battery

  1. hardware
  1. Power banks
    1. Specification
    2. Ali Express stuff
    3. Anker
    4. Belkin
    5. Sharge
    6. TOFU
    7. ZMI
    8. Xtar
    9. Folomov
  2. UPS
    1. Battery capacity estimates
      1. Upstairs office
      2. Downstairs
    2. Possible hardware
    3. Actual hardware
  3. See also

See also USB-C docks and power supplies blog post.

Power banks

Specification

Minimum requirements:

Nice to have:

One thing to keep in mind with user-swappable battery banks is that even if the capacity itself isn't that big, it's possible to carry an large number of (full) batteries and swap them along, or rotate them in another charger (although another charger is then required).

Ali Express stuff

There are a number of power banks with user-replaceable batteries on Ali Express. See this 18650/21700 PD45W power pack or 200W (!!). Came from this discussion. The 200W might be a bit too bulky and not airline-friendly. The 45W is pretty ugly and too bulky.

This model boasts room for 16 18650 but only 15W output. 15$ though. 90$ batteries included. Recommended by this reddit user, found in this thread.

This model is much more promising: 8x18650 batteries, 38.4Ah, PD 100W.

Note: Ali Express also has this USB tester which could be used to compare battery packs and chargers.

Anker

Anker is widely recommended. The Anker 737 is pretty nice:

The Anker prime is slightly cheaper (130$) and shorter (124.6 x 53.3 x 48.26mm). 100W, 20Ah.

Belkin

I have bought a number of Power banks from the local Best Buy. As typical from Best Buy, all of the products I find in my order history are gone from their website, but the current (late 2023) equivalent would probably be this 10Ah power bank.

Specs:

Poids : 222 g

The actual device I have on hand here is:

Sharge

Sharge also has interesting products, even if a little flashy and expensive, their Storm2 charger looks like it has replaceable batteries, and this post seems to say it's possible to replace them, but this teardown is disappointing, and doesn't even show how to replace the batteries. This comment says they are "welded in", although that might be an exaggeration.

Specs:

They have a crowdfunding for a new model as well, unclear how user-serviceable that is.

They have a slim version with less capacity (20Ah), less ports (1x each USB-C USB-A) but can still deliver 100W. It also claims to be built with Samsung 18650 batteries (but not if it's replaceable) but cheaper (150$).

This Framework user is very happy with his Storm2.

Update: I ended up buying a Storm2 for now.

TOFU

I bought the MASA power bank which promise a 68.4Wh supply so, in theory, could act as a second battery for my framework laptop. I'll believe it when I see it though. It also acts as a wireless charger which would be nice if I had any wireless charging thing. It ships in a nice case and a USB-C wire with two adapters that actually fit in the case if you roll them up just so.

Specifications:

A little bulky. Doesn't seem to actually charge anything, hugely disappointing.

Update: in contact with tech support, it seems I am misinterpreting the output of the LEDs. Also, when the battery is fully discharged, it can't charge fast with USB-C.

Here are the LED meanings I could gather:

The LED button can be pushed for two seconds to reset the protection circuits.

Update 2: even with that knowledge, the last time I tried to use this, I failed. I was simply trying to charge a Pixel 6a phone, and it wouldn't charge. Garbage.

ZMI

Found out about the company in this post on the Framework forum referring to some battery pack of theirs they were happy with.

One charger I was puzzled by is this combined charger / battery. It's a 45W charger with a small (6700mAh, so about presumably 25Wh). It has a USB-A and USB-C port. Otherwise they have a single 30W 10Ah battery which can presumably charge a Framework laptop in an hour.

They're also doing this crowdfunding campaign for "ZMI No. 20: The World's Most Powerful PowerPack 25000mAh Battery w/ 3 PD Ports | Revolutionary 210W Max Output | 100W USB-C/USB-A | Fast Charge". That product is actually "shipping" but is not on their main store page yet, and it's not possible to buy it on the IndieGogo page either.

Interestingly, it seems to embed a 21700 battery, similar to the 18650 but more compact and apparently used in Tesla cars, see also this comparison with the 18650. This gives at least some promise that the batteries could be eventually changed, although there's no promise on the repairability of this thing, which I would assume to be poor unless proven otherwise.

Xtar

This thread pointed at the PBS2 charger which features swappable batteries, but is limited to ~25W output if I read it right.

30$.

Folomov

An extreme case is the Folomov A1 which is just two terminals that you connect to both end of a battery. Tiny, basically the size of the battery, but then it's only one battery, so only 5W charging, which is very slow. Upside: it can also charge the battery from an external power source. Review

UPS

Battery capacity estimates

Upstairs office

item DC V DC A DC W AC V AC A VA rated VA
ATA 5 2 10 120 0.3 36. 23-36
phone 6 0.4 2.4 120 0.150 18.
cordless 6 0.3 1.8 120 0.025 3.
Omnia 12 3.33 39.96 120 1.5 180.
Modem 12 2 24 120 0.7 84.
Total 78.16 321. 320?

Setup on the APC BR1000MS (1000VA), which estimates ~3h standby time, with about 18W in actual use.

This survived for about 2h30 minutes during a 3h power outage on 2021-06-09, with indoor temperature of about 27C.

Downstairs

server should take less than 500W AC, according to the specs. But according to what's actually inside, it should be much less:

item rating count rating count
Motherboard 50 W 1 50 W
CPU 65 W 1 65 W
Memory 3 W 1 3 W
HDDs 9 W 4 36 W
SSDs 3 W 2 6 W
Total - - 160 W

Actual power usage, according to the UPS downstairs (APC BX1500M 1500VA), fluctuates between 60 and 80 watts, with about 50 minutes of standby time.

Possible hardware

See also pc parts picker for this, cheapest rack-mount 1500KVA UPS seems to be the cyberpower CPS1500AVR at 585$CAD at the time of writing, but at that price you don't even get an LCD, for that you need 640$.

Actual hardware

I ended up ordering this from Amazon (yes, I know):

See also

Created . Edited .