today Lumintop 14500 battery is broken. There is voltage at the contacts, green light “charge end” on battery, but the flashlights don’t work (d3aa, hd12).
it was after charging from EcoFlow usb-C port.
sorry to hear that your EcoFlow killed your USB battery
google says:
“Most EcoFlow portable power stations feature high-speed USB-C ports that provide up to 100W of power output”
google says::
“Most standard chargers are in the 5W range, which was the long-time standard for older iPhone and Android bricks”
Yes, but the charge rate is “supposed” to be negotiated. When I checked my USB C ports on my EcoFlow(s) ( i have three examples) supported all of the charging protocols that my tester supports.
It will provide “up to” 100 watts. But that is only when the device being charged advertises that it can accept that rate of charge. The negotiation involves both voltage and current parameters.
I have charged several different kinds of USB rechargeable cells with mine with no failures. But I have not tried the Lumintop 14500*.*
This failure may not have been caused by using the Ecoflow USB port. BTW, I would be curious to know which Ecoflow model was in use when the cell died? There are quite a few in current and past production. Lot of the earlier models were limited to well below 100 watts.for the maximum charge rate.
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Doe the positive and negative terminals look compressed or dented? Maybe “overuse” in a light that’s just a bit too snug over time smushed the circuit and tripped the protection
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As Mandrake50 has noted, this isn’t how (properly designed) USB-C power sources are supposed to work. They will only supply the amount of power that is required by the device (up to their maximum), so I have no problems charging my laptop at 65W from a 100W brick.
In fact, this is not how circuits work in general. A 14500 that can supply 5 amps (~15W) will not give 15W of power to a little 1 amp flashlight driver, for example.
thank you
according to google:
" The maximum amount of power that the USB Standard allows over normal Type-A is 7.5W, which is 5V at 1.5A."
apparently the charging port in the Lumintop USB 14500 is overwhelmed by higher power sources..
The point is that it should not have been “overwhelmed” if operating correctly. If designed properly it will tell the source what it can take and the “smart” supply only supplies that amount of power.
My direct experience is that the 100 watt port on my Ecoflow units do what they are supposed to do. When I plug a basic device that can only take 5 watts, according to my USB power meter, that is what it gets. I use them to charge my smart watch that only takes about 5 watts every day.
My thought is that the more likely scenario is that his Lumintop 14500 is defective and it has nothing to do with the Ecoflow.
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agree
also agree newer charging circuits will negotiate with high speed capable power sources.
Maybe the charging circuit in the Lumintop USB 14500 complies with the quoted early A to C cable specs, but may not negotiate correctly with newer higher power sources..
Or maybe that was just an issue with the one Lumintop battery that failed for the OP.. not sure.
Im glad to know that I might need to be careful not to use High Speed charging ports for my Lumintop USB 14500
I have not had any problem charging my Lumintop USB 14500 from the back of my iMac, which google says is a max of 18w source..
Older phone charging circuits were also designed for lower power bricks than the EcoFlow ports offer. I dont know if the EcoFlow would fry an Iphone 6 or iPad.
google says:
“The maximum recommended power brick for your iPhone 6 is a 12-watt (12W) Apple charger, such as the one used for iPads.”
Interesting that you say that. Just last week I used the Ecoflow 100 watt port to charge an iPhone 7 without problems.
The chips are designed so that they will default to their lowest setting if they can’t do a successful negotiation with the sink device. Meaning (IIRC) 5 volts at 2 amps.
You will see in the pic below that the Ecoflow supports the Apple 5 volt 2.4 amp protocol. (12 watts max). It also supports the BC 1.2 spec which today is pretty much the baselline spec for charging.
Meter plugged into the 100watt port of my Ecoflow River 3 Plus 100watt port.
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agree
the iPhone 7, according to Google, has the ability to negotiate the power level it prefers.. :
" The maximum effective power brick for the iPhone 7 is a 12W USB-A adapter (such as an iPad charger) or a 15W–18W USB-C PD charger for slightly faster charging. While the phone can safely use higher wattage bricks (20W, 30W, or higher), the phone’s internal hardware dictates it cannot take advantage of modern fast charging, limiting its input"
unlike the iPhone 6 afaict…
what I really dont know, is if the USB port on the Lumintop 14500 has the ability to negotiate to request only the max power it can digest.. the way the iPhone 7 can..
maybe someone with an EcoFlow will test another Lumintop 14500, so we can learn if the one the OP damaged was a normal limitation of the battery charging hardware, or a one time defect..
