this is a USB power bank I bought from
TK Max and I've already opened it as you
can see from the big skid mark here
because sadly um well firstly it's only
well the only ones they had in the shop
in this size were only available in this
rather hideous shade of blue and it's
painted onto white plastic they're
basically they've taken the cases and
just spray painted them with color which
uh I think I prefer Sol the colored
plastic it's dead easy to scratch this
this one um it comes a little in
instruction
manual and the reason I've opened it and
before uh actually doing this usual sort
of tear it apart type video the reason I
opened it before was because the the
instruction manual is very clearly
designed for lots of random power Banks
and helpfully says things like um the
red LED light the inside the power
doctor will light up red whenever it is
charging and note unless specified
otherwise on packaging power bank does
not have a specific indicator show when
it's done charging it actually has the
full bar graph of charging indicators
here which aren't very visible uh the
LEDs inside look great well they look
very flickery because they're being
Multiplex but they're very bright and
sharp inside but all they've done here
is they've drilled little recesses into
the white plastic case um and they've
got little partitions here as light well
light boxes I suppose really and it
means it's visible but it's not super
bright it's not as bright as it could be
it's really sharp inside it's got a red
and blue LED under the the power button
here and again you can see the blue
glowing randomly through it but you
can't see the red at all because the
blue plastic the blue blue paint in the
plastic blocks that light
completely the unit has an LED torch
just a single 5mm LED in the front you
press and hold the button and it goes on
press and hold the button it goes
off but um getting back to the
instructions it it seems to be generic
instructions and it comes with all these
warnings about
uh not charging for more than uh 3 to 5
hours and definitely don't charge it for
more than 6 hours and it may get warm
and explode in flames and stuff like
that and I thought really um so just out
of Interest it made me think is this
maybe got a charging problem that you
know if you leave it on trickle charge
all the time just well it's lithium so
it goes up to the 4.2 volt hopefully and
uh then goes into standby mode uh and
won't push any more current into the
cells at that point and I tested it I
put a voltmeter on it and I monitor the
current and it shuts off on 4.2 volts
and uh I had a we note
somewhere which I've probably lost now
yeah I've lost the note uh which is a
shame really because it had data in the
chips hold on a
second no I've misplaced that bit of
paper with the dat which is a shame
really h no I haven't yes it's it
charged up to 4.2 volts and then after I
just left it on charging for ages and
then measure the voltage again and it
actually drop down to 4178 so it has the
fullu protection you can leave it
charging it also says things like
um where is it where is it uh it
suggests if you plug it into a high
current uh Power
Source uh where is
it capable of like 2.1 amps or 3
amps ah
yes make sure the wall adapter rating is
1 amp wall adapter if the wall adapter
is UL 2.1 amp rating or higher it may
not charge the device correctly and may
overheat the device that's bollocks
because as long as it's getting 5 volts
and I have tried on a high current
charger and a a low current charger as
long as it's getting Vols it charges
about the the usual 780 mamps uh sort of
region so it's charging at less than
lamp on whatever lo you put it
on
um but yeah so this is just a generic
guide and it makes this look really you
know if you read the guide it's like oh
God I don't want to touch it it's going
to explode but it's not it's perfectly
safe well apart from this uh the red uh
the positive tag is very close it's got
a bit of Captain tape over it but but
it's very close um and it's up a plastic
uh positioner but it's close to the
Shell of this connector the USB output
so let's take this all out because it
comes out quite
easily and if I click the button now
you'll see the LEDs really are uh
they're very bright they're very sharp
looking it's quite nice prefer out the
back box actually now this thing oddly
has it's got an anonymous chip here
which is the controller it's
microcontroller probably and then it's
got these two eight pin chips and the
two8 pin
chips uh are an APM
4953 and a
9926 now let's see I I'm sure
I logged some data down in those yes I
did the APM 4953 chip is a dual P
Channel mosfet and the
926a is a dual end Channel mosfet and I
see that one of them is uh basically
doing the switching side cuz it's
connected directly uh to the um the
inductor here but I'm not sure what the
other one's
for I thought maybe it's for isolating
the battery but then if you look down at
this end it's got two six pin chips it's
got
a
um dw1 which is the lithium charge and
discharge control and it's got It's us
little partnership the 825s which is a
dual end Channel mosfet used to
disconnect the battery so um I'm not
sure what this other one's
for yeah
odd but um other than that uh other than
the fact the case of the Hideous color
and it's barely the LEDs are barely
visible through it other than that it
actually seems quite a decent chunky
little pack I've not checked it for
capacity yet but um all the other ones
I've had from the same sort of stable so
to speak have had the the full capacity
it's not the we Chinese ones that give
you the 1 amp hour
cells but yeah that's decent enough it
looks all right I'll be giving it some
use oh there is one thing that is a
slight
niggle if you plug in a low
load it does that thing where it detects
the load and it turns on and then the wi
LEDs
start uh lighting and stuff like that
well obviously it's fully charged now so
they're not going to do the show the
bargraph level but uh this one uh is
obviously looking for a modest load to
keep it running because this little um
light here just doesn't provide enough
load and after a while it just turns off
and it'll turn it it glows very dimly
you can just barely see it glowing
because it's obviously testing to see uh
if you know there's a load there but
when you take it out and put it back in
again it kicks it off again but uh so
it's only suitable for modestly highish
loads but yeah it's it's a nice enough
design it's quite a compact design but
it still has plenty of sort of room
around the circuit board and it all fits
very well and it's got nice robust
plastic fins but U yeah it's it's okay
it's not too bad apart from the the
little niggles I have mentioned and the
Really
scaremongering instructions that
basically say it's going to explode in
your hands it's just weird