Can the outputs from the Power Core be combined to create a larger Voltage, e.g. 2-outputs for (10V @ 2.5A), or 3-outputs for (15v @ 2.5A)?
If they aren’t isolated, could anyone recommend a circuit or upconverter to perform the aggregation?
Combining outputs in serial, Power Core II 20000
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Yikes. Do not try.
If you connect in parallel, the current from one of them is forced to flow through the other one, so the wires inside each Powercore designed to hand say 2.5A would then experience 5A, and so significant risk of electronics failure. Anker include circuit protection so probably they can handle a degree of isolating themselves - they’d shut themselves off (probably).
Next: the electronics is right next to Lithium, you have a carefully engineered barrier inside the Lithium cell to store energy which if fails…
The way to get more voltage can done in 2 ways:
- build a different battery, you connect more cells in parallel. Here, electronics are not involved, just wires and cells and you can put thicker wires with more insulation between the cells to handle the accumulating voltage.
- use a converter to up the voltage (but steps down the amps) like a boost converter. Anker include a boost converter to take the voltage from the cell and up to 5V. The cell moves between 3.7V and 4.2V (typically) and the regulated boost converter turns into a nearly constant 5V.
If you did want to aggregate the energy, you could theoretically run these in parallel, then the energy from one is not flowing through the other, so you aggregate the current but they all output 5V. You could then run a boost converter to create then any voltage you wanted, $7 converters can make upto about 30V. I do not recommend this either as the boost converter inside each Anker Powercore is regulated to make approximately 5V so at any particular time you have different voltages and so one of the Anker batteries is being worked by the other Anker batteries and so bring forward their failure.
There are products, not from Anker which instead of output a fixed 5V, output a variable voltage. The advantage is primarily for laptops who want typically 19V. Such products, as is sold in far less quantity, are about 10x the price of Anker’s typical price.
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I’d love to see Anker bring out a smaller version of a smaller PowerHouse like a mini version so we can easily put it in our backpacks OR have something similar but can change the voltage so it’s variable? But I’m not sure if that’s safe or not. Safety is always first so.
If Anker offered a variable voltage output device so its a DC-DC 5V-30V type with a set of outlet port shapes, then it would propel Anker into the business region above its current consumer market.
Such things exist now but expensive.
What I do is I change the device I own to match what is a commodity power source, I’d rather spend $300 on a tablet which takes USB output than $330 (at its lowest price) on a 434Wh which has the DC-AC-DC inefficiencies.
For example, I hear mention of powering laptops when camping. A $330 (lowest price) Powerhouse is likely producing about 300Wh of energy in the laptop, and the Powerhouse is 4Kg and the laptop about 1Kg for 5Kg combined. A small tablet, say, my $89 Nexus 7 2013 is about 14Wh and my $99 Moto G4 Play 10Wh vs a Powercore 10000 37Wh for (typically) $20 is far more portable and lower cost. Even if its not sunny often, a $40-$60 solar panel will produce about 60Wh/day on a sunny day so between a lower power phone, a lower power tablet, a lower power battery, you’re already talking you spent less money on lighter weight devices than the cost to seek to power a larger device.
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