Power Banks(PBs): What you must know.

Having been in the active sales of power banks, I see people everyday make wrong choices in purchasing one, only driven by low price. Nigerians loves cheap things a lot. But as they say "Awufu dey purge belle"

Really, making a wrong choice in power bank has heavy consequences. That's why I have to take time out of my busy schedules, to put this piece together.

May the truth set you free and juicily sweetens your lives this season.

Even though Nigerians hate to read. Happy reading;

1) Power banks can kill your devices or even YOU:
Yes!!! Let me put it more accurately, cheap, low quality, poorly built deceptive amperage pb can kill your device or you. Am a living witness to this. After months of using cheap, fake, inferior pbs (even when I sell 100% high quality power banks), due to circumstances, my smartphone's battery is now seriously misbehaving, seriously whack! I had to force myself to pickup a quality power bank from my stock but then, the damage is done. The battery needs to be replaced.
Any pb that is not carefully built can cause a lot of damage to your devices. It can even leak sparks that can cause fire that might eventually consume you and your precious possessions.
A typical good power bank should be built with power management chips (micro-controllers / micro-processors), that needs to listen to your device and feed it "juice" according to its needs. I call this soft charging. It should also have some circuit protections, against overcharge, over discharge, over voltage, over current, short circuit, drop, hit etc. The internal circuit should be thoroughly insulated to avoid leaking power, which may cause sparks. The batteries needs to be sourced from quality battery manufacturers like Sanyo, panasonic, sony, Samsung, LG, ATL, Fujitsu, etc.
Unfortunately, many cheap, poorly built deceptive amperage PBs in Nigerian market today lacks these, and comes with unbranded Chinese batteries. And because of it, we have more power banks damaging batteries and devices than charging and helping our lives.
No wonder people always complain that power banks kills phone's batteries.

2) You can never get 100% capacity from any power bank.
Yes!! At least for now. Even high quality, original PBs, its very difficult, in fact impossible to get 100% capacity from them. Am not talking about those high amperage, cheap, deceptive power banks, that carries 50000mAH while they are actually 5000mAH. Those ones are no go area, for me o. High quality big brands are spending billions in R & D to solve this challenge, but as today the highest you can get from any power bank, I know, after full charge is 93%. Because of;
(i) Cable losses
(ii) Over discharge protection
(iii) Conversion rate.

Cable losses: For power to flow through any cable, it needs to overcome the resistance to the flow of current by the wires in the cable, power is lost as heat in overcoming this. And it must always be done in any cable. This power loss is called cable losses and wastes a part of your PBs capacity. This is one of the reasons why quality power banks from big brands doesn't come with multiple cables adapter/plugs.

Over discharge protection: To retain reversibility, in order to protect lithium based batteries from damage, it is normal industrial practice to built in an over discharge protection that shuts off the power bank once power remains around 5% in the lithium batteries. If power goes below 5% in lithium based batteries they can never recharge themselves anymore. This remaining 5% can never be released by the power bank to charge your device, so its lost. At this level the power bank's internal circuitry sees the batteries as depleted and switches it off.

Conversion rate: Lithium based batteries has the voltage of 3.7V by nature, but due to how its built you can get 3.6V or 3.75V. Now a power bank has to convert this voltage ,ie 3.7V to 5V which is USB standard, which your device also requires. How efficient a power bank is in converting this is called conversion rate. And there are losses in this conversion process.

Now most cheap, poorly built, low quality power banks in Nigerian market today doesn't have more than 70% conversion rate.

The capacity of power banks are labelled, on the capacity of the batteries inside measured at 3.7V, which can never be the same at 5V. A power bank which is actually 10400mah at 3.7V, maybe around 9432mah at 5V. This is due to conversion rate.

If you buy a 10,000mah quality power bank that's suppose to charge a 2500mah smartphone 4 times and it charges 3.5times, that power bank is great.

3) "I pass my neighbour" generator kills power banks.
Most pbs in Nigerian market today especially the low quality, cheap, over blown amperage ones, doesn't have IC protection, and they don't have other necessary circuit protections, hence they are at the mercy of power surges or any other power problem. Any sudden power surge or plunge damages them and any device that may be plugged to them, assuming they have "pass through charging", which is very unlikely. "I pass my neighbour" generators doesn't have in built AVR, hence they are very notorious with power surges and plunges. So I strongly discourage charging your devices with "I pass my neighbor" generator except you have a low wattage AVR (stabilizer) plugged in through which you do your chargings. You can get 300W or 500W stabilizers in any electronics market across Nigeria.

4) Before you buy any power bank , RESEARCH, REVIEW, RESEARCH, about it.
Type the name of any power bank you wants to buy on google.com and see whether people are using it at all, check what people who are using it are saying, look for its "Teardown" review and check the components and what they do, find out its conversion rate, check the prices, find out how to distinguish the original from the fake.
Because every good power bank I know out there has the fake already circulating, except the very new ones like Huawei Honor power banks and Letv super power banks. Xiaomi the best power bank all over the world (in pricing and quality) is shamelessly and commonly faked. The fakes is all over the whole place, cheaper, but we know it when we see it, even afar off. I have been selling original Xiaomi pbs for 1 year now (this month makes it so) that I know the fakes even while asleep.
If possible go to Youtube and watch some review videos of the power bank. The best website for power banks reviews and teardown reviews is www.goughlui.com/powerbanks. But its a pity that an average Nigerian hates to read.

