Bushwalk Australia

I recently posted a review of an Elcheapo Chinese power bank viewtopic.php?f=21&t=19403 and even though for its price I am happy with it, I decided to buy a better quality power bank.

I was given this link by another member http://www.mushtato.com.au/xiaomi-16000 ... R-yqFzTN_j and it came recommended so I bought one.



My first impressions were that it is a very high quality item. To compare this one and the elcheapo aliexpress power bank is like chalk and cheese as far as build quality goes. And the same when comparing its capacity.
Unlike the cheapy, (supposedly 50,000mah!) This one claims 16000mah and from my tests I can confirm it is a pretty reasonable claim.

Here are the results......

Day 1 35%-100%
Day 2 49%-100%
Day 3 20%-100%
Day 4 29%-100%
Day 5 41%-100%
Day 6 40%-100%
Day 7 55%-100%
Day 8 17%-100%
Day 9 23%-100%
Day 10 55%-89%......Power bank went flat.

So as you can see it charged my iPhone 6, 10 times. Sure it wasn't 10 charges from flat, but it is still an amazing little power bank.

Based on my simple theory of the power bank giving me 625% charge and given that the iPhone 6 has approx a 1900mah battery, this would tell me that the mah of the power bank is around 12000mah or so, give or take for losses.

If you need a lot of battery power over several days I highly recommend this unit. I am lead to believe it has quality batteries inside and I can vouch for its built quality. It is an alloy body and it looks like it would be designed by Apple or another reputable type company.

Ah, Xiaomi. Named brand can still make a difference.

GPSGuided wrote:Ah, Xiaomi. Named brand can still make a difference.

Im not sure what you mean by this comment?

Xiaomi as you may know is one of, if not the largest smart phone and electronic gadget manufacturer in the world. Is that what you mean by name brand?

Yes Dan. That's exactly what I meant, an upcoming 'big' name brand there in China that even Tim Cook has recently made mentions of. Good to know that they are building their reputation with quality products. Earlier I was thinking of picking up one of their lower cost Android phones to play with. Not to replace my trustworthy iPhone, just to 'play' with after much was talked about the interface and services they built.

Are they compatible with iPhone 5's?

So am I right in assuming that you charged the unit once to full capacity and it recharged your phone 10 times before it went flat?

No worries gps I was a little confused.....I am easily confused

Yes js they are a usb charger, they charge anything that uses usb up to 2.5amp I think is its specs.

Yes I fully charged it and yes it charged my phone iphone 6 as per my review, 10 times.

DanShell wrote:No worries gps I was a little confused.....I am easily confused

Yes js they are a usb charger, they charge anything that uses usb up to 2.5amp I think is its specs.

Yes I fully charged it and yes it charged my phone iphone 6 as per my review, 10 times.

Finally! One that does what i want it to do. Not bad for 50 clams either.

Thanks very much for the review

Watch out for cheap copies.
I read somewhere of there being many (eBay?) knock-offs around.
Buy from a reliable source.

I bought mine from the link I posted in the review. It was the real deal

Glad the battery pack is working as expected Dan!

I guessed it would charge the iPhone 6's 1810mAh 3.82V battery around 5-6 times (their advertising says 5 times).

I think when I PMed you, I said the maths gets a little confusing as the 16000mAh capacity is correct as it contains 5 x 3200mAh cells at 3.7V. But when it gets converted to the USB output it is around 12000mAh at 5V and then deduct the conversion efficiency and charging efficiency energy losses it will be less than that.

The other thing to note is that if you use only one port is, it is capable of 2.1A charging through either port which means faster charging for bigger phones/tablets. But if you use both ports to two devices simultaneously, the charge output is limited to 3.6A shared between the two ports, so you get a bit slower charging, but still faster than normal USB spec of 0.5A charging.

One question for you though - how long does it take to fully charge up? I was guessing around 8-10 hours if you have a wall charger that can output 2A.

highercountry wrote:Watch out for cheap copies.
I read somewhere of there being many (eBay?) knock-offs around.

There are definitely heaps of fake Xiaomi battery packs out there. Fortunately Xiaomi has a onetime serial number verification system http://www.mi.com/verify/ The number is on a scratch away label on the packaging, and can be verified once (so that the same number can't be reused and recycled by fakes).

JohnStrider wrote:Finally! One that does what i want it to do. Not bad for 50 clams either.

I'm not sure how often mushtato does discounts on these. When I PMed Dan, they were doing a special at $39.95 from memory. I might be heading overseas again this month, or next month, and I have checked the Xiaomi store in Singapore, and they are still doing it for around $32-35 delivered, so I might pick one up then.

Does this battery pack provide pass through charging? ie, does it allow you to charge devices while the battery pack itself is also being charged?

Thanks Keith Yes I am very happy with it. I am not 100% sure as to the time it takes to charge it but considering it charged overnight Id suggest your 8-10 hours sounds accurate.

Wheelman yes it does support pass through charging.

