Network independent charging...

[haveaniceday]

Hello Together
Let me introduce - my newest gadget for outdoor use... ;-)
the Baseus Blade 100W Power Bank 20000mAh

If everything goes well, I can also charge batteries with this power bank ia the dual charger on my mountain bike freeride- & enduro-tours in high alpine terrain.

A first test at home was already promising. The outdoor test will have to wait a bit ...

I bought the powerbank on Aliexpress and cost CHF 61.- ($ 65.-)
Markus

 

[RiverEagle]

Wow, that's slick. How many times do you think you can recharge the Skydio batteries on it?

Ray

 

[haveaniceday]

Hi Ray

The Powerbank has a capacitiy of 20'000 mAh - so I hope that I can charge 3 batteries. As the Powerbank con load with 100W (20V/5A) I hope that the loading time is similar then with a normal 90W wall adapter.

But this is all theoretical.
As soon as my Skydio batteries are recharged, I can do the practical test.

 

[Ridefreak]

That looks promising except it's a Chinese spec power bank and often their specs are way over stated. You can look at the physical size of that battery compared to the SD battery which is also a hi capacity lithium cells and I don't see three SD cells worth of juice in that power pack. Not trying to be discouraging, I'd really like to see this as a viable recharging option but I'm skeptical based on my experience with Chinese electrical specs on Amazon and the like.

This is what one battery pulls power wise while it's charging with USB PD.

A power bank is definitely cheaper then buying additional batteries and I hope it can do 3 batteries, that'd make it worth carrying along I'm just skeptical about something that small that they say can provide 20A for an hour.

These pics are 20AH lithium batteries, unless that manufacturer figured out something everyone else hasn't I'd be real surprised to see it provide that much power. You can search and see what a 20AH @ 20V battery looks like, it's quite a bit larger then that.

I really hope it works though, I'm always looking for alternative charging options.

 

[haveaniceday]

Thank you for your explanations.
I will try to drain a battery today (briefly) and then charge via the powerbank.

I will keep you informed...

 

[Ridefreak]

Thanks. If you can get 3 charged I'll be ordering one tomorrow, I also ride a bicycle and motorcycle and charging is always a problem. I own 6 batteries for that reason.

 

[haveaniceday]

At the moment recharge a Skydio2 battery (not a Skydio2+ ;-) )
After that, I'll start a charging session, which I'll film with a time-lapse video.

I hope I can give you a first impression tonight.

 

[haveaniceday]

Update Powerbank

I have now performed the in-house test with one and two batteries respectively.
The batteries were discharged down to 1%.

Positive
- The powerbank delivers enough power (20V/4-5A) to charge the Skydio battery analog to a wall adapter.

Negatives
- PowerBank gets very hot and switches off under certain circumstances during the charging process
- Capacity of the PowerBank is unfortunately not enough to fully charge even one battery

Normally Baseus supplies good components. I use various cables and 65W wall adapters. On the website, this PowerBank is offered for notebooks. A battery from Skydio has just higher requirements ;-)

Final conclusion
The Baseus Blade 100W Powerbank is good to supply a notebook with power - unfortunately it is not enough for the Skydio batteries. I expected more.

But since I work in the IT business, the loss is limited ;-)

That is, a mobile charging solution is unfortunately not yet found and I may go on tour with my 4 batteries ;-)

 

[Ridefreak]

I was afraid of that but thanks for the feedback. I've kind of discovered there's no free lunch when it comes to LiPo batteries, the power density in these are similar so you can get a rough estimate of capacity just based on the physical size of the batteries themselves. I'd expect a power bank that can charge 3 of these to be approximately 3x as large.

That's what I'm seeing with some of the other applications I've been using LiPo batteries in. I'm still very interested in what you eventually come up with. If this trip is a big deal you could buy a small ebike battery that mounted to the downtube and you'd only be limited by the size you chose. I only suggest that option because it's a mounted solution for a larger battery.