Blinking Lights all the time and won't charge devices. Time to recycle?

#1

My 10400 has been blinking nonstop for days, sort of like it’s charging, even though I’m not charging it. It also won’t charge any other devices. Any ideas on what to do next? Is there some way to reset the thing? Is it just time to recycle it? This is my fourth Anker PowerCore, but the first time I’ve had this kind of odd trouble. Thanks.

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#2

It is probably a dud unit now, but what you describe gives me an idea - the button is stuck.

Try pressing and wiggling it and blowing hard to unstick it.

Is it out of 18 months warranty?

#3

That’s a great guess, but the button action feels as good as new. I’ve been jogging it quite a bit (trying to fine some sort of reset sequence) and it’s made no difference. Yes, it’s out of warranty by about 8 months, which is a real shame. My other units are all older and still going strong. This is actually the newest one in my “fleet.” sigh Thanks for taking the time.

#4

Looks like a dud, sorry out of warranty.

I don’t know the history of this battery and I’m not implying anything about you specifically but a few tips for anyone on making batteries last longest:

  • when not expecting to use for some months then store them at 40%-60% charged (e.g. 4 lights store with 2 lights)

  • keep cool, such as in a draw which doesn’t see the sun, not hot, not cold (so indoors like in a room people live in)

  • even with care, batteries begin to seriously degrade from 2 years old and it is unit dependent, so might be dead at 3 years others good still 5 years, because cells are often connected in series so one dud cell brings the whole battery down so its a bit of luck.

  • this one of the reasons I personally prefer smaller batteries as a big expensive one with lots of cells can fail earlier due to more parts internally to fail.

  • some people break open and test each cell individually and repurpose good cells and recycle dud cells.

Curious - in your “fleet” is this the biggest? Bigger ones have more parts to fail so should statistically fail more often earlier.

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#5

Nope, aside from one that’s “lipstick” size, the rest are all similar in capacity. I guess it’s time to replace it. Thanks for the conversation.

#6

Have you tried to actually charge it? While it could be faulty, maybe all it needs is to sit on a charger for 24 hours. This might be enough to jolt it back

#7

This may seem random, but I resolved my specific issue this way. I have an iPhone X. When I reset the blue button ring it would start charging normally until I got a notification. Then it would start to blink again and of course not charge. So I simply turned off the left side volume switch to be on mute. Haven’t had a problem since.

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