Opinions On Yard Sale Power Bank Please?

[MontAmmie]

So the Supreme Queen Tightwad of The Glorious Cheapskate Empire bestowed her royal presence upon a poor peasant's yard sale yesterday and found this marked a quarter.  Since the hayseed serf in charge wouldn't take 10 cents for it, Her Highness graciously paid full price for it and brought it home.  The paper says it's a 5V with a 1000mh output, whatever that means.  I did a search on my EQ instruction booklet and it just says "power bank".  So do ya'll think this will work?  I'm thinking if it doesn't, it probably won't hurt my 800 anyway?  Thanks ya'll!

Ammie aka Princess Penny-Pincher

[SittingElf]

Should work just fine. Nica catch!

[EL NINO77]

Equinox will charge 40% - 4-5 hours of detector work ...

[MontAmmie]

44 minutes ago, EL NINO77 said:

Equinox will charge 40% - 4-5 hours of detector work ...

Awesome!  This will be great to just charge up and leave in the backpack for emergency power back up.  Thanks!

[Chase Goldman]

Well not so fast.  The key is making sure it can source enough current to cause the battery charge indicator to light on the Equinox AND power up the detector if you want to continue to use it.  This needs to be done experimentally (i.e., by actually plugging in the power bank to the Equinox), since the paper "specs" on overseas mass produced giveaway promotional items like this tend to exaggerate the numbers.

It SHOULD work to at least partially charge the internal battery of the Equinox since it is rated to source 1A at 5VDC, however, just because the battery is rated at 3.7 VDC, 2200mAH does not mean it will charge up the Equinox 3.7 VDC 5000 mAH internal battery to ~40% because there is a large capacity efficiency hit when charging battery to battery due to losses in battery internal voltage regulator circuitry and internal heating.  Nor does it mean it can source enough current to simultaneously charge and run the Equinox which would be the point of having an emergency power bank. 

To enable this much current headroom to enable simultaneous charging and operation, you would typically want to have a power bank that can source at least 2A.    If you just want to wait for an hour or so for a small partial charge, then you will be OK, but may not be able to run the machine while charging.  If it does light the green charge light and power up the control head, you should be good for maybe 10 to 15% of the rated 12 hour run time of the on board battery, more or less, because you are sending current to run the electronics as well as inefficiently charging the the Equinox internal battery (provided the electronic current output is sufficient).  These small "lipstick" power banks run for about $5 - $7, new and are often given away as promo items in bling bags, charitable contributions, or if you sign up for a new credit card at the store.  If you paid less than $5, you got a good deal.  Test it out when you get a chance before you head out so you know what it really can do for you in a detecting "emergency".

HTH

[MontAmmie]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

Well not so fast.  The key is making sure it can source enough current to cause the battery charge indicator to light on the Equinox AND power up the detector if you want to continue to use it.  This needs to be done experimentally (i.e., by actually plugging in the power bank to the Equinox), since the paper "specs" on overseas mass produced giveaway promotional items like this tend to exaggerate the numbers.

It SHOULD work to at least partially charge the internal battery of the Equinox since it is rated to source 1A at 5VDC, however, just because the battery is rated at 3.7 VDC, 2200mAH does not mean it will charge up the Equinox 3.7 VDC 5000 mAH internal battery to ~40% because there is a large capacity efficiency hit when charging battery to battery due to losses in battery internal voltage regulator circuitry and internal heating.  Nor does it mean it can source enough current to simultaneously charge and run the Equinox which would be the point of having an emergency power bank. 

To enable this much current headroom to enable simultaneous charging and operation, you would typically want to have a power bank that can source at least 2A.    If you just want to wait for an hour or so for a small partial charge, then you will be OK, but may not be able to run the machine while charging.  If it does light the green charge light and power up the control head, you should be good for maybe 10 to 15% of the rated 12 hour run time of the on board battery, more or less, because you are sending current to run the electronics as well as inefficiently charging the the Equinox internal battery (provided the electronic current output is sufficient).  These small "lipstick" power banks run for about $5 - $7, new and are often given away as promo items in bling bags, charitable contributions, or if you sign up for a new credit card at the store.  If you paid less than $5, you got a good deal.  Test it out when you get a chance before you head out so you know what it really can do for you in a detecting "emergency".

HTH

I'll let ya'll know what happens when I get it charged up and plug it in to my 800.  Thanks for the explanation, Chase.  It was worth that 25 cents if it does nothing but charge my cellphone up a bit when we're in Deliveranceville,  Montana.

[Chase Goldman]

Def worth a quarter and sometimes you get pleasantly surprised by the performance of these things.  Plug it in to the Equinox and see what it can do.  I am very interested in this, frankly, because Steve tried one of those AA power pack thingy's and it did not put out enough juice to the Equinox.  This will at least give us an idea of whether the lower end power banks can be used in a pinch.

[MontAmmie]

4 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Def worth a quarter and sometimes you get pleasantly surprised by the performance of these things.  Plug it in to the Equinox and see what it can do.  I am very interested in this, frankly, because Steve tried one of those AA power pack thingy's and it did not put out enough juice to the Equinox.  This will at least give us an idea of whether the lower end power banks can be used in a pinch.

I guess I'll have to run my 800 completely out of power to know what, if anything, this little item will do for it?  Hey, anything for the team.   It might be a day or so, since I just charged it up.  Jensen Beach tomorrow, whoohoo!

[Chase Goldman]

I THINK if you plug in power bank it will default to charge mode even if the internal battery is nearly fully charged so you can see if the green light will at least turn on and blink with the power off.  You may even be able to see if it will charge and run the power pod simultaneously with only a partially discharged internal battery.  But, yeah, how much charge back capacity you can get is best determined on a nearly depleted battery.  I would avoid discharging the Equinox battery all the way because that is hard on the overall lifetime of the battery.

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

It won't give you much run time.  It will help though.

And being  round you can stow under cuff maybe.

I use Velcro strips I bought at Wally World.

They do a nice job, and allow quick removal of pack if necessary.