seems enough, although I haven’t tried it in the circular saw which probably pulls the most current. The BMS was ~$3.50, could probably get, say, 25A for a little more. The RC pack was $25 and even though 2500mAh goes a long way, 10Ah for $10 would be much better.
@djslack Could be 2P with a small power converter to 5V but a boost makes sense. I don’t know the economics of large cell pouches, the only hope would be that small pouches are lower cost and so packing a number of small pouches makes economic sense - somehow I doubt it. I’m certainly not confident enough to blow $20 on finding out. Surely someone must have had one of these (or one of the many other Mophie morphology ) expand enough to open the case.
Also just realized that I can buy a 5Ah lithium HPB18 on ebay for about $35, so now there’s a price-point which would seem difficult to beat. (But at least the discussion wasn’t a complete waste - for me).
@ergomeh I’ve not gone into building my own packs for power tools, but I do have one 9AH battery in my arsenal. That thing is a beast. Huge and heavy but it’s got long lasting power.
@djslack I have a load of the B&D 18V tools. Some bought at full price, some yard-sale/thrift-store purchases, some were just given to me. And a load of dead NiCd battery packs (nobody gives/sells tools with working batteries). The lithium upgrade makes them “better than new” and it’s simple. For rev one I just pushed a RC battery into the existing case and use an RC charger. Rev 2 has the $3.50 battery management board which means I can charge it on the original charger and it should prevent over-discharge. The NiCd circular saw was useless, but with the (non-BMS) lithium it’s now a handy tool for a couple of quick cuts - haven’t tried with the 15A BMS limit.
@djslack Under crazy lithium upgrades, I put a 20Ah marine lithium (40A max) as the 12V battery in the Prius. The lead acid was on it’s way out, and with no one driving the car during lockdown quit completely. The BMS should stop the lithium over-discharging so the car can be left undriven without concern. (For a while, I drove it with one of the Jump Starters from MorningSave).
@hchavers@ThunderChicken@tlange413 And it is not just a double birthday celebration but a triple celebration!! Grab yourself some Big Kahuna Burgers and party with the man himself.
I already have two of these, but might buy more if someone knows of a way to force them to stay “on.” If I turn off the screen on the device, it stops drawing power and the battery pack turns off and won’t charge when the battery on the device runs low(unless I manually press the power button on the battery.)
@makhay Yes 5V only except as a pass through device.
It has USB-PD, so it can “tell” the connected device that it supports any voltage between 5.0 and 5.0 volts at up to 3 amps.
My Pixel 3 phone sees that it supports USB-PD, so it says “charging rapidly” when connected. When connected to a charger that supports 9 volts or more, the phone requests 9 volts, and draws up to 2 amps, for a maximum of 18 watts. The phone maxes out at 2 amps regardless of the voltage, so it can only draw 10 watts from these.
If I plug the power brick into a 5 volt USB source, while my phone is plugged in, both my phone and the power brick will charge. If I use a source capable of delivering more than 5 volts, then the phone negotiates a higher voltage. The power brick passes the higher voltage onto the phone, but doesn’t charge itself.
My phone won’t draw more than 1.0 amps from USB source without USB-PD, even if the source is capable of much higher currents. The power brick draws as many amps as it can until the voltage droops. The output of the power brick always has USB-PD. My phone will happily draw 2 amps through the power brick.
I got to say, I’m spoiled by some I’ve bought here in the past with the USB C or Lightning cable built into it, it is less hassle to deal with as I don’t need to worry about bringing an extra USB cable to charge most devices. Then I can still use the regular USB ports as needed for extra devices or anything that doesn’t use the built in cable.
@mullingitover@narfcake 1 of 2 of in my shipment are dead/not charging. (Side lights aren’t even coming on). I’ll leave it on the charger overnight and see if anything happens
@ballaX54@mullingitover@narfcake Same thing happened with mine - one is bricked but the other seems good. Also going to try leaving mine charging overnight
@ballaX54@mullingitover@narfcake Quick update - charging overnight seemed to have helped. For a while it was flashing an LED code but when I woke up this morning it was charging normally.
