Average Life of a Power Bank

I purchased an Anker power bank around 4 years ago and it no longer holds a charge. The power bank probably went through around 280 charge cycles. You guys?

Edit: 10,000 mAh power bank

I don’t know about that specific model, but many Lithium batteries will hold a reduced charge after a few hundred cycles, but it should still be more than 2/3 of the original capacity. If it isn’t holding a charge at all there’s likely a problem.

you should maintain it by using and charging it at least once a month.
NEVER over-discharge it.
store around 80% charged if not used for a long time.

I guess it’s dead because of over-discharging.

Pretty much every lithium ion battery has an overcharge/discharge protection functionality. That’s probably not what killed the battery.

A power bank should generally last for several years. One thing you need to watch out for is for a complete discharge. The power bank will lose a little bit of charge each month it is not used. If a battery is in a discharged state for too long, it’s lifespan can be significantly reduced. More info at: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

1 Like

I have a trick that I use to keep my power banks healthy and ready. I have a Belkin Wemo that I’ve connected a power strip to. The power strip has a bunch of USB chargers plugged into it. Each one has a cable coming off it that I managed with a staple gun and zip ties under my desk. The cables then come up to my desk top where I keep my power banks. I set the Belkin Wemo on a schedule to turn on every few days for an hour and then turn off automatically. This keeps the batteries topped off with out constantly cycling them. If I have a few batteries that are empty, I just simply turn on the Wemo manually and let it charge them for a while and resume the normal on/off schedule. Hope this helps.

The longest about of time I’ve had my Anker is about 3 years. I used to use it all the time but because it’s bulky I have 2 other Anker external batteries I squelch them out for.