Unusual USB power bank control chip.
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- Опубликовано: 22 мар 2018
- This might look like a very ordinary cheapo single cell power bank, but it's got a very neat chip inside that is well worth exploring.
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This guy would be a fantastic teacher.
This guy /is/ a fantastic teacher.
Why the past tense ? 🤔
@@davidbolha That's just how I talk man. Live with it.
Thank you for this thorough review! I just got the same powerbank shell (without 18650 inside) from Aliexpress and I was wondering what is this mysterious chip and why such a strange schematic inside. Your video answered all the questions!
had (what looks like) this exact power bank years ago but I got it at Big Lots here in the US. very interesting to see the teardown
I had this exact powerbank, but in blue (18650 included) and i took it apart myself, and when i realized it was based on one, i started using it kinda like a 18650 charger haha. It really came in cluch when i needed it then.
Love the way you say “it’s a tight fit”
Surprising amount of design effort for a low cost chip.
Thanks for the in depth review, how it acts in different situations
A clever piece of design. I like it, Clive. If you don't, then please throw it into my dustbin! Thanks for the upload.
I got one of these with another order, $1.25 shipped from the US, to my door in 4 days. I was convinced it couldn't have any charge protection, with such a low component count. Plugged it in, saw all the features (and LEDs) and I was totally stunned.
I would have wanted to send it your way, then this video came up!
The spring-loading is super cool! I've gotten a number of power banks that are the same aluminum housing, but the cells are soldered or welded in -- nice thing about that design is you could have a few single 18650 cells in plastic cases that you could swap out, rather than having the cost of many of those banks
Good day sir , this video was very instructive. Thank you!
Many people say the Chinese rarely innovate in technology, but they are very good at making things that are functionally identical yet stripped down to the lowest possible component count and cost.
Michael Parker and the 🇯🇵 make it as small as your nail ;)
I totally agree. While they no longer seem to generate new ideas they have virtually mastered the process to taking someone else's ideas/products, copying them (or at least the basic functionality, removing all they deem and unnecessary (ie safety standards) and repackaging in a different layout and/or smaller form factor. This is NOT a criticism though. Without this sort of thing MOST of these items would remain out of the hands of the average person. I am 100% convinced that is western companies remained as the ONLY source of this stuff they would keep the prices as high as possible and this power bank would EASILY run in the $15-20 range AND we would be convinced we are getting a great deal. While many Chinese products are less than bad quality, a LOT of them are quite good and worth the cost. The only real downside I see is this helps to reinforce the whole "disposable society" concept and people have now been conditioned the think FIRSTLY about throwing something out instead of repairing or re-purposing things. Maybe I'm one of the rare ones here as I was taught by my grandparents (who lived on the streets of Toronto during the great depression) to use things until they no longer have any use or cannot be repaired any more. The whole idea of replacing a perfectly functional appliance simply because it doesn't match my decor is ABSURD and baffles me. But this is the direction the world has gone and it seems to be due to the sheer laziness inherent in most people. That's why channels like this and youtubers live Big Clive are so important.
Clive...you're doing DOG's work here. ;)
Sounds like Apple...
In a way their rampant theft of ideas is a form of innovation as they find ways to simplify the design and manufacturing process which the whole tech industry can benefit from.
Anker chargers... Nuff said.
Bought 10 of these just a few weeks ago, neat stuff!
I love how it fits that round flashlight
Thanks for another informative video. I have a very similar looking device but with a different chip - an MP3401A.
Thats actually really smart
I kinda wish my expensive power bank could charge itself and my phone at the same time
RIGHT?! i'm so annoyed that none of the power banks or power bank modules i've ever seen can be charged and charged at the same time. you'd think itd be easy. just allow the device to draw current while charging, but have a limiter in there to prevent the device drawing more current than the charger can output, so as to prevent the cell from dropping. It would at least keep it at the same charge level.
