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Review, Teardown: Blitzwolf BW-P12 10000mAh 2xUSB-A+USB-C Power Bank Review: ZMI zPower Trio (HA932) 65W 2xUSB-C+USB-A Desktop Charger - Note: Potential Issues of Using a USB Powerbank as a UPS Posted on September 3, 2021 by lui_gough On my recent review of the Blitzwolf BW-P12 10000mAh Power Bank, a reader commented asking whether that particular power bank could be used as a makeshift uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for USB-powered devices. This is an excellent question and one I've always wanted to convey some of my thoughts about, so I decided that it deserved its very own post. Does it? Does it not? If you want a simple answer, unfortunately, you're usually out of luck. When buying a power-bank, rarely do they say very much about whether they work as a UPS or not. Increasingly, products might occasionally state that they support pass-through charging, but that is not a universal practice and what that means in practice can affect certain applications. For example, the Blitzwolf BW-P12 is a great example - the manufacturer's website does not mention pass-through charging, but the iSmartware SW6208 datasheet states the following: The SW6208 supports charging the battery and supplying extern device simultaneously, and this function can be disabled if not needing. When only one port turns on, it supports fast charge input and output. When two or three ports turn on, it only supports 5V input and output. In this situation, charger hold voltage is set to 4.8V. if input voltage drops due to the weak power supply of adapter, charge current will automatically fall down so the input voltage holds to 4.8V and supplies extern device in priority. It would seem that from the datasheet, unless explicitly disabled by the manufacturer, the controller would support pass-through charging capability. But what does this mean in practice? The easiest way to know is to try it out. I enlisted my "on-loan" Rohde & Schwarz NGU401 SMU to act as a load on the output of the BW-P12, sinking a constant 500mA to simulate a moderately light load. I used my ZMI zPower Trio USB charger to provide power to the BW-P12 while monitoring the output voltage using a Rohde & Schwarz RTM3004 oscilloscope (although FastLog would have been sufficient for this purpose as well). [svg][bwp12-cload-achg-1024x659] The results are interesting to say the least. The above is the trace from a USB-C load attached to the power bank while a USB Micro-B charge cable is attached. The output voltage collapses to about 4.2V for 80ms, then down to absolutely nothing for 960ms. This means that whatever load is connected will see its power out of spec for about a second during a charger plug-in event. The output power does return after this, but sits at around 4.8V as the system tries to "balance" the power going into the battery and out to the load without overloading the power adapter. The output voltage does have a loss because of the resistance of the MOSFETs in the power path as well. [svg][bwp12-aload-cchg-1024x659] Doing the same but instead having the load on the USB-A port and the charger be on the USB-C port results in a slightly more favourable result of no output for about 125ms. This is a much shorter time, but when combined with the 80ms of 4.2V, means that the attached device will be exposed to out of specification power for about a fifth of a second. Herein lies the problem - just because you have pass-through charging does not mean that your output is uninterrupted. If you're just powering some system that needs to be running and could handle short power interruptions, this might be acceptable (subject to other caveats which I will explain in a moment). But if your device absolutely requires uninterrupted power, such as a Raspberry Pi that would incorrectly shut-down with possible data-corruption results, then this is not going to work on its own. You could design something to work around this to some degree - perhaps a nice Schottky diode feeding a large supercapacitor bank with some charge current limiting to avoid over-current during charging, but now you've literally designed yourself a small UPS! Design Matters Perhaps it is a good question to ask ourselves why this behaves the way that it does. The typical application schematic in the datasheet is of great help. [svg][sw6208-typical-applic-1024x767] In this particular design, all the inputs and outputs are essentially commoned together into one net, but each of the inputs and outputs has a MOSFET switch allowing for some control and is directly connected to the IC so it can sense if the port is attached to a charger or load. The IC is also the only switching controller in the whole show, so it's going to be busy thinking about what to do. From what I can gather, while supplying a load, the unit is boosting from the Li-Poly cell to generate a steady output at the requested voltage. Once a charger is attached, the IC can