Is there a way to control Power Delivery direction on Powercore Elite III?

#1

I have a Powercore Elite III 87W I’d like to use to charge a chromebook. If I use a USB-A port on the power bank it works. If I use a USB-C port on both sides they will decide I want to charge the power bank from my chromebook - NOT what I want. Is there some magic incantation of button presses that will change this? I should be able to charge my chromebook much faster if I use a USB-C port on both sides but the charging goes the wrong way.

Alternatively, is there some gadget I can put in between the devices to spoof them into sending power the other direction?

It’s also possible there is a setting in my chromebook to control this, but I haven’t found it.

Open to any thoughts! Thanks in advance.

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#2

Typically if you want the Powercore to send power you simply press the power button so lights on, then quickly plug into device.

If lights off then it will receive power.

So the magic incantation is just a brief tap of the button.

A brief search finds this

It was the first hit when searching.

http://community.anker.com/search?context=topic&context_id=90369&q=Elite%20III%20manual%20order%3Alatest&skip_context=true

I would say RTFM but even knowing what I know the manual isn’t clear, it’s implied as if you look it says press button to charge and not when you want it to be charged.

Also their manuals have been rather small so older folks need:

image

#3

This doesn’t work for me, and it’s not how I read the manual. When I look at the page on trickle-charging it clearly says to press the button twice. I don’t see where it says to press once to control the direction of power delivery.

As I understand it, when you connect two PD devices via a usb-c cable the two sides negotiate, and most of the time that algorithm works. But when you connect a laptop with a power bank what you want is ambiguous. I might want to use my laptop as a charger for the power bank or I may want to charge my laptop. I’m looking for a way to override the algorithm.

Now it may be that my chromebook should be the one controlling this but my chromebook is too primitive to have that control. And it may be that I’m being dense and just haven’t figured this out yet.

I’m pretty much out of ideas at the moment.

#4

Begin with no lights on.

Press the power button once briefly until lights come on.

Plug into laptop a USBC cable from the Powercore USBC port to the recharge input USBC port of laptop. It charges the laptop.

#5

Still not really working as described. There are a few other variables though. I tried different cables and that didn’t make a difference. All were Anker Powerlines of different lengths and generations. What did make a difference was the laptop. When I attach the powerbank to a Lenovo Thinkpad X270 the powerbank charges the laptop whether I press the button first or not. When I do the same thing with an inexpensive Samsung Chromebook 4 the chromebook charges the powerbank, again whether I press the button or not. It may have something to do with the fact that the Thinkpad can accept a charge from the USB-C port or a dedicated power adapter, while the Chromebook can only be charged from the USB port. At any rate there doesn’t seem to be a way to override the results of the negotiation and force the direction of charging. Ravpower powerbanks do have this functionality and I was hoping to find the same thing with Anker.

#6

I’d also like to see a way to manage the charging direction.
I’d like to abandon all of my USB-A Cables, but there are many things that don’t work, mostly daisy chaining powerbanks and Laptops for charging in the evening. (Charger - Laptop - Powerbank eg).

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#7

It would be nice to have a USB-C cable that forces the direction.
Sounds silly, but I sometimes need to charge a powerbank from a powerbank.

#8

Doesn’t sound silly to me, but may be out of date. In the past many manufacturers cautioned against using 3rd party chargers for laptops and I guess I bought in to that. I was trying not to travel without a laptop charger but to use that indirectly to charge everything else via the powerbank. That turned out to be more trouble than it was worth so I now carry a multi-port charger and life is easier. Either chargers are reliable enough that the charger manufacturer is irrelevant now, or it always was irrelevant and device manufacturers just wanted to sell more chargers. I still think it would be nice to have a cable or a small device I could attach to the cable to override the negotiation, but it’s not a big deal now. Interestingly, my Samsung Galaxy Chromebook will let me override the negotiation but an older and cheaper chromebook won’t.

#9

I bought this powerbank… U used it 1 week, then I charged it and wanted to use after 2 weeks. There is no way to charge the devices. Everytime I connect the power bank to phone, tablet notebook (Lenovo x390), the power bank is charging, not the devices. Is there any way to fix this? According Live support I should claim it.

#10

Press the power button before connecting to an item you wish to charge.

Don’t press the power button when you connect it to a charger.

#11

There is no light on the power button (if we speak about the power button with the LED lights) after 6 hours charging by Anker PowerPort III Nano. The lights are just flashing in the circle. I did not have to do that before and it charged the other devices. I would expect as before that after 6 hours there will be flashing just the last quarter of LEDs.

#12

There are so many situations where a device in-between the two devices seems the only answer. Is anyone working on this or know how to put together such a device?