Yup, That is what we need…a martyr for the cause…
I don’t have any of those cells to check with. But I just checked a Wurkkos 14500 cell that came with a TS10 charging from the Ecoflow. It seems to have worked fine. It charged, terminated, and still powers the TS10 just fine.
If the Lumintop charging circuit is so dumb that it can’t negotiate power levels it is pretty worthless in today’s world. I would rather think it was just a bad cell.
OTH, there is aways the possibility that his specific EF unit is hosed… Though I find it unlikely.
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I have a Lumintop 14500 (with USB-C) that I would be willing to (potentially) sacrifice, but I lack the EcoFlow!
(I’m not completely sure what kind of EcoFlow it is that the OP used; a powerstation, powerbank or an USB-C wall charger?!?)
I have all ‘charging devices’ mentioned above, just from other brands.
I’m really curious what voltage you measured at the contacts? And do you have a seperate charger in which you can charge a 14500? If so, I’m wondering if the charging/protection circuit in the Lumintop would allow it to be charged that way or that one of the protection circuits kick in and also prevent that.
– ≈4,12V
– charged inside hd12, no result.
Really weird that no flashlight wants to work with it, despite the voltage basicly suggesting that the battery is (almost) completely full. The only thing I can think of is that the protection circuit of the battery is completely ‘messed up’ and that as soon as there is anything of a real load being put onto the battery, the (overcurrent) protection immediately kicks in, cutting the power. When measuring with a multi meter, there is basicly no real load on the battery or at least it’s so low that it doesn’t trigger the protection of the battery and you can still read out a voltage.
A way to verify this would be putting the battery on an electronic load and increase the load (tiny) step by step to see at what mA the protection will kick in.
But basicly it’s “game over” for this battery, unless you’re willing to remove the charging and protection circuit, re-wrap it and use it as an unprotected 14500 cell. (Assuming that the cell itself is still healthy and only the protection circuit is damaged.)
@jon_slider There’s no negotiation required. As long as the USB port outputs 5V (the default for any USB output without further negotiation), it doesn’t matter whether it can deliver 2A or 1000A. The connected device controls how much current it takes. The source must only be able to deliver that current. That’s why you can attach a 12V light bulb to a car battery, while connecting the terminals with a wrench will quickly melt it.
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I don’t have a Lumintop 14500 battery but I just tried charging a Wuben 14500 battery using the USB-C and USB-A ports on my Ecoflow Delta Pro 3. I got exactly the results I was expecting, i.e. that the battery’s charging circuit controls how it’s being charged. I would have been surprised if the results were different since, as I understand it, charging parameters are negotiated by the device connected to the Ecoflow ports .
USB-A
USB-C
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That’s true for chargers that only output 5V, but PD chargers do have to negotiate with the device to deliver the correct voltage and current. AFAIK QC chargers do too even though they use a USC-A connector.
They don’t need to negotiate. For USB-C it is mandatory to define UFP (sink) and DFP (source), which can be done by adding resistors to the CC lines. This is because USB-C can be either source or sink and it would be bad if both devices decide to provide power to the bus.
With USB A it is easy, as the female type A receptacle is always the host providing the power. It is safe to provide 5V as any connected device must not be damaged by it. If the device needs more power (the standard only allows 100mA without identification, but in practice all sources allow higher current) or accepts higher voltage, it can negotiate via various protocols (for example PD or QC) and request a higher voltage.
So if the power supply has a type A connector, you can connect any device and it will receive 5V with up to the maximum current the power supply can deliver. It may request a higher voltage via protocols. If the power supply has a USB-C port, the connected device has to identify as UFP with a resistor to get 5V (although some simple power supplies might supply 5V even without identification). Same rules apply to negotiate a higher voltage.
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This is basically true. Most source charging circuits will supply the base charge rate in the absence of a successful negotiation. Usually defaulting to 5 volts at a max of 2.5 amps. It will supply more only when the connected device tells the source that it can take more. Dumb chargers just always supply the charge rate that they are designed for. Almost always this it the 5 volt 2.5 amp rate or lower. But yes, from there, the device being charged determines the rate it will accept. Only up to the max the charger will deliver (determined by the negotiation, or the lack of one) , of course.
So when things are working correctly, any device designed for USB charging should work with any charger… and regardless of the charger, it will never get more power than it can safely take. FWIW.
I have yet to see a device that actually limits the current.
It’s not a charger and not supplying a charge rate. It is a power supply that is capable of delivering a certain current before the voltage starts to drop or it overheats or switches off the output.
Per definition, because the power is the result of voltage and current, where only the voltage is regulated by the power supply. The connected device is responsible to limit the current.