Wow, great review with lots of data! Thanks for the extensive tests.
Did you measure efficiency by using a YZX meter? My 7th gen with 4x Sanyo GA clocks at 93.5% efficiency at 5V 1A down to 2.5V, using the same YZX dummy load and the green YZX meter. So there is some efficiency increase with this 8th gen…
I have always considered the Tomo DIY powerbank crappy, 66.9% is simply awfully low efficiency for such a low power output.
Enjoy your world’s most advanced, most powerful and most efficient powerbank! I’m seriously considering the 8 cells version, but $100 is not easy to shell out.
Actually it’s not a hassle at all, you can send a message to Frankie Tong 99centHobbies | eBay Stores, he’s an official distribuitor of YZX products and you can directly paypal him for whatever you need, he buys it from taobao site and ships it to you.
There is another ebay seller called dz-stuido and also sells YZX products and other electronic stuff http://stores.ebay.com/dz-stuido, I spoke with him a couple weeks ago and he gave me a good price on the 8cell version shipping included, however communication with this seller was horrendous and I couldn’t trust him my money.
I have been having an eye on the gen8 as it first appeared in some chinese forums but I am not making a purchase unless I get english menus. I get YZX’s issue - they don’t want to bother with export issues (CE, TÜV… etc).
Got the English firmware from Franky today. Update went without a hitch. Seems like my translations were correct, but it still looks much cleaner now. The display also dynamically changes now when a charger is plugged in. Before it used to show input voltage and current all the time.
Here’s the programmer plus cables with pogo pins which you keep pressed on the pads on the pcb while doing the update. YZXStudio 1266 power meter in the picture. I updated it first, but it required some troubleshooting since the updater just wouldn’t connect. After resetting the meter to factory settings, things went smoothly.
Great review! Looks like a pretty neat powerbank all in all.
Too bad it doesn’t have type-C output (I need that for fast charging my nexus 6p), otherwise I think it ticks all the boxes that the best power banks come with right now. The DC Input is an added bonus, 2 hours charging is insane for a power bank! The lowest I’ve heard of is around 4-5 hours for power banks charged by Quick charge 2.0/3.0.
A word of warning: the installation is super-tight. I had NKON do the welding but the cells weren’t properly in line so I had to remove the cell sleeves in order for them to fit at all! The nickel strips need to be well aligned and correct length too.
Mine is with the new Plus series hardware revison: higher precision current sampling, new QC controller FP6601Q, new soft buttons, QC port now rated for 5A (lower resistance), new ceramic capacitors & inductors. FW is now updatable through USB - you still need STLink though.
I also got another today and it’s the new version. But the charging is not working. One of the components has snapped off from the pcb. Kind of a tight spot, but I’ll see if I can fix it with a short piece of wire by first removing it altogether.
Nkon asked me 10€ for the welding and it took 6 days before my order was shipped. I just wrote them that I was happy with the welding but I had trouble because the pack was not really flat and glued too - maybe now they will do a better one for you