Powerbank with removeble cells. Or charger with powerbank function.

Best is to buy the 2 cell one. Then you have an excuse to buy a 4 cell lateron :slight_smile:

Nah, I likely would have have ordered a 4 cell version.
But not 100% sure because I already have a big (8 cell?) PB and a smaller one could serve a purpose too.

My orders from Banggood usually arrive quickly. ETA of my Xtar which I ordered today is Thursday.
It just depends what you order and from who. AliExpress is just a massive collection of shops. I had very fast delivery from Ali but also slow. My cells took over a month to arrive. But that’s, I think, because as of lately they are banned from air freight.

Another advantage Banggood has is that they just print a random low price on the envelope. Above e20 I have to pay tax + e15 handling fee.
Two times I ordered something over e20 and Banggood just printed $7.35 on the package :slight_smile:

You're getting three day shipping from BangGood? Where do you live? I just put an XTAR PB2 in my BangGood shopping cart just to check it out and the standard (free) shipping to my US address from China is 7 to 20 days. To get tracking, I would have to add $1.30. Congrats on the deal you got.

Nitecore has some powerbank chargers.

You’re aware that pretty much all planes have AC outlets now, right?

Liitokala engineer 500 has power bank out capability.
It only works with lithium cells in the charger [not nimh].
the charger can take 4 cells, i don;t know if it will be a power bank with less than that.

wle

I’ve used my Liitokala 500 as a powerbank a couple of times. It seems to work well enough, but I can’t comment on the efficiency.
Mine does make an annoying high pitched whine when used as a power bank though. Not a big deal as I bought it as a charger and it doesn’t have any issues there, but still a little disappointing. (Not sure if it’s a common issue or just mine?)

I’m not saying I’m getting 3 day shipping from anywhere. I’m saying it varies which each order. My Banggood order was shipped a few hours ago. Banggood and Ali are a collection of a lot of tiny stores. All of them have their own shipping speed.

EDIT: Just checked the shipping info. While I’m 100% sure it said ETA is Thursday (I remember because that’s also the ETA from a Ali order that’s on it’s way for a whole month) it now says 15 August. A full month….
Likely you think: “ZoomieFan just didn’t zoom in on the matter close enough and just didn’t read well. ” :slight_smile:
That’s not the case but I’ve seen some Chinese fine print before. They say stuff like arrives is 3 days and then at another spot they write “after shipping”. That has a 7 day timer. I can file a dispute if not shipped within 7 days on that 3 day order……

Another mess is, the country of origin. I had a few times that during the ordering process it stated the product was shipped from China. But the stamp showed it was shipped from a warehouse in Europe.

When in get tracking the information usually is:“Tracking info not availble right now (for 2 weeks)”. Or “Parcel is with China post. (for 3 weeks). Or ”Can’t be tracked out of China”. And suddenly it’s in my mailbox. So I no longer see the use of tracking info :slight_smile:

I’ll just wait and see how long it takes to arrive. When I order from China I just blindly assume it takes a month. No matter what the site states. But once again, I must say my mail often did arrive much sooner than a month.

Pro tip: Just order something every week. Then after the initial start up phase, you’ll receive a package each week. LOL

As for your question were I live: Indiana and Netherlands. In all honestly I must say I never noticed much shipping speed difference between the two locations. But then, I’m not really following all those orders. It’s not uncommon for me to receive something I forgot I ordered :slight_smile:

Is that one month BangGood shipping estimate to Indiana or Netherlands? Thanks for the Pro Tip. And I though I was the only one that had a bad memory!

Netherlands

To Netherlands
Cables June 6 - July 7
Cables June 6 - July 9
Plugs Feb 6 - Mar 7
Convoy BD06 Jan 20 - Feb 20
BLF Q8 Jan 16 - Jan 26
Fitorch MR35 Jan 16 - Jan 26

Often 30 days. But also 10days as you see. I always, without exception pick the cheapest shipping.

That’s all I have. The arrival dates are of the packages I marked as received on their site. Often I don’t do that so they just close it after 60 days or so.

You cant go wrong with the xtar pb2 as mentioned above. Mine works great for charging my phone at 2 amps.

My Xtar PB2 arrived 2 days ago, and I must say it’s well worth it’s money.
It looks and feels nice, even if it’s just plastic
The percentage left display seems to be quite accurate.

One of my main uses for the Xtar is to keep my small laptop powered during travel. I drained my laptop down to 25% and hooked up the Xtar.
It not only kept up with the laptop, it actually charged it.
I must say my laptop is just a 10” Atom thing. This is no computer forum so’ll not bother you with more details :slight_smile:

Anyway I measusred the current output from 100% all the way down to zero. Good to see it was a constant 1.35A.
Well to be perefctly honest, it fluctuated a bit. It even was a bit higher when the laptop was fuller and the Xtar was more empty.
But I think that was just because the charing circuit of the laptop asked more power for whatever reason.

While 1.35A by no way is a massive draw, it suprised me positively to see the Xtar was able to deliver until the cells (2x 3500 mAh Liitokala) were drained to the last drop.

The only thing that keeps me from giving the Xtar a perfect score is that it’s a very slow charger at 0.5A total for 2 cells.

PS1: My current measurements are done with a $10 USB meter, so not very accurate I guess.
PS2: XTAR is on discount at Banggood.
PS3: @activeAl, shipping took 12 days

The PB2 hit the market not long before your search. Sometimes things just line up perfectly.

It’s 1A for each cell if you have 2 cells in it. 2A if you have only 1 cell in it. Which is a pretty decent rate, given how small the charger is.

Strange because I was charging using charger that maxes out at 3.5A The draw was only 0.5A and charging took over 9 hours.

It should always be a 2A charger (total), whether there’s 1 cell or 2 cells in it. Well, it will slow down as the cells get near full and it switches to the CV part of the charge cycle, but 2A for most of the charge.

9 hours to charge your cells? That sounds way too long. Maybe your USB cord was too long or too thin? Or your power brick, but you say that’s okay? Were you charging good cells?

The exact charger and cable (1ft Anker PowerLine) charges my phone at 1+A
The cells were completely empty. Xtar depleted them to 0% and shut down.
The cells themself are new and work well. They charged my laptop for hours and do well in a flashlight.
In the powerbank and during charging they stayed cold. Feel like room temp.

Maybe somehow my USB meter interfered. So I’m going to fully deplete the same cells and then charge them without my powermeter, which was connected for the full 9 hours.

Yes, that might fix it.

I did a test without my USB powermeter and the charging time dropped from 9+ hours to 3 hours*
Likely the meter tricked the charger into constant CV charging?
No idea how/why because my laptop and phone charge at top speed with it connected.

*=Well that’s 99. It’s now over an hour (total 4) at 99

All I can suggest is to try it with different cells, like a Samsung 30Q or another name-brand cell. Perhaps the cells you’re using won’t charge up to a full 4.2v.

Just wondering, which specific USB meter did you use?

I’ve noticed before (when I was new to USB meter, and I just bought a cheaper USB meter), when I used that cheaper USB meter to monitor the phone charging, the charging speed was somewhat slower (it lowered the voltage enough to let the smartphone think that the USB power has a lower voltage). Using a more powerful USB charger/power adapter will help though. Or using a better USB meter that has less resistance works better.