powerbank charging of a phone

[John Bokman]

Questions to all:

I want to get a powerbank to charge my phone while out in the boonies. 

Criteria: 

1. low weight

2. small size

3. doesn't take forever to power up a phone enough to use maps. 

Aside: 

I will be powering off the phone unless using it for navigation only as needed. Maps will be in "offline" mode  and phone in airplane mode , so not sucking juice.

Not sure what size I need (bigger battery means quicker to charge, but at a weight penalty, right?).

Anker, Biolite, other?

Recommendations?

Thanks,

John

[Bill Lindsay]

Start with the size of the battery in your phone.  How many mA-hr does your phone nominally have?  How long is "one full charge life"?  And how many more charge - lives do you want to get from your power bank?  That should inform you what size to get. 

You say something about weight and capacity being a trade off.  How much do you want it to weigh?  How light is "doesn't matter anymore"?

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Bill Lindsay]

Putting numbers to mine:

one RXBAR brand energy bar weighs 60g and has 230 calories

My Mophie has 3500mA-hr capacity and weighs 81g and sources 1A

My Belkin 10000mA-hr capacity pack can source 3A and weight 205g

My iPhone 15 has a ~3500mA-hr battery in it and goes for about 12 hours.  

So if I wanted one recharge of my phone and nothing else, and was going to be riding for less than 24 hours before I can steal another USB port, I'd carry the Mophie.  If I wanted to go much longer than 24 hours, and/or wanted to charge other objects as well, I'd carry the Belkin.  My Mophie was a gift and it's probably 8 years old.  The Belkin is relatively new.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Jay Lonner]

I’ve been happy with the Venture 75 from Goal Zero:

I also have a Nomad 10 solar panel from the same company:

I trickle charge the power bank by using the solar panel in camp and a dynohub on the move, which has enabled me to keep my iPhone topped off indefinitely while touring. 

Jay Lonner

Bellingham, WA

Sent from my Atari 400

On Jun 21, 2024, at 1:10 PM, Bill Lindsay <tape...@gmail.com> wrote:

Putting numbers to mine:

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[DavidP]

Hi John,

I'd be interested to hear more about your intended situation - one thing you haven't mentioned is how long you expect to be out?

Based on my backpacking experience, a phone in airplane mode but with GPS location enabled can be left powered on and used for intermittent navigation checks for days at a time. This assumes 1) the navigation app and/or settings being used aren't actively tracking and only obtaining and displaying location when the phone is actively being used / the screen is on, and 2) that you generally know the roads/trails you are and should be on and just need intermittent checks. 

I use geospatial PDFs as described here: https://sectionhiker.com/how-to-navigate-with-geopdf-maps/ and create them with CalTopo as described here: https://sectionhiker.com/how-to-make-geopdf-maps-in-caltopo/

I do still pack a battery pack for recharge in case my phone drains quicker than I expect for some reason. As Bill said, battery size (mAh) gives you more recharges; charging speed is controlled by amp output of the pack. You can always use the phone while it is charging from the pack (as long as the phone has the minimum charge it needs to operate).

I really only navigate this way when hiking (combined with paper maps for redundancy). When riding I prefer always on navigation and turn by turn directions to avoid frequent stops to check location, but I suppose that's driven by the type and location of rides I'm doing. In a long-haul touring situation I could probably adapt to some kind of hybrid method.

-Dave

[John Bokman]

Thanks all for your input!

Bill: 

 I'm using an Apple SE, version !OS 17.5.1 and it has 96% of the original battery life left. The App for navigation is Ride with GPS. It is using 47% of the battery.

Concerning weight, I am not eager to carry more than 8 ounces of powerbank (similar to your Belkin). 

Bill, Jay, David: 

My use case is an emergency backup which would show me the route I'm on, with cue sheet info in case I were to get separated from a riding partner. My riding partner has a Garmin so is the primary source of our routing. Thus, I'm looking for a way to ensure that I can have access to that information on an as-needed basis. My trip length is 7 riding days.

[John Bokman]

I'm trying an Anker Powerbank 30W with 10,000 mAh. Think I'll need to get a slightly more powerful wall charger to be able to power up both the powerbank and phone simultaneously. My Apple phone wall charger, at 20W didn't charge the phone, only the powerbank.

Will see how it goes. But at $30 on sale, I figured I'd give it a shot.