Most if not all of the RAVPower ones have that "passthrough" feature
SpiritOfNux
Mine doesn't. I have been looking for one with this feature that can give a full 2 amp output. I have yet to find one.
I've never had a power bank that didn't charge my phone and itself at the same time
金3 A.M.
All the ones I have disables output when a charger is plugged in.
I have a few of those boards in the fry's $2.50 power bank. I took one and hooked it to the samsung flat pack lithium battery pack out of my daughters old tablet. It works great and I have a 14000mAh battery pack now. The fry's pack come with a no name 18560 soldered directly to the board and battery.
Awww sweet, that is something I actually have need for several, and I don't think the 4.7 low pulse will be an issue. It's too bad the listing was pulled...
Search ebay for "18650 usb" then sort by price low to high and you'll see it.
Dustin Sparks if you can find a holder these little boards are doing a similar job, I'm using them to power and charge little projects 😁 rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F282503664754 The chip is TC4056A and a couple of others.. you've might have heard about it.
I plan to use mine for a dashcam as this has passthrough. Just to allow the dashcam to run for an extra hour or so after parking.
Wait what
How was this posted a week ago if this only came out an hour ago??
runforitman BigClive's patreon supporters get early access I believe.. typically a link to a non-public video, you can do that on RUclips.
mostly offtopic: I just watched BBC's Shetland's 4th series. What a good series ! Superb acting by the actor playing Malone
Its pretty worrying when the moment you buy something, and ebay removes the original listing.
SpikesSoRandom - Dimentos Productions
Yeah. First time I had that happen was when I bought an android car stereo... About $500AU, and within minutes, the listing was removed (despite having more than 10 "in stock" when I paid).
I think they do it when they have multiple listings of the same thing, and they use external software to manage the listings.
In this case, I can easily see why it might have been pulled. It's not normal to buy empty power banks. The seller probably didn't originally state in the listing that the item had no battery. With Chinese sellers, they do this hoping to rope in buyers. Buyers purchased it thinking they were getting a functional power bank and received a power bank with no battery. After that, eBay complaints. The seller likely received complaints as well and altered the listing to clarify this part, but it was already too late. Clive likely found the listing after it had been clarified, but shortly before eBay pulled it.
The last time that happened to me, the item never came, and I almost couldn't get my money back.
@@abigguitar if it wasnt normal then why would they make a listing for an empty power bank in the first place? lol
Now that's a weird coincidence. I bought one of those from rip-off shop near 42nd Street two years ago for $80. I knew I was being ripped off but had no choice - phone power was on 10%, I needed my phone working that evening and was not going to be able to recharge it that day.
In order to get my money's worth, when I returned home, I spotted you could unscrew it and bought two extra higher capacity 18650s which I would swap out as needed. It has served me well up until last week when it charged the batteries but stopped charging my phone. So (and this is the coincidence) just yesterday, I bought a Poundworld Power Bank, removed the charging circuit which I had previously noted had an identical form factor PCB and same component layout, cut off the low capacity battery, soldered in the old charger's battery connectors and viola, a £1 repair. I'll now have to check the old board to see if there is a difference!
Great video!
Clive I have two of these Ebay purchases too. I'm in NZ, you are right about a snug fit of the battery
I cut the end off the plastic end & just left a piece of plastic in the end & it gives me enough room to put the 18650 cell in
Look for 2600mAh Portable External USB Power Bank Box Battery Charger For Mobile Phone if you want any on ebay
NZErehwon I did the same thing!
Hey! I have one of these. I got it for a couple bucks on Wish. Put an old cell from another power bank that failed. Seems to work well. Charges my phone to about 30% from nearly nothing. That's all I bought it for, so I'm happy.
ebay don't remove things because they've "set on fire". It's going to be a keyword issue or a copyright issue or a seller issue. For example they pull stuff if it includes a brand keyword or if the listing contains what they deem "an offer to deal outside of ebay". They don't much care about the product itself.
