PowerScale: constant amount of energy per LED

#1

Word of warning: this may be my nerdiness talking.

I have two power banks right now, an older PowerCore Slim 5000 and a PowerCore 13000 C. The first has 3 LEDs to indicate the remaining charge, the second has 4. The amount if energy left per LED therefore is not the same between these products.

I think it would be nice to have some products, maybe in the + line, for which one LED always reflects a constant amount of energy across the line.

Smaller power banks would automatically have fewer LEDs, which makes sense as Anker may want to keep costs down for those products.

I got the name for it as well: PowerScale. Fits in with PowerCore, PowerIQ and SNAP singing “I’ve got the power”. :wink:

#2

Usually leds show percentage from full charge. It works the same way on all devices from all brands

#3

Can’t be done as there is not a unit of energy.

The energy of a cell is a function of the Watts it is producing. Higher Watts causes more energy lost a heat.

The above chart shows how the internal resistance of a cell is higher, so it produces an internal voltage drop which is higher, so the voltage its shows is lower, as the Amps is higher. Net result is less Watt-hour at higher Watts.

If you connected a higher WATTS draw to a smaller Watt-hour cell array then the energy given up is less than a lower Watts draw or to a higher Watt-hour cell array.

Say you did your idea on a 5000mAh and a 26800mAh where one light was the same energy. Well the 5000mAh would lose more lights for a given task, particularly if asked to power a larger device.

So there is no sensible way to show energy stored as it’s a function of capacity Vs draw.

The lights are just a guide of approximately how much energy is stored.

#4

Lol at least you gave us a warning

#5

I think I kind of understand what you’re saying, but we’re not talking about absolute science here.

Fact is there are power banks with LEDs to roughly indicate the percentage remaining. In case of 4 LEDs, the resolution is 25%. In case of 8 LEDs, it’s 12,5 percent. I understand it’s not an exact science, but that hasn’t stopped Anker, or others, from creating power banks with these LEDs.

Anker has made such power banks, with 3, 4, 6, 8, maybe even 10 LEDs.

I simply suggest designing power banks with a number of LEDs proportional to their relative capacity.

#6

I’m also thinking it can’t be that expensive to do. I had a power bank with a 7-segment display once, to indicate the percentage left. Don’t know if it determined that by some quasi-intelligent timing of how long it was connected to which load, but the point is, it was probably more expensive to implement than a bunch of LEDs. And the power bank wasn’t that expensive at all (it also wasn’t very good though).

#7

By that argument a 5000mah Has 4 LEDs and so 26800 has 21 LEDs?

No what they do is give usually 4 LEDs to crudely indicate capacity, if you bought a small capacity one you’d likely not use it for high Watts uses so roughly a predictable % loss for the intended purpose.

There’s good reasons, electronics, chemistry, and cost, to leave as-is.

#8

No.

My 5000 mAh power bank has 3 leds, so that 26800 would have 15 or 16.

But if that’s also too much, why not print a scale on the housing of every power bank, cut the amount of LEDs in half for this 26800 model, and make it clear (from the scale) that 1 LED signifies 2 units of energy.

You can leave the text in normal size, please. Thank you.

But I think you probably won’t respond receptively to me anymore.

#9

Or, but this is only for one half of the 10 kinds of people in the world, equip such a large power bank with 4 LEDs instead of 16, and let each of them represent one bit in a 4-bit word. LED on = 1, off = 0. 16 possible values with just 4 LEDs.

But this is probably going too far. Still, listen, if a cheap 6000 mAh power bank can have a 2 1/2 digit 7 segment display, why can’t another power bank have 16 LEDs as well? And you don’t even need the logic to determine which LEDs to drive for which value. It’s just linear, so it’s simpler.