5) Multiple cable plugs is not the best for you.
Apart from too much cable clusters, you suffer heavy cable losses as current flow in the wires, both in use and unplugged.
Moreover, you can confuse the intelligence of smart power banks( ie power banks that listens to your device, makes a decision on the type of power to feed it, processes this power and feeds it, and keep monitoring the device while its feeding it this power. If there is any misbehavior, it shuts down). A smart power bank with only one output port can get confused and start misbehaving if you plug multiple cables into this port and connects two devices. Since the chips may not be programmed to read two devices at a time from that port. This can cause heavy problems to your power banks and devices. Most times you might notice unusual heating, which may damage the power bank or your device.
On the other hand, if any of the cables happens to short circuit or bridge inside, since most of the multiple cables in use now are of inferior quality, it can kill your power bank as the circuit gets bridged. Especially, if your power bank doesn't have adequate protections.
Its a pity Nigerians always like easy ways or lazy ways of doing things without considering the long term consequences.
The company that placed only one cable in the package, is not stupid, please!!

6) Power banks are designed, built and best used in cycles.
Every high quality good power bank brand I know (I know a lot) always measure the life cycle of their power banks in cycles. The best power bank I have ever seen "Sony Cycle Energy" power bank is built to go 1800 cycles and more.
Please use your power banks in cycles. The chips inside are designed to count this. Don't confuse them. A cycle is one full discharge and full recharge.
Whenever power bank manufacturing companies talks about cycles, look closely to find out which cycle are they talking about. Because there are two types of cycles, which are;
(i) the charging and discharging cycle of the power bank,
(ii) the charging and discharging cycle
it can give to devices you plug to it.
The latter is always bigger than the former. Let them not confuse you.
What all this long turanci means is that to obtain the best from your PBs and make the internal batteries last longer, charge it when its totally depleted and switches off. When it remains a light or two please kindly resist the temptation to plug it in no matter what. You are doing it a great dis-service

7) Power banks are made for support not your primary charging source.
Just like in wearing one trouser all the time, you tend to wear it out. If you use your power bank all the time you wear it out easily and the cycles counts faster.
Moreover, power source from the grid can not be compared to any other power source in terms of friendliness to your devices (I don't know why and I have never researched).
Am guilty of this one. I use my PB all the time, maybe because my smartphone's battery is whack or I live in an area where the DISCO gives more darkness than light and charge exorbitantly for the darkness.

8,) Power bank ports are designed for stable steady use.
Avoid shaky plugging and shaky unplugging. Shaky plugging and unplugging , can misalign the tiny metal strips inside the micro USB port and makes your cables loose or even damage the ports.
Most complaints I get about phones and power banks are about loose ports. To avoid this charge your phones on a stable steady supports like on table tops not in your bags, purses, pockets nor hands. Because as you move you tends to shake and shift the cables in the ports, which also shakes the micro USB internals, and one of the tiny metal strips inside can easily shift or misalign hence rendering the port and power bank useless.
Plug and unplug your cables with steady hands and straight steady pushes and pull, so as to prevent damage to the tiny micro USB port and plug. USB type C, is designed to address this port challenge once and for all. Very soon it will become very common. Even though I wish Apple's lightening connector had been adopted as standard instead of USB type C.

9) Power banks are still fragile devices.
Be very careful with them as with an egg. Even though you can use power banks like Sony Cycle Energy to stone someone and nothing will happen to it. Avoid rough handling it.
I have noticed that an average Nigerian is very careless and rough. We have very few gentle beings on this side of the world. Your PBs are made of fragile tiny electronic components, no matter how strongly built they are. Rough handling can break a circuit board, can peel a soldering, can break off a spot welding, can bend or break a port etc.
So be very careful with your PBs. In fact approach and handle them the way you approach and handle eggs. In China its common to get soft rubber protective cases for power banks.
It is a pity that all over the place, big boys and girls are now sampling shattered screens smart devices, that's evidence of prevalent roughness. LOLs! Naija oh Naija!

Issssokay! But I just can't do without it..

10) "My power bank has lasted 1 million years"! Nonsense!!!

I always hear people boast of how long their power banks has lasted. Power banks are just more than how long they have lasted. I always ask myself "Is it 1 million years of soft charging or 1 million years of destructive charging"? Is it 1 million years of nurturing your devices or killing your devices?
Quality good power banks generally lasts longer than most low quality cheap, deceptive amperage rubbish.
But the most important issue is "how well" not "how far". I prefer now to use original Xiaomi power bank for 6 months than to use any inferior low quality pb for 1 year. My eyes have opened!

11) Know quality good power bank.
You can know quality good smart power bank when you just see it. The ways to know a quality intelligent power bank when you just see it is by;
(i) looking at the cable it came with, how flexible or tough or rigid or well build is the cable? If the cable is too soft, tiny and flexible. Run!
(ii) Does it support pass through charging? Most quality power banks I know supports this feature. Infact am yet to see a quality power bank without this feature. Pass through charging is while the power bank is recharging if you plug your device it can charge it as well.
(iii) Does it support automatic charging? Most quality power banks I have seen or know supports this feature except Romoss.
(iv) Does it charge itself? Run! Connect the micro USB to its port and plug the USB to its own port and check whether it charges itself. Smart quality power bank doesn't charge itself.

12) Power banks I recommend.
(I) Sony Cycle Energy( very expensive, 10000mah goes as high as $58)
(ii) Xiaomi (mi) smart power banks(best in pricing and quality).
(iii) Huawei Honor power banks
(iv) Asus Zen power
(v) Letv super power banks
(v) Romoss power banks


For more information, questions and answers, feel free to contact:
Melon Technologies and Devices Nigeria. Anambra State.
08033689593. 08054033161(whatsapp)
info.melontechnologies@gmail.com

.......more pictures!!!