YZXStudio 8 Power Bank Review (4x18650)

Very cool review maukka!

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.

Idle:

Charging:

Discharging:

maukka

Thank you for the update; this is how a power bank should be.

Oh well, looks like its time to open up my wallet :smiley:

Same here! :smiley:

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.

Whew…finally got mine together!

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.

More info here: http://www.chongdiantou.com/thread-14260-1-2.html

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.

Nice! Mine is on the way too, but I still haven’t found who can do the spot welding for me.

I’ll probably have to ask NKON to do it and ship it to me internationally, how much did he charge you?

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Maukka: I have added this review to the YZXStudio index thread: USB power meter/tester thread - YZXStudio, Power-Z, RDTech and more.

That thread is now the first result when searching for “YZXstudio” on google, at almost 10K views it brings lots of unique visitors to BLF.

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 :slight_smile:

I noticed…. It has bumped my older review down a bit :slight_smile:

Do you have more info on firmware update?
I just got 2.03 with Chinese and want to update to English version

Here’s the software instructions, but the new version can be updated via the micro-usb port. You also need the STLink programmer.

Thanks. I have V3 version. Where can I get English firmware for it?

The board works fine now after I soldered a piece of wire to connect the broken off part back to the pcb.

Weird - can’t find resistance measurement anywhere on my Contra SW. There is no setting 16.

Cannot check now, but did you make sure it wasn’t moved to the “Datum” calibration submenu in the 2.03 firmware?

Yes, silly me - its under Datum now. Thanks

Finally got mine today!

The install was tricky because the battery pack assembled by Nkon wasn’t properly done. The first problem was the batteries weren’t glued on a flat surface same as member swaan experienced, second problem was the battery tabs were off centre and they were shorting with the aluminium casing. With some dremel work and lots of krapton tape to avoid shorting everything was installed correctly.

My UI is in English, version 2.03.Some flaws/differences I noticed vs the unit maukka reviewed:
-LVP limited to 2.70V
-The resistance meter is hidden in the calibration submenu and still displaying double the true resistance, as mentioned above.
-Compass function doesn’t work, barometer over reads even when calibrated.
-Automatic charge current detection doesn’t work as consistently as I’d like, with the same QC2.0 charger it would choose 12V 1.5/1.75/2.0A randomly, but if I set it to manual it will always draw 2A.

It doesn’t seem to draw past 2A at any QC voltage, whereas the older yzxstudio 7 will draw up to 2.4A 12V or until the battery charge current hits the 4.56A limit.

Hopefully all these bugs or flaws can be fixed with future FW updates, but so far I’m happy with the construction and performance.

I was expecting Mario Bros power on logo, but got Contra instead. Not bad I guess?

Where did you order?
Which model did you buy?
How long was the shipping time from china to your country?
How much did you pay in $ for the Powerbank/shipping/customs?