One ebay seller told me their items had been removed from my purchase history because their boss hadn't paid the bill. Not sure if that was true though. I think you're right, ebay wouldn't take dangerous items down unless they made the news. All the dangerous camping lights Clive has reviewed are still on ebay, as is every other dangerous item he's reviewed.
would be interesting to use as an ups for a raspberry pi except for the shutting off on low current and standby issues
I bought something like this from radio shack, about 5 years ago.
I didn't know the bottom screwed off.
Now I can replace the battery :-)
Find another power bank like this, test it and if it gets Big Clive's approval, post the purchasing link. Really like this idea for a power bank. Tnx for a good video.
I actually used one of these with an old laptop battery to power LED lights around my Santa hat at work this Christmas. The lights came with a 3xAAA battery holder and I just chopped that off and stuck this and a small capacitor in series with the lights to hold over the 14 second flicker I noticed too.
Then for half the time I wore it I used the flashing mode on the lights' control chip and so didn't need the capacitor anywho.
Still, when I bought these, I bought 8 of them. Got one dud that refuses to output anything but will charge, so has now been repurposed into another project as a dedicated charge circuit.
It can be used a dual transistor astable with a proper load to make the power bank not going to sleep mode . The power bank is very nice, compact . I have a bought a multimeter that was removed from the list but fortunally it arrived to my home safe and it's working well.
Thanks for sharing 😀👍
Could you put a capacitor on the low current load (i.e. LED strings) in order to prevent that dipping from happening?
This is actually super useful - since I'd assume it can do "passthorough", charging the device while charging iself. Great for Raspberry PI or Arduino stuff as a mini UPS.
I wish I could find a neat little 12 or 13.8 VDC "UPS style" supply using 18650's, where it only kicks in when the external supply voltage is eliminated. It would be designed to take just 4 cells in series, and work with multiple sibling units plugged in parallel circuit.
Put a small resistor in parallel with the low-power LED load, perhaps, to draw just a smidge more current to make it not switch into standby mode?
The cool thing about this is that the 10pack costs like just a few cents more than the PCBs alone.. which I've long been using for compact single-cell powerbanks (solder it to the top of an 18650 and heatshrink it).
Ah, yes. That HOTCHIP boost converter chip. I have two power banks I hacked to accept protected cells, and I sometimes use that to charge my phone when my main power bank could be too large for the purpose.
These things do get hot a lot but it properly cuts the connection if it reaches the critical point. They are good for their price!
I found these round ones at dollar general in U.S. couple bucks, takes long to fully charge works for a phone charger but never tried anything else. Only used a half dozen times.
I have a similar powerbank with the same chip. It works out around 57% efficient with 2250mah to full and 1100mah till empty. It only seems to be around 0.6-0.8A output, the voltage drops and it cuts out if you give it much more of a load. Mine doesn't seem to cut out like yours does, but I'm sure it's the same circuit.
you got 8Wh in, and 5.5Wh out, and thats the efficiency of 69%
wonder how it works if you break the pin4/5 connection, looks like it was designed that way in/out etc
What an interesting chip!
I wonder if a schottky diode in series with the output (just before the the output plug) and a 10uF cap to ground after the diode, would eliminate the pulsing every 2 seconds?
Since the output is at 5.1 and the diode will drop 0.3V, it should still be usable...
I had one of these but chucked it a few months ago as it had stopped working, didn't investigate why!
Put some alligator clips on it and use it as a laptop battery recovery device. If it can bring a dead battery back to life, maybe it can bring bad cells back in a laptop pack so the laptop can charge them again.
I've seen these for purchase on Amazon and eBay being branded as MiPOW or Vida IT. Perhaps one of those companies originally designed it and filed a take-down notice on this product. I just did a quick search after watching this video and you can still find ones that look identical to this & use a single 18650 cell by searching, "tube usb charger". Of course, the internal circuitry might be completely different than the one Clive shows here.
A very neat way of charging an 18650 for a torch etc.
