Minos
July 9, 2014, 2:31am
21
lateotter:
FWIW, here’s my experience:
Last month, I bought one of these from BIC (I know, not the most reliable) because it looked promising, but to be honest, I haven’t been that impressed with it. It’s fine and usable, but not what I was hoping for.
As far as I can tell, the 4 channels are independent when charging but drain evenly when discharging (unlike my fake ENBs that I also got from BIC). I might have gotten a dud, but on mine, the channels don’t terminate at the same voltage when charging. They terminate at 4.22v, 4.22v, 4.16v, and 4.15v. On discharge the cells ended at about 3.2v after a little bit of rest.
Another let down was that the 2.1a output was not truly higher output according to my test. I can’t say for certain because when I have my “charger doctor” hooked up, the power bank doesn’t recognize a significant draw on the other end and automatically shuts off after a few seconds. But what I can say is that for those few seconds when I plugged in my ipad mini, it only showed the same 1a on both ports as opposed to the 1.4a I can get from other power banks with 2.1a outputs.
On the positive side, besides the basic auto on, auto off, and auto cutoff, it does recharge four cells at a higher total draw (according to my charger doctor) than 1a, thereby reducing recharging time. It was drawing about 1.6a total at the beginning of a recharge cycle when the cells were nearly empty. The backlit display is kinda cool but honestly not really any more useful than the usual generic row of leds.
I’m not trying to detract from the seller or give a negative review for his product. For all I know I could have gotten a factory reject… I just thought I would share my experience so far with my TOMO power bank. Please take this with a grain of salt as I am not equipped to do a thorough technical review. If I hadn’t already gotten one, I would also be waiting to see what HKJ has to say first. Maybe Minos has a better batch…? Regardless, I am still very curious to see if my results are consistent or if I got a lemon…
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eas
August 27, 2014, 10:30pm
22
lateotter:
FWIW, here’s my experience:
Last month, I bought one of these from BIC (I know, not the most reliable) because it looked promising, but to be honest, I haven’t been that impressed with it. It’s fine and usable, but not what I was hoping for.
As far as I can tell, the 4 channels are independent when charging but drain evenly when discharging (unlike my fake ENBs that I also got from BIC). I might have gotten a dud, but on mine, the channels don’t terminate at the same voltage when charging. They terminate at 4.22v, 4.22v, 4.16v, and 4.15v. On discharge the cells ended at about 3.2v after a little bit of rest.
Another let down was that the 2.1a output was not truly higher output according to my test. I can’t say for certain because when I have my “charger doctor” hooked up, the power bank doesn’t recognize a significant draw on the other end and automatically shuts off after a few seconds. But what I can say is that for those few seconds when I plugged in my ipad mini, it only showed the same 1a on both ports as opposed to the 1.4a I can get from other power banks with 2.1a outputs.
On the positive side, besides the basic auto on, auto off, and auto cutoff, it does recharge four cells at a higher total draw (according to my charger doctor) than 1a, thereby reducing recharging time. It was drawing about 1.6a total at the beginning of a recharge cycle when the cells were nearly empty. The backlit display is kinda cool but honestly not really any more useful than the usual generic row of leds.
I’m not trying to detract from the seller or give a negative review for his product. For all I know I could have gotten a factory reject… I just thought I would share my experience so far with my TOMO power bank. Please take this with a grain of salt as I am not equipped to do a thorough technical review. If I hadn’t already gotten one, I would also be waiting to see what HKJ has to say first. Maybe Minos has a better batch…? Regardless, I am still very curious to see if my results are consistent or if I got a lemon…
As noted here, I’m seeing similar behavior WRT undercharging on the two rightmost cell positions and also with lower-than-expected currents to iPad devices.