detect the presence of voltage and signalling lines - it has to stop boosting the voltage (hence the drop to ~4.2V), turn off the output (well, not necessarily but it does), start the charging into the cell (perhaps acting like a buck converter) and then turn the output back on. This power path management takes time, in part to ensure the right currents/voltages are monitored and that inrush is controlled, thus the output drops-out for a bit. But it does not have to be like this - some of my favourite Xiaomi power banks are not designed this way. Take for example, the Xiaomi Power Bank Pro - this one does not use an "all-in-one" chip and is actually built on a more "discrete" principle. [svg][2017111209140832-1024x362] [svg][2017111209100829-1024x356] By that, I mean that the unit has a separate charger and a separate boost converter, all orchestrated by a microcontroller. This means that they can operate independently - the two inductors also means that it's capable of different voltage fast-charge in and out simultaneously. The price for this is additional complexity. Indeed, I tried measuring this on the oscilloscope when the input was being connected and disconnected - absolutely no interruption whatsoever. A straight line is not so exciting, so I didn't bother with a screen-grab. Oh My! Look at the Time! Having just discrete elements is not sufficient to keep things running smoothly. The simple matter of "balance" means that you need to ensure the charging rate is at least as fast as the depletion rate, otherwise the pack may deplete itself under load. This is especially relevant to older generic power-banks which may have used cheaper TP4056 linear regulator charge ICs which often had currents of 800-1000mA into the cell. But you can also be bitten by another "feature" of charger ICs - the charge safety timeout. Most charger ICs on their own expect to be charging a cell without any additional load on the cell. However, if you're operating like a UPS, you will be taking current from the power bank. In an ideal design, the power path may be able to juggle demands assuming a single voltage and have the load served from the input power, but this is not the way the Xiaomi power bank above works. Instead, in that power bank, it behaves more like an "online" UPS - everything coming in has to go through the charger and into the cell, and everything that does out has to come from the cell and through the boost converter. While this ensures a clean and steady output, it comes with efficiency losses. Many charger ICs have a safety timeout which is usually set to some time between eight hours to under 40 hours to ensure they do not keep putting energy into a potentially partially-shorted cell. This is to reduce the risk of catastrophic danger from lithium-ion cells. I've not used my Xiaomi power bank as a UPS for long enough to know if there is a time-out, but I do know many standalone charger ICs do have a timeout, in which case the charger will simply stop running leaving the cells to deplete for no good reason. Treating Li-Ion/Li-Poly Batteries Well Another issue with the whole concept is simply that it will often abuse the lithium-ion and lithium-polymer cells. This is because they are usually designed to be charged in a CC/CV regime, terminating at a set current level to avoid overcharging. When you run them in a UPS role in the way the Xiaomi power bank does, then it is exposed to the heat from the circuitry and is going to experience "micro-cycling" at a high-state of charge. In fact, it is well known that keeping Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries at high states of charge for long periods contributes to rapid loss of capacity and problems with swelling. My personal experience seems to show this is more severe for extended-voltage Li cells such as those used in the Xiaomi power banks and modern mobile phones which try to maximise energy storage density. The result is often swollen cells which present a safety risk. [svg][2020020217573213-1024x299] To treat the cells well requires sacrificing some capacity to reduce the voltage stress on the cells. I managed to dig up this table from a Samsung SDI datasheet for their INR18650-30Q cell, but the guidance is applicable in general for battery pack development: [svg][sam-sdi-data-inr18650-30q-694x1024] It may be slightly difficult to read, but I want you to notice the charging voltage for 4.20V and 4.35V termination voltage cells is recommended to be 4.00V or 4.05V for Energy Storage Systems (ESS) or Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) applications. The same threshold applies for extended voltage cells suggesting that high voltage stress from being maintained at high state-of-charge conditions are indeed likely the cause for a loss of capacity and swelling of Li-Poly packs especially. Unfortunately, most power banks prioritise extracting the maximum capacity from the cells and thus mostly have charger chips or controllers