I've got two of these units. Their nice but once the endcap has come off it never stays on very well again . I've tried squishing the case a bit to hold onto the endcap better , but it still pops off occasionally.
Shame about the flicker. The internals looked ideal for putting inside a pop bottle preform to make a waterproof light stick.
Have you tested it charging a phone? Does the phone handle the 4ms 4.7v drop? Most smartphones will back off the current if the input voltage is that low, but maybe 4ms isn't long enough to cause any problems
please review a infrared heater bulb.
output to a buck or stepup module will remove the voltage dip
Sound useful as a UPS for USB,
The flickering of lights hooked to this power bank every few seconds can be interpreted as sort of a distress signal. The world is a distressing place. So it's always appropriate! It's an all-purpose power bank
These units are still available on eBay.
I have three of these but they use a chip marked SY3501D but they seem to be the same functionality as the teardown.
reminds me of the recalled EE battery charger...
Oh hey I bought a couple of these years ago!
I have several of these. They are slow chargers, but they aren't giving me any issues. Wonder why they were pulled.
I got that that one but in blue. Works well for me.
To be honest this powerbank can have 2 usb ports if you connect a usb otg cable to it
Excellent. Found on eBay. Ordered a couple.
Very interesting indeed.
If you were to use one as a UPS, could you put more in a series?
I have one that looks identical I bought from ebay a few months ago that has a different chip inside. Its a perfectly good little power bank but it uses the TPower TP4333E instead. It must be a similar all-in-one charge control and boost thing because there's no other chips in there and the PCB is similarly bare with just three capacitors, a single resistor, the boost inductor and the two LEDs. It can however output 1.25A and doesn't seem to do the momentary charge detection voltage drop. I doubt there's any way to tell which you'd get from any given ebay listing.
Also the wide spring thing might be an issue if it was at the other end but the entire can of an 18650 is the -ve terminal so there's nothing it can short on there.
i ordered a bunch off of banggood.... they work pretty good, especially for the price...... but of the 5 i ordered, the pinkish/purple one that you show in this video, gets hot on the inductor when you put a cell in it, weather you are using it or not, even if nothing is plugged into it.......4/5 is good enough, especially for the price, they come in handy.
Nice little power bank. Ore than enough to recharge devices should you have inadvertently forgotten a charger (or are in a situation where Mains access might not be possible, e.g. camping).
Clive, a little mistake @ 2:20 (looks like you did realize it afterwards), the spring cannot cause the battery to short even if the insulation wrapper is ripped, because the spring is on the negative, and the negative of the battery is the whole can.
What you are describing can happen at the positive terminal, however, judging by the shape of the contact on the positive end, this wouldn't be something to worry about with this power bank.
When you said "Smokey meltdown," I thought I heard fiddle music.
I would imagine the "sensing" features of this chip would also make it very bad to try to use as a power supply for low powered microcontroller applications (like Arduino).
very bad has in utterly useless? besides charging your phone I don't see what you could do with that pice of shit.
It may even go into standby mode if power pulled is too low. I can imagine the square one works much better for that application.
I have a pack that looks like that. I run Arduino and RC receivers off it all the time. Of course it could be entirely different inside....
Are there any other good powerbanks that can provide a sort of backup UPS like this one can? But a bit more capacity.
I've ordered a same looking (pcb too) powerbank from gearbest for ~$1. Seems okay to me, *BUT* they *don't have reverse protection*, so if you plug your cells in backward *it will start smoking, a the chip will glow red hot*. I haven't done further tests, but They work okay, one was a bit faulty, it only drains battery to 3.5V. They have a problem with the thread on the back, put it on wrong once, aaand no thread. Be aware about the size of the cells, my Panasonic NCRwhataver fits okay, but my friends Samgung INRwhatever 30Q is too much.
9/10 would buy again.
Wouldn't a properly sized capacitor solve the "low-load standby in every 12-14s" problem?
