Powerhouse 100 AC outlet goes to sleep

#1

Hi! I recently picked up a Powerhouse 100 and I’m having a little trouble with it. The USB A ports seem to work just fine, but when I use the AC outlet to run a PTZ camera (PTZOptics PT30X-NDI, 12V/2A) it only provides power for 20-30 minutes, then it stops sending power over the AC outlet (the USB ports continue to send power).

I looked through the manual, but I didn’t find anything related to a sleep or always on mode for the AC outlet. If anyone here has any advice or information that might help, I would be glad to have it.

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

#2

What is the state of charge when this happens? And does the camera have its own battery? If it does it could be because the camera isn’t requesting power so the powerbank shuts off power. Usually they do this when the power draw is minimal, thats why on some anker powerbanks they have a trickle charge mode where it will deliver a constant lower power output to keep these low draw devices charged.

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#3

Hi welcome to the community.

This product is fairly new and few own. Give it a few days for potential other owners to chime in, for now you’re going to get educated guesses from similar products.

What @Tank said may be true that your device draws too little lower , such as when device is (nearly) fully. At a lower power level Powercore we had that issue with some phones but mostly with earbuds which drew so little power when nearly full the Powercore turned off. Powercore then added a trickle charge mode of press hold power button, blue light went green and it would not turn itself off so easily. See if a press hold of power button cures it.

If you’re wondering why the above it is because there is finite amount of stored energy in such portable power, it burns a small amount of that energy to keep the charging electronics on and if your device is nearly full and it drains little power it’s dumb to keep the power on, unless you explicitly want it kept on hence the invention of trickle charge mode.

Then possibly the opposite problem that your device is taking so much power it nearly empties the Powerhouse as it’s quite small, it cannot sustain the required Wattage and turns off the AC port. Lithium cells release lower Watts when less full so it would not be a surprise if the 100Wh capacity cannot all be given out as AC. This scenario may be diagnosed if you have an AC meter to measure Wh out.

One way to help diagnose either scenarios is a AC meter to measure output. If the first scenario the Watts would drop and then turn off. The last scenario the Watts are high then stop.

Shoot an email to support@anker.com also, they will probably know more as it’s a new product, a reply on Monday would.be best guess.

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#4

Thanks, @professor and @Tank for your replies! The camera does not have a battery, and the powerhouse is fully charged when I plug the camera into it. I’ve tried the trickle charge mode and it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the performance. I tried powering a WiFi router with the powerhouse and got the same result.

I didn’t realize how new the product is. I’ll try reaching out to anker support to see if they have any suggestions for me.

Thanks again, and have a nice day!

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#5

So the first scenario is unlikely as they don’t have battery.

Do you know the Wattage demand of these devices?

It’s looking more like a dud unit with the added information you shared, put it all with proof of purchase and serial number in the email to support. They may either have a fix or determine a replacement.

If there is a fix them reply here so we know for the next owner.

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