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owenversteeg
38
Mar 3, 2017
No dog in this race, and I won't be buying one of these as I have enough batteries to last me through the apocalypse. However since I work with batteries I figured I should comment:
- The cheapest you'll get a halfway decent 2400mAh pack for (unsubsidized) is $30 or so: ~$24 for the batteries plus a few bucks for the enclosure/circuitry. I assume this uses 8x decent Samsung cells, around $3 each at large volumes.
- Even if the true capacity is 24,000 mAh (which I believe this is), it'll only recharge your devices to 19,000 mAh or so due to charging losses - about 10% upon stepping up to 5V and then 10% again when you step down from 5V. Every charger you can buy today has this same 'problem', of course, and there's no solution unless you want to start your own phone manufacturing company.
- Worse/cheaper batteries will not only have lower capacity, but their lifetime may be shorter. This pack will probably have a life around 400 cycles and a very cheap pack might have a lifetime of 100-200 cycles. Anything 'middle of the road' will be around 300 cycles.
- Samsung is one of the world's largest battery manufacturers and produces an absolutely ridiculous quantity of batteries per year. Statistically, they are one of the safest battery manufacturers by almost all metrics. Assuming they really do use Samsung cells in this pack, this would be one of the safer powerbanks you can buy. Additionally, the batteries in the 'exploding batteries' case were completely different and untested. I am almost certain that these Samsung 18650s are of a type that has been used for several years now with no problems - furthermore, unless you're Amish, you either have some Samsung cells in your home or interact with devices powered on Samsung cells in your daily life.
TL;DR it won't explode, the price is decent (assuming the cells are legit), cycles # is probably inflated but still decent, and you'll 'only' get ~19,000 mAh out of this because of physics.
owenversteeg
38
Mar 10, 2017
Well, it's definitely a powerbank. It will definitely charge your phone. Seems kinda overpriced - Amazon had it for about $30 - but maybe the design is cool to some people. I can't find any specs whatsoever on the actual battery, and their "tech specs" page is completely useless, so I can't really say much about it.
When you buy batteries, you're either in camp A (you've got money to spend and you want something with High Quality Cells that'll last you many cycles) or in camp B (you don't care). Maybe you're in camp C (safety is critical) in which case you'll want to buy something expensive with cells that are actually proven to be safe.
The reality, however, is that unless you go for the _absolute_ bottom of the barrel (and I mean absolute bottom, for example the sketchiest seller you can find on Alibaba) you're almost certain to get something that is kinda close to its rated capacity and is completely safe. Cell lifetime is generally a factor of the price you pay however, so if you care about getting 400 vs 200 cycles out of a pack you should check the cells (and completely ignore all specs about cell lifetime given by the manufacturer.)
On an unrelated note, worrying about phone battery safety is hilarious to me. The most catastrophic event in consumer li-ion batteries was of course the Note 7, but even though that was incredibly catastrophic only 70 events were reported, the majority of which were fake. (This was out of 2,500,000 Note 7s produced.) Worrying about li-ion batteries exploding is like worrying about bird attacks: yes, they do happen, but they will almost certainly not be a real problem for you.
By the way, if anyone is worried about fire, there are far more dangerous things to tackle first. Do you own a washing machine or dryer, or live near someone that does? Defects in washers/dryers cause sixteen thousand eight hundred home fires per year, and between 15-51 deaths depending how you tally it. If you still have an irrational fear, that's fine: just buy a $9 ammo box, put your battery in that, and you'll be perfectly safe.
Source on that last one: http://www.nfpa.org/public-education/by-topic/safety-in-the-home/dryers-and-washing-machines
A community member
Feb 23, 2018
owenversteegThat's what I said to myself, there is no way this holds 24Ah of energy unless they figured out some new way of producing LiPo batteries with 4x more energy density than currently on the market with specs they provided. It would be nice if someone experienced could drain it and charge it back up properly and measure the capacity. 7-10Ah would be more reasonable and expected figure in my opinion.