Yes, a large capacitor would work.
only with diode to prevent discharge back into this thingy. Because if you buffer big enough to keep stable, it will detect the 5Vand think it gets powered and switch to internal charging mode completely.
good point
To prevent flicker from the charger detection, the capacitor needs to be as *small* as possible.
To keep the normal output stable, the capacitor needs to be fairly big.
To fix the low-load cycling problem, a small capacitor may help to cut down the time needed to detect the load current, but to solve this properly, I think something else has to be changed. I think one solution could be to add (more) hysteresis to the standby current threshold. Then it should either stay on or off.
That looks decidedly like the two battery banks that we got free in some cable company promotion.
Would a big electrolytic cap on the output help with the led string?
I managed to add a protected cell, I had to desolder, flip, and resolder the top connector though. And it was a REALLY tight squeeze.
what if you put a capacitor on the output for absorbing the standby drop?
i have this same power bank (color and all) but it came with an 1865p soldered in... 7.2Wh 3.6 volts
I've got plenty of powerbanks but none cylindrical and now I WANT ONE. Bad Clive ;)
You can never have enough powerbanks.
that is true :) The ones I got most resembling these are 2 square housed ones. They have a neat on/off momentary button on the front. Most seem to be without and sometimes turn off with light loads.
I was actually looking for a power bank that would act as a UPS/buffered power supply.
I have an Intel Compute Stick (an Intel Atom-powered mini computer), which is powered from a micro USB port (rated 3A). There is no battery inside, so in case you need to move it you need to shut it down, disconnect, reconnect and start again. Having such a buffered power supply I could use it to keep the device powered while moving.
Sometime ago I got a cheap power bank as a company Christmas gift and I recently gave it a try and plugged the input plug while having the output connected to a phone and surprisingly the charge LED went on, while the discharge LED kept going and the phone was still charging. I didn't notice any power interruption, but I also didn't check if the battery inside the power bank was actually charging.
Just a heads up, Lithium batteries don't like to be floated, so the 18650 will probably not last terribly long in that scenario.
I just had a similar ebay item give me that warning message. It was for a water filter for my Whirlpool brand refridgerator. I knew it was counterfeit -- in the aution listing description it even said, verbatim "this is a counterfeit filter, it's not rated." I knew up front, and was OK with that because Whirlpool does not manufacturer water filters for this model fridge any more (and it's only ~7 years old). And new old stock of them are priced at around $80 each.
is there anyway to use the chip. and get more current output?
This issue with the 4,7 volts drop or the stand by cut out would not be a problem. If it would be, can't you just put an capacitor parallel to the output? But defenetly a very neet little device.
What if theres a capacitive load on it - would it smooth out the dip and make it think its plugged in?
Great video, thank you very much! I was intrigued to know how it detected the voltage input. I was starting to translate the datasheet when I found your video.
Anyone tried to connect a solar panel as a voltage input?
I was struck by the fact that the datasheet says:
"The charging input has anti-reverse irrigation function and does not require anti-reverse irrigation.
diode; "
I am using it to power a microcontroller that luckily handles flashes of LEDs every 4 seconds and that is enough to avoid stand-by mode.
It's a little bit annoying with all those power bank having standby doing strange things when you just want to use them with low power microcontrolers
R4P70R stick a capacitor on the output to smooth the voltage, and stick a diode to prevent the capacitor from causing backflow and triggering charge mode.
It is very good at keeping the battery topped for the case when you actually need it. It is a good compromise.
Holy cow, can't find these chips on ebay/aliexpress/etc, or from any proper suppliers, but I did find them on Taobao, US$1.60 for 1000 pieces. Insane.
Can I safely use this for example with Runcam or GoPro ?
Add a cap and low forward voltage diode on the output for maintaining voltage during the 'drop' period? (Diode being so the cap doesn't cause the chip to think it is being charged due to maintained 5v on circuit).
