725th post: Annoying power bank

(A short quick post here when I realized it was getting too long while writing series of tweets.)

Just bought another power bank case without cells as replacement of my oldest power bank with 4 cells, but the next oldest that is still working (2 cells) has proven to be more annoying to use these days. I have opened it up before and know it uses two li-ion 18650 cells. The same cells used in laptops with removable battery and Tesla cars.

Part of the case comes off on removing charging cable on the USB micro-B end. On output end (USB standard-A), some plugs are either too loose or huge to fit it in properly without a pass through device like a USB charge doctor, which in itself adds to the bulk and consumes more power.

I thought its "discreet charge indicators" was neat, but proved annoying to tell if charging when looking at the opposite side. The wordings on it has faded away, so you can't tell which side the indicators are at as the design looks similar on both ends.

Even more annoying, the indicators are a series of 3 blue LEDs. What the indicators are fairly easy to understand, but:
  • 3 indicators means more ambiguity of its actual charge than those with more
  • Blue, the colour it uses, is one of the hardest LED colours for me to be able to see. The other being white.
  • The jump between solid 1 flashing 1, and solid 2 flashing 1, (all 3 solid while charging means fully charged) is a lot quicker than flashing 1 to solid 1 flashing 1. This made me doubt that one light represents a third of total capacity. This is a lot more noticeable when charging via my solar panels, if I could see the indicator.
Well, like I said earlier, this thing is my second oldest power bank still in use, so some of the problems I mentioned could possible be due to usage over time. Circuitry inside probably wasn't properly calibrated.

It also felt like it wasn't holding as much charge as it did when new, but no way of telling without being able to measure capacity. Owing to the way the cells are wired up inside (welded to a metal strip connected together), measuring the cells means a one-way disassembly, unless I feel like soldering the joints with wires, if that's possible.

The new (empty) power bank case is able to hold 5 cells. There could be a lot of empty space. Can't combine both old power banks without leaving out 1 behind since there aren't at least 6 slots. Without knowing the capacity at this moment, I can't say that I could just fill in the the blanks from elsewhere.

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