How useful is the RavPower battery?

:smiley: yeah never leave unattended :slight_smile: btw I didnā€™t had issues with that.

For real ā€œstress testā€ on drone lipo batteries I use bunch of car headlight bulbs in different configurations thus easily going up 100-150W if needed (free and safe).

Powered my CHIP/LNA/RTL-SDR yesterday on an Astro E5 16750mAh Portable Charger which I purchased a couple of years ago to charge phones and iPads and occasionally running my Raspberry Pis. Starting from a complete charge, it shut down at slightly over 15 hoursā€¦ No power passthrough though.

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Tested with 1A resistor load it does 13.8 Ah @5V, calculating back to @3.6V it does 19.1 Ah, 74Wh

What I see that every power bank maker states the ā€œbiggest Ah numberā€ which corresponding to 3.6V lipo voltageā€¦
A bit confusing as everyone looking for the 5V output.

I can confirm that this gizmo does passthrough charging: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711NSNQL/ ā€“ itā€™s been running my Dreamcatcher board for a few hours while Iā€™ve shifted plugs, carried the whole thing around the house, inserted a USB ammeter in the upstream line, etc. All perfectly uninterrupted.

Down-side is that it gets pretty hot while eating 5+ watts from the charger, passing ~3 to the dreamcatcher, and storing the rest into the batteries. Hot enough to start melting the plastic caseā€¦ yikes! Note to self, donā€™t set the thing on top of a blanket next time. It needs airflow!

I like the idea because I can use it as a charger for topping-off my 18650ā€™s from any USB source, or use it as a power bank if I find that I have charged 18650ā€™s and a USB device that needs powering. Bonus, the little LCD shows the current drawn from each USB-A port, though it doesnā€™t also show how much itā€™s drawing through the micro-B input.

Note that the batteries are not included, so the price is actually pretty terrible unless you consider that a feature. But I figured Iā€™d mention it here since the general style is interesting, and there are versions with varying numbers of battery slots, which might make it applicable to different applications.

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cool stuff, but overheating sounds a bit scary as LiPo chemistry is very sensitive for that (dangerouslyā€¦) :frowning:

Zoltan, @zoltan Iā€™m planning to use the Easy acc 20000mAh Portable Charger you recommended with one of my new Dreamcatchers and active antennas. I want to package the receiver in a smaller volume that will be easier to deploy.

My objective is to have a seamless transition from ac power to portable power and back again without a Dreamcatcher reboot. Ken

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