I have the exact same power bank, however mine did come with a battery -- and not in a good way. The included 18650 battery in mine is actually soldered onto it. There is not a 'springy thing' at the bottom. There's a rubber square 'foot' on the bottom of the battery, and it looks like the wire is just tucked under that sticky foot. That wire then climbs up the inside of the device and is soldered onto the board directly. Without actually looking at my ebay history, I can nonetheless guess that I bought it about 5 years ago or so. To be quite honest, I actually would much rather have one where I could pop in a different charged 18650! But if I was interested in something like that, I would certainly not be going for a 1 cell solution.
Great container for coke. Might need a washer and some ptfe tape. Other beverages are available.
This would be just perfect for my Bridgeport Interact MK 1 CNC with Heidenhain TNC155A controller. The TNC155A has a battery backed machine parameters stored in SRAM and it seems to eat the battery's at quite a fast pace. (It does measure the backup battery voltage and ever so often it complaints that the batteries need to be replaced) Maybe the batteries aren't really drained but the comparator may have some issue detecting the correct battery voltage. It has never lost the machine parameters due to low battery voltage.
There's a battery bank, three LR6 (AA) non rechargable and a diode that feeds the backup SRAM, maybe if I remove the diode and connect this to it? Even older SRAM retain its content down to very ridiculous voltages... 4.7v should be no problem...
EDIT: Or not if and when the load with the SRAM is low and it would go to sleep... :(
wow, that UPS feature is awesome, I need to get that for my rpi server.
How is that going to work out with that dip in the output?
@@Roy_Tellason I would have to watch the video again to remember what my thoughts were 3 years ago but iirc diode and capacitor would do the job.
I have this one in my home. Is it good for only charging li-ion batteries?
Just a heads up. If you check out ebay.ca (Canada) a lot of the same items are priced at CA$0.99 as opposed to UK£0.99
Worth checking, before you click "Buy."
Clive, is there any way to stop the ‘dipping’ on this chip/board??
Oh, that's smart, because the input and output are the same, you could use a single Type-C connector as input and output, with no extra work.
I've got this exact powerbank design lying around, except mine doesn't have a removable cap. Removing the 18650 inside would be a hassle without a cutter :c
"Smokey Lithium Incident"...Spielberg should direct!
nicktecky55 I totally Agree with You!
I have something similar with an 8 pin MP3401A. no datasheet found... yet.
Have read that article about passthru on power banks and potential battery damage due to this and i may have a theory on why e-cigs in general (i own two different ones and have tried a few other different models, too) can be used while charging, while power banks in general do not.
E-cigarettes and vaping devices in general are high current draw devices and are (still) a niche product, the use of specialized batteries is recommended (and a frequent topic on vapers' forums and blogs), and the general consensus is you should expect to replace batteries often (every few months), and people are made aware of this. So the manufacturers have no problem enabling a feture that may potentially reduce the lifespan of the battery - it's geting abused anyway, and buyers of these devices are made aware of it. On the 2nd vape that i have bought i got a 2 month warranty LOL - and i bought it from a retail vape shop and not online! That's not even legal. I am sure that it will last me for more than that - but it shows that they expect people to be careless with them.
Power banks otoh, are aimed at the general public, and are expected to be usable for 1-2 years, some brands even offer longer warranties than that. Add to this that the cheaper power banks are using recycled cells, and a lot of them cannot be opened easily and are not designed to be user serviceable, and you start to get the picture. The manufacturers do everything they can to ensure maximum lifespan of the cells, and avoid getting a bad rep like some laptop manufacturers got, due to poor battery management leading to premature failure of original batteries. Thus, you paid good money on a big power bank, no passthru for you - if you've got your power bank plugged into the wall to charge, then you likely have somewhere to plug your phone into, as well.
HP used to be crap in this regard but they have gotten a lot better as years went by, now i think the worst battery management award can go to ASUS, which is surprising to me given that they use high quality cells in all their products - but they somehow manage to have one cell shorting out and killing the whole pack.
with such good 18650 batteries as the sony vtc6 (3000mah/15A) so easy to find these days, how are there so few of these style of charger that don't run 2A charging???