Power bank blowing fuses?

What's the (m)Ah rating of the battery charger unit, Lisa.


Could it be BREXIT related


Regards


OMS

OMS:

What's the (m)Ah rating of the battery charger unit, Lisa.

 

It's a 10050 mAh powerbank that usually holds enough charge to charge up my phone at least 3/4 times ?


I was wondering if it draws on too much power for the 230v to cope with but on 240v it's okay?


Lisa

Any other common/differentiating factors? - e.g. same USB cable used with the two French units but a different one in the UK?

  - Andy.

USB power is not a standard in quite the way that say the 13A socket is.

There is broad agreement that there should be 5V between the outer pins, but how much current you are allowed to draw, and how a voltage source should behave if a load tries to take more current than expected, is distinctly variable.

The original spec required loads to not draw more than 50mA or connect more than 10uF of flat capacitance until some negotiation has taken place with the host and the load.

Clearly a dumb power supply cannot negotiate anything, so this spec was widely ignored. Equally a well behaved source should remove its 5V if it detects an overload. This also does not happen, many simpler designs will keep trying to give more current to the point of destruction.

More recently a simple negotiation has been more or less agreed for charging without a full blown data connection by using resistors to park the data lines from the charger at pre-agreed levels to tell the load how much it should limit its current to.

I suspect your power pack is expecting a different current limit protocol to that in the chargers.


info on those current limit standards.       and the 'official' standard, different again.

mapj1:


I suspect your power pack is expecting a different current limit protocol to that in the chargers.

Thanks Mike! 


So if I take the USB plug I use in the UK and use it there via a two to three pin adapter then that should work? 


Andy - When the two pin USB charger stopped working I was using one of those multi charging cables with the different connector ends on it. I also used the same cable afterwards ( with the lightning connector) to charge up my iPhone successfully (using a three pin USB charger in a travel adapter) but to be honest I haven't used the micro USB connector also on the cable to attempt to charge anything else as that's the lead that stays in France.


When I used a different USB charger plug (on the three pin extension lead) I was using the official cable that came with the power bank which then broke the 4 socket extension lead.... 


As french plugs don't have fuses in them and rely on the circuit breakers I was surprised that the mcb didn't trip which is what I expected it to do when both the two pin USB charger and the extension lead stopped working? 

I do not feel that discussions as to the capacity of the internal battery or the current available at 5 volts are relevant. Any likely figures would correspond to a small fraction of an amp at mains voltage.

Neither is the mains voltage likely to be relevant, it tends to be nearer 240 volts in the UK and often nearer 220 volts in France, though both are now called 230 volts. Either should be fine.

Hang on, what exactly is failing here - where is the 'fuse' ? - I had assumed  these are sockets with a built in USB outlet, and it works in one but not the other, now. it sounds like not the case


So actually  you have a mains to 5V power supply, plugging into a socket, charging a battery that is or is not still connected to a load that may also have connections to other things ?

More description needed


- if you are tripping 16A breakers then there is something much more weird going on. If  however its an RCD firing then I'd be looking to see if there is an earth connection to the USB negative, or if the mains to 5V conversion is supposed to be double insulated - both types exist.


OR a neutral earth fault in the mains to 5V converter - French L-N polarity may be reversed..

Lisa Miles:

We've recently moved over from a builders electricity supply to a domestic supply on our new build house in France. The electrics have all been checked out and signed off by the Consuel.

Qu'est-ce que c'est «Consuel» ?

I have a two port USB powerbank manufactured by a well known battery manufacturer (?) and I was trying to charge it up while I was there using a native two pin USB charger plug. It basically fried the charger plug but didn't trip the fuse on the main board... 

Did you ever try using it with the builder's supply? If not, I don't quite see the relevance of the change. It sounds to me that you have been overloading the USB supply. Apple, and doubtless others such as Belkin, make them in different strengths.

 

 

mapj1:


More description needed

Okay... I had previously bought a 'native' two port USB charger plug from E, Leclerc (a supermarket in France) which is plugged into a standard two pin french socket. I've been using this charger plug for a while with a multi connector charging lead which has connections for both the new and old style apple devices as well as a micro usb connector. When I was there last week (to switch on the electrics after switching over to a domestic supply) I needed to charge up my relatively new (been using it for about two months now) 10050 mAh  'bunnycell' powerbank. When I connected the powerbank to the USB charging plug via the micro usb connection on my multi connector charging lead , the lights that indicate that the powerbank is charging were lit but after a minute or so went out... I then noticed that the blue led light on the charging plug was out too (indicating that there was no power to the plug) and thought I'd tripped the mcb. Checked the mcb but it was still on. Checked the charging plug thinking that the light had simply blown but the plug wasn't charging anything (tested by trying to charge my phone). The USB charger plug had ceased to work. So I then dug out a UK charger plug (three pin) and plugged it into an extension cable in the study that has four UK 3 pin sockets but plugged into a two pin wall socket i.e. french to UK conversion so I can plug in my UK computer equipment etc while I'm there. I also used the original charging cable that came with the powerbank. When I plugged the power bank in, the extension lead just stopped working i.e. all monitors went out. There is no fuse to 'blow'  in the french two pin plug on the end of the extension lead and again it didn't trip the mcb for the sockets in the study...


When I got back to the UK, I plugged the power bank in to my usual USB charger plug which sits by my desk at home and its charged up as normal...


I'm interested to know why plugging in the powerbank has broken both the USB charger plug and the extension lead in France when it works just fine in the UK and the powerbank is sold internationally... ! ?

Invest in a USB tester and see what is going on, I keep one in my work bag to test the USB charging sockets that are now commonplace. 


Andy Betteridge.