that are either fixed to a nominal 4.20V or 4.35V termination, or can be adjusted from 4.20V and up rather than allowing for lower capacity, greater safety and longer storage life. This is a big shame as most power banks are stored fully charged in anticipation of a need, and thus they are essentially sitting under high stress that causes them to degrade more rapidly in terms of cell capacity. Conclusion Understanding if a given power bank can perform the role of an uninterruptible power supply for USB devices is not an easy task, especially relying on manufacturer information alone. An advertised "pass-through charging" capability does not necessarily imply that the output is free of interruptions. Even if you did find a power bank that was seemingly capable of uninterruptible operation, this may not be under all conditions as the input charger IC could time-out on over-time protection. If it doesn't, what it may be doing is mistreating the lithium-ion/polymer cell enough that it will shorten its lifetime by holding it at a maximum state of charge, producing voltage stress on the cell which may contribute (along with temperature) to premature capacity loss and swelling of lithium-polymer cells. While there may be some power bank products that will seemingly operate in the UPS role, unless they have been carefully engineered to best avoid these pitfalls, they are unlikely to be reliable, safe or kind to the lithium-ion/polymer cells in the long-run and I would advise against long-term unmonitored use as an unhappy lithium battery can be a pretty catastrophic event. Like it? Share it! * Facebook * Twitter * Reddit * LinkedIn * More * * Tumblr * Pocket * * Pinterest * WhatsApp * * Telegram * Skype * * Related [svg][0843025] About lui_gough I'm a bit of a nut for electronics, computing, photography, radio, satellite and other technical hobbies. Click for more about me! View all posts by lui_gough - This entry was posted in Electronics and tagged battery, electronics, notes, power, power bank. Bookmark the permalink. - Review, Teardown: Blitzwolf BW-P12 10000mAh 2xUSB-A+USB-C Power Bank Review: ZMI zPower Trio (HA932) 65W 2xUSB-C+USB-A Desktop Charger - 3 Responses to Note: Potential Issues of Using a USB Powerbank as a UPS 1. [svg][99b3] Jeff Verive says: September 3, 2021 at 9:55 pm Interesting read! It's interesting that 4.8V is the output voltage choice for pass-thru charging; perhaps this was chosen to still be within +/- 5% but near the lower end to reduce internal heating and minimize the power adapter load current? It's quite the balancing act! Reply + [svg][0843] lui_gough says: September 3, 2021 at 10:58 pm I suspect the rationale simply is that USB is supposed to be 4.75V to 5.25V by specification, so 4.80V is very close to the lower end. The USB BCS specifications tell us that devices should sense voltage to prevent overloading the adapter - the voltage of the adapter folds back as it approaches maximum load to facilitate this, so therefore the choice of voltage should be not too low otherwise the adapter may trip into OCP and shut down (i.e. no charge for you!). The BCS CDP spec also uses 4.75V as the "minimum" allowable operating voltage range, but the DCP spec is a lot more lenient in this regard but of course, lesser voltages will not be compliant with USB. So I suspect the difference between 4.75V and 4.80V (i.e. 50mV) is an allowance for the output MOSFET losses and current shunt under load. It is definitely a balancing act to get the power path working in such a way that you can prioritise the load but absorb excess capacity in the charger (up to the maximum input current limit of 2A/3A depending on connection) into the powerbank's cell. But things do get a little more complex still when you can consider that the controller IC may itself overheat and thermally fold-back the current to prevent damage to the chip. I'm not sure what will necessarily happen in that circumstance regarding the power path (perhaps battery charging current is the only thing folded back and the pass-through will be mostly unscathed, voltage rising slightly due to reduction in load on the USB power supply). - Gough Reply 2. [svg][edec] radellaf says: September 23, 2021 at 12:39 am Even if the power was passed through rather than going through the charger, the cells would still be kept at full charge. Possibly just above 4.15 V depending on the restart voltage for the charger. It's not ideal for long term life (though I'm not sure it creates any safety concerns in cylindrical cells) but the only consumer device I've ever seen that lets you pick a lower charge voltage is an older Lenovo laptop where you can configure 80% maximum charge when on AC. Notably, the battery still works on that 10 year old laptop. I have too many power banks because I buy them out of curiosity and I do discharge them to about 80% or three-out-of-four LEDs before putting them on the shelf. Might top them off for hurricane season. Reply Error: Comment is Missing! 