I'm interested in the effect cold would have on these things. Obviously I try too keep my batteries as warm as possible but the cold still wreaks havoc on them in the greater ranges. How cold does your freezer go down to Dan? I'm off in a few days time and am considering power banks instead of twelve or so GoPro batteries, probably will still take loads of batteries for the SLR though

horsecat wrote:I'm interested in the effect cold would have on these things. Obviously I try too keep my batteries as warm as possible but the cold still wreaks havoc on them in the greater ranges. How cold does your freezer go down to Dan? I'm off in a few days time and am considering power banks instead of twelve or so GoPro batteries, probably will still take loads of batteries for the SLR though

My freezer goes down to lower than you will want to go down to

I'm not sure yet how cold effects it, I'll find out in the next week or so when I've finished the OLT. Although it shouldn't go to far below zero up there.

I use 6 gopro batterys even with the power bank.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=maUodhQ_tLE

DanShell wrote:My freezer goes down to lower than you will want to go down to

Minus 40 degrees?

horsecat wrote:

DanShell wrote:My freezer goes down to lower than you will want to go down to

Minus 40 degrees?

Um no! Minus 18 perhaps are you off to Russia?

horsecat wrote:I'm interested in the effect cold would have on these things. Obviously I try too keep my batteries as warm as possible but the cold still wreaks havoc on them in the greater ranges.

Lithium primary (disposable) and Lithium ion batteries fare better than their alkaline or NiMH rechargeable counterparts in colder weather. Although performance will still be affected at extreme cold temps.

The Xiaomi pack uses either LG or Samsung cells. I've got the data sheet for one of the newer Samsung cells somewhere that shows discharge graphs against various temperatures under 0°C. From memory it was -15°C or -20°C that gave the best performance but once you went below that the performance went down. I'll try to find the datasheet.

Weight wise, it's probably about the same as carrying extra batteries, but cost wise it can be cheaper than getting original replacement batteries. I used my smaller 5000mAh USB battery pack to charge my Sony compact camera battery in-camera in Nepal and it worked out nicely. The compact only has a small 960mAh battery, and I only had two spares so used the USB battery pack to recharge. I've also used it to charge an external USB GoPro battery charger with 2 battery slots, but found when moving with it in my backpack, the battery connections to the charger can come loose (I'll use some duct tape next time).

DanShell wrote:

horsecat wrote:

DanShell wrote:My freezer goes down to lower than you will want to go down to

Minus 40 degrees?

Um no! Minus 18 perhaps are you off to Russia?

I've climbed near the former Soviet Union / China border before. That was even colder

Thanks Keithy. Any info would be appreciated.

My thinking is that it might be best to get these powerbank things as I'll no doubt update some of my electrics in the future so it might be better than buying more batteries for my existing units that will be useless down the track...why do companies always have to change batteries when they bring out new models etc ...anyway, I've got hundreds of dollars worth of batteries from old cameras etc that will never be used again. I have also considered solar but have always worried about the reliability etc

I found the datasheet, but misremembered the details. The discharge operating temperature is -20°C to 60°C.

The datasheet for a 2500mAh Samsung cell is here: - see page 12/20 for the low temp discharge graph. You can see at -15°C it performs better than at 0°C, and at -20°C performance is still better than at 0, but not as good as at -15°C.

However, the Xiaomi uses the 3200mAh cell (either LG or Samsung) and the datasheet for the Samsung is: . The datasheet for these bigger cells state a 50% relative capacity at -10°C vs 100% capacity at 25°C.

I'll have a look on the torch forums if anyone has done temperature tests on the higher capacity cells.

Thanks Keithy, that's very helpful

At room temperature I found that my I.Sound 16000mah battery pack could charge my phone battery (3200mah) from flat about 4 and a half times, so about 14500mAh. This xaomi charged it 3.5 times so just over 11000mAh

However the xaomi costed 32 bucks while the isound was closer to 100 bucks. Xaomi is charged via usb while I.Sound is only charged via mains. This is
Very handy when travelling because you don't need extra power adaptors. You can also charge the xaomi by solar power. The xaomi is lighter and smaller. With the high amp outputs, It's a very good choice.

I also bought 2 of the anker battery packs as reviewed on outdoor gear lab as top picks. They performed slightly better than the xaomi but not as good as the I.Sound, but again at 60+ bucks, you can't go past xaomi. Also the charge times: xaomi only took 7.5 hrs to charge from a 2amp output while my I.Sound would take closer to 19 hours to fully recharge. This makes a huge difference if you're using solar power to re juice it as there's not many areas you can get 19hrs of sunlight.

Mine just arrived and it's charging....well I think it is .....anyone get an English manual with it?
I assume 4 little tiny lights means fully charged and a blinking light means it's charging.
How about on and off? Any translation would be greatly appreciated thanks....

Post up an image of the 'manual' and see...

horsecat wrote:Thanks Keithy, that's very helpful

horsecat - I found I had the LG battery datasheet as well:

A few people have said their Xiaomi packs came with LG LGABE11865 3,200mAh (12Wh) cells, not Samsung ones.