Update: I kept the batteries plugged in overnight.
One of the batteries appeared to take a charge, got all the way up to four lights lit. When I plugged my phone in, it charged my phone for ~10 minutes and is now 100% dead.
The other battery never showed any signs of life despite being plugged in for 12+ hours.
@narfcake I know lithium batteries aren’t normally shipped with a full charge, but these were 100% dead on arrival which is usually a sign they’ve been sitting in inventory for an extremely long time (and being stored completely discharged is pretty bad for lithium batteries, so not surprising these would be DOA).
@mullingitover@narfcake same issue with one of mine. Appeared to charge up over night and showed four lights and then took it off to charge phone and worked for all of two minutes
Specs
What’s in the Box?
Price Comparison
$39.98 at Amazon
Warranty
2 Year Zagg
Estimated Delivery
Friday, Sep 17 - Tuesday, Sep 21
It’s electrifying!!
Moar pow’r!
/giphy indulgent-excellent-fragrance
@ThunderChicken
/giphy baa-humbug
Still too expensive.
@cbl_wv Compared to what? In September Meh sold the 6000 mAh 2 for $20. These are good battery packs.
Anyone know the battery format? That is, are there enough cells to make 18.5V (5 cells) in a format that might fit in the power pack of a drill (B&D HPB18)? The HPB18 is just a touch smaller (5x2.5) so probably buying 4 or 5 banks and stacking them wouldn’t work. A 50Ah drill battery pack would be somewhat awesome. You could use it to build you off-grid house, on one charge! I’d settle for 5-10Ah.
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
@ergomeh They won’t be the high current cells that a tool pack would use, even if they are the right format. This pack is also too thin to have 18650’s inside. I’ll guess that it has prismatic or pouch cells of some sort.
@ergomeh I haven’t the slightest idea, but I like where your head’s at.
@phr @dvermilion I rebuilt one pack with a small (2500mAh) RC pack - five prismatic pouches. I added a 15A 5S BMS (all ebay purchases). The BMS will cut out on the drill if the battery is fully charged and you pull the trigger all the way fast - current surge into the motor at startup. Otherwise, 15A seems enough, although I haven’t tried it in the circular saw which probably pulls the most current. The BMS was ~$3.50, could probably get, say, 25A for a little more. The RC pack was $25 and even though 2500mAh goes a long way, 10Ah for $10 would be much better.
@ergomeh I’ve not taken one of these apart but I bet you’re looking at a single cell with a boost converter to supply 5v.
@djslack Could be 2P with a small power converter to 5V but a boost makes sense. I don’t know the economics of large cell pouches, the only hope would be that small pouches are lower cost and so packing a number of small pouches makes economic sense - somehow I doubt it. I’m certainly not confident enough to blow $20 on finding out. Surely someone must have had one of these (or one of the many other Mophie morphology ) expand enough to open the case.
Also just realized that I can buy a 5Ah lithium HPB18 on ebay for about $35, so now there’s a price-point which would seem difficult to beat. (But at least the discussion wasn’t a complete waste - for me).
@ergomeh I’ve not gone into building my own packs for power tools, but I do have one 9AH battery in my arsenal. That thing is a beast. Huge and heavy but it’s got long lasting power.
Good luck tinkering. I love that stuff.
@djslack I have a load of the B&D 18V tools. Some bought at full price, some yard-sale/thrift-store purchases, some were just given to me. And a load of dead NiCd battery packs (nobody gives/sells tools with working batteries). The lithium upgrade makes them “better than new” and it’s simple. For rev one I just pushed a RC battery into the existing case and use an RC charger. Rev 2 has the $3.50 battery management board which means I can charge it on the original charger and it should prevent over-discharge. The NiCd circular saw was useless, but with the (non-BMS) lithium it’s now a handy tool for a couple of quick cuts - haven’t tried with the 15A BMS limit.
@djslack Under crazy lithium upgrades, I put a 20Ah marine lithium (40A max) as the 12V battery in the Prius. The lead acid was on it’s way out, and with no one driving the car during lockdown quit completely. The BMS should stop the lithium over-discharging so the car can be left undriven without concern. (For a while, I drove it with one of the Jump Starters from MorningSave).