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Cam Sync 1080p V2 + Random: Site Update, Expos, Transport Havoc, Payphones, 3D Printer Fix, Unhappy Meals & More + Analysis: Australia Unites Flood Appeal Freeview Simulcast (12 Mar 2022) + Quick Review: Wowstick SD Combo Manual Screwdriver Set (PD01020271) * September 2021 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 << Aug Oct >> * Archives + October 2022 (3) + September 2022 (4) + August 2022 (7) + July 2022 (11) + June 2022 (6) + May 2022 (4) + April 2022 (9) + March 2022 (10) + February 2022 (8) + January 2022 (6) + December 2021 (16) + November 2021 (6) + October 2021 (8) + September 2021 (7) + August 2021 (9) + July 2021 (7) + June 2021 (6) + May 2021 (13) + April 2021 (13) + March 2021 (10) + February 2021 (9) + January 2021 (12) + December 2020 (15) + November 2020 (1) + October 2020 (9) + September 2020 (14) + August 2020 (13) + July 2020 (7) + June 2020 (13) + May 2020 (14) + April 2020 (18) + March 2020 (2) + February 2020 (9) + January 2020 (21) + December 2019 (10) + November 2019 (8) + October 2019 (14) + September 2019 (8) + August 2019 (12) + July 2019 (9) + June 2019 (6) + May 2019 (4) + April 2019 (12) + March 2019 (23) + February 2019 (20) + January 2019 (23) + December 2018 (11) + November 2018 (7) + October 2018 (4) + September 2018 (3) + August 2018 (19) + July 2018 (6) + June 2018 (5) + May 2018 (21) + April 2018 (7) + March 2018 (8) + December 2017 (12) + November 2017 (19) + October 2017 (1) + July 2017 (4) + June 2017 (16) + May 2017 (6) + January 2017 (11) + December 2016 (30) + November 2016 (13) + October 2016 (15) + September 2016 (19) + August 2016 (16) + July 2016 (8) + June 2016 (31) + May 2016 (14) + April 2016 (21) + March 2016 (13) + February 2016 (17) + January 2016 (19) + December 2015 (20) + November 2015 (12) + October 2015 (15) + September 2015 (4) + August 2015 (12) + July 2015 (22) + June 2015 (14) + May 2015 (21) + April 2015 (25) + March 2015 (14) + February 2015 (16) + January 2015 (6) + December 2014 (11) + November 2014 (12) + October 2014 (19) + September 2014 (11) + August 2014 (21) + July 2014 (18) + June 2014 (20) + May 2014 (12) + April 2014 (7) + March 2014 (23) + February 2014 (18) + January 2014 (16) + December 2013 (15) + November 2013 (14) + October 2013 (21) + September 2013 (13) + August 2013 (17) + July 2013 (26) + June 2013 (26) + May 2013 (11) + April 2013 (17) + March 2013 (31) + February 2013 (27) + January 2013 (36) + December 2012 (31) + November 2012 (39) + October 2012 (3) + February 2012 (18) + January 2012 (1) * Tags + analysis + audio + battery + cheap + computer hardware + computer storage + ebay + electronics + element14 + event + experiment + flash + flash memory + improvise + led + lighting + made-in-china + mobile + networking + new stuff + opinion + photography + power + power bank + powerbank + project + public transport + radio + random + repair + review + rf + roadtest + salvage + storage + tablet + teardown + tested + test equipment + testing + travel + usb + video + vintage stuff + visited * Recent Comments + Charles Hampton on Note: Linear Regulator Woes - When is an AMS1117 not an AMS1117? + Jim P. on Contact Me + Frank E Allen on Tech Flashback: Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows Version 1.1 (1992) + Alo Alp on Project: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION of V.90/V.92 Modem Sounds + Gregg Eshelman on Quick Review: Cheap Unbranded 4-port USB 3.0 Hub from eBay + Leigh on Quick Review: Cheap Unbranded 4-port USB 3.0 Hub from eBay + lui_gough on Repair: Apple Macintosh PowerBook 100 "Gotta re-cap 'em all!" + lui_gough on Tech Flashback: Before ATAPI CD-ROMs, were proprietary interfaces + Zerosquare on Tech Flashback: Before ATAPI CD-ROMs, were proprietary interfaces + Alex Shepherd on Repair: Apple Macintosh PowerBook 100 "Gotta re-cap 'em all!" + Chris on Project: Read, Collect & Decode SD Card CID Register Data + Rual Jesse on Review & Testing: Comsol 11000mAh Dual Output Power Bank + John on Teardown: Grandcell Rechargeable Alkaline Manganese Battery Charger (GBTL208MB) + Nick on Project: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION of V.90/V.92 Modem Sounds + Nick on Project: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION of V.90/V.92 Modem Sounds + lui_gough on Quick Review: ZKETECH ZKE Battery Rack (4-Wire Kelvin AAA/AA/18650 Test Fixture) + Eric on Quick Review: ZKETECH ZKE Battery Rack (4-Wire Kelvin AAA/AA/18650 Test Fixture) + TheDragonFire961 on Project: Recover a WinXP-based Instrument Control PC w/Bad Hard Disk + lui_gough on Quick Review: Lenovo Smart Filament Bulb (G95/ E27/806lm, SE-14BEA) + Krzys on Quick Review: Lenovo Smart Filament Bulb (G95/E27/ 806lm, SE-14BEA) * Meta + Log in + Entries feed + Comments feed + WordPress.org [INS::INS] Gough's Tech Zone All content (c) 2012 - 2022 Gough Lui unless otherwise stated. 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