The datasheet for the LGs show operating temperatures a between -20°C and 60°C. And at -10°C they state 70% capacity (based on 100% capacity at 23°C), a little better than the Samsung 3200mAh cell data sheet info.

Here the data sheet if you are interested.

My interest in the battery was triggered from reading this thread. I ordered one and received it last week. When it arrived, it had only one of the four LEDs lit when I connected up to the USB charger. The next LED beside it was flashing. It takes a long time to charge. Don't be surprised if it takes 24 hours . I monitored the energy going in with my USB power monitor and the charge current was about 900 mA. After about six hours the LED which was flashing became lit and the third one along started flashing. Eventually all four will come lit.

I did a interim test of using the Xaomi battery to charge 2 mobile phones. I monitored the energy taken from the battery through the USB power monitor. These phones were not anywhere near flat though. About 60% according to the phone display . Then I hooked Xaomi battery back up to the USB charger and 3 LEDs were lit with the fourth one flashing. I then monitored the energy through the USB monitor going back into the battery to bring it back to full charge. I was quite surprised that the energy that went back in was not much more than what was taken out. Seems to be very high efficiency here. I think something worth repeating but so far have not yet done it. About 5.4 WHr of energy was transferred from the Xaomi battery through the power monitor into both phones . To bring the Xaomi battery back to full charge required was 6.7 WHr. I charged the Xaomi battery from a SolarMonkey solar panel/battery . Done indoors so no solar contribution. I then monitored the power required to bring SolarMonkey back to full charge and it was over 12 WHr. At first glance this would indicate that this Xaomi battery circuits are far more efficient than the SolarMonkey battery circuits.

The phones I charged was a Samsung phone with the other and LG phone. With the Samsung phone the Xaomi battery and the phone itself reduced charge current when phone near hundred percent charge. Once phone said fully charged then current is negligible. However I noted with the LG phone that it was still charging at 3 W through the USB monitor even though the phone said fully charged.

I connected up to a Sony action camera and it behaved different again. Once the action camera was fully charged the Xaomi battery shut down completely. No power at the output terminal so USB monitor display went dead. I'd not seen this behaviour with anything else I've connected the battery up to. To resurrect at power at the Xaomi battery output ports, requires that button to be pushed. So that's my guess that the purpose of the button on the device is that by pushing the button, the LEDs will light to show you how much capacity there is in the battery and also put power onto the output USB port.

Canberra Trekker wrote:My interest in the battery was triggered from reading this thread. I ordered one and received it last week. When it arrived, it had only one of the four LEDs lit when I connected up to the USB charger. The next LED beside it was flashing. It takes a long time to charge. Don't be surprised if it takes 24 hours . I monitored the energy going in with my USB power monitor and the charge current was about 900 mA. After about six hours the LED which was flashing became lit and the third one along started flashing. Eventually all four will come lit........................

....................No power at the output terminal so USB monitor display went dead. I'd not seen this behaviour with anything else I've connected the battery up to. To resurrect at power at the Xaomi battery output ports, requires that button to be pushed. So that's my guess that the purpose of the button on the device is that by pushing the button, the LEDs will light to show you how much capacity there is in the battery and also put power onto the output USB port.

Thanks for these comments Canberra Trecker...........I'm finding out the same on charging....I was beginning to think it wouldn't fully charge and seemed to be stuck on no.3 light flashing for a very long time maybe over 6 hours.....it just takes time and no.4 is flashing now so that is a relief.
On the power button....it doesn't seem to be an on/off power button for charging, as you say more of a charge check button. Disconnecting the charge supply is the only way to turn the the charge level lights off.

I imagine you have the same comprehensive (if you read Chinese) owners manual that I have.

I do like the unit though and there are some good write ups on the genuine ones as well as how to recognise a genuine one which these are.
I haven't charged anything yet but I have a USB AA/AAA charger on the way as well as leads for my phone and 3SIXT camera.
This will be good. The only draw back is that it's a little weighty.

If anyone is interested, the seller Mushtato is doing these on sale again for $39.95 http://www.mushtato.com.au/xiaomi-16000 ... r-275.html.

If you buy 2-4, they come down to $37.95 ea.

Canberra Trekker wrote:It takes a long time to charge. Don't be surprised if it takes 24 hours . I monitored the energy going in with my USB power monitor and the charge current was about 900 mA.

If you use an AC USB power supply that can provide 2A output, you should be able to get the charging time down. 24 hours charging would seem to imply that your USB power plug is providing less than 900mA.

Regarding the power button, I believe the Xiaomi uses this Texas Instruments TPS2513 USB Dedicated Charging Port Controller (http://www.ti.com/product/tps2513#diagrams) which controls the auto detects the USB voltage and current required by the device plugged in. So it should start charging automatically when a smart device is plugged in.

If I'm not mistaken, the "charging" led lights don't display when a device is plugged in?

Rats I only bought mine a week ago!

The lights intermittently flash showing the level of charge remaining keithy and you don't have to press the on button for the charging to start.