So many battery banks already, so many fewer devices needing them.
What a boring Meh item for my birthday.
@hchavers Happy birthday! Hope it’s awe-some! (Take that, @mediocrebot!)
@hchavers @mediocrebot @ThunderChicken
Its my birthday too!!! Happy Birthday!!!
@tlange413
@hchavers @ThunderChicken @tlange413 And it is not just a double birthday celebration but a triple celebration!! Grab yourself some Big Kahuna Burgers and party with the man himself.
/giphy Samuel L. Jackson
Price point I wanted, but I have so many already?
I already have two of these, but might buy more if someone knows of a way to force them to stay “on.” If I turn off the screen on the device, it stops drawing power and the battery pack turns off and won’t charge when the battery on the device runs low(unless I manually press the power button on the battery.)
These are nice, but where’s my bonus for buying pink?
/image amazed-golden-drummer
/giphy amazed-golden-drummer
Is this only 5V? I don’t understand why it is not listed anywhere.
@makhay Yes 5V only except as a pass through device.
It has USB-PD, so it can “tell” the connected device that it supports any voltage between 5.0 and 5.0 volts at up to 3 amps.
My Pixel 3 phone sees that it supports USB-PD, so it says “charging rapidly” when connected. When connected to a charger that supports 9 volts or more, the phone requests 9 volts, and draws up to 2 amps, for a maximum of 18 watts. The phone maxes out at 2 amps regardless of the voltage, so it can only draw 10 watts from these.
If I plug the power brick into a 5 volt USB source, while my phone is plugged in, both my phone and the power brick will charge. If I use a source capable of delivering more than 5 volts, then the phone negotiates a higher voltage. The power brick passes the higher voltage onto the phone, but doesn’t charge itself.
My phone won’t draw more than 1.0 amps from USB source without USB-PD, even if the source is capable of much higher currents. The power brick draws as many amps as it can until the voltage droops. The output of the power brick always has USB-PD. My phone will happily draw 2 amps through the power brick.
Does that mean you can only use this until the power is used up? Like, one time?
I got to say, I’m spoiled by some I’ve bought here in the past with the USB C or Lightning cable built into it, it is less hassle to deal with as I don’t need to worry about bringing an extra USB cable to charge most devices. Then I can still use the regular USB ports as needed for extra devices or anything that doesn’t use the built in cable.
They arrived today! That has to be some kind of meh record.
Good news: the batteries arrived early!
Bad news: they were both bricked right out of the box.
@mullingitover Due to regulations, battery packs are typically transported with low charges.
How long have you had it recharging so far?
@mullingitover @narfcake 1 of 2 of in my shipment are dead/not charging. (Side lights aren’t even coming on). I’ll leave it on the charger overnight and see if anything happens
@ballaX54 @mullingitover @narfcake Same thing happened with mine - one is bricked but the other seems good. Also going to try leaving mine charging overnight
@ballaX54 @mullingitover @narfcake Quick update - charging overnight seemed to have helped. For a while it was flashing an LED code but when I woke up this morning it was charging normally.
Update: I kept the batteries plugged in overnight.
One of the batteries appeared to take a charge, got all the way up to four lights lit. When I plugged my phone in, it charged my phone for ~10 minutes and is now 100% dead.
The other battery never showed any signs of life despite being plugged in for 12+ hours.
@narfcake I know lithium batteries aren’t normally shipped with a full charge, but these were 100% dead on arrival which is usually a sign they’ve been sitting in inventory for an extremely long time (and being stored completely discharged is pretty bad for lithium batteries, so not surprising these would be DOA).
@mullingitover
If you haven’t done so already, write into support.
https://meh.com/support
@narfcake done
Would it possibly be easier to take this up directly with mophie? The batteries do come with a warranty.
@mullingitover @narfcake same issue with one of mine. Appeared to charge up over night and showed four lights and then took it off to charge phone and worked for all of two minutes
Only one of the units worked. The other could not even be charged
Sounds like i have similar problems to others here with these. One of them works but one of them arrived ‘expanded’ i will call it