A quick test of my newly acquired USB power monitor. This unit is branded Matek and unlike most other USB power monitors that just show real-time voltage and current, this one can display A,V,W, mAh, duration and end of charge.
I got it from Banggood at:-
http://www.banggood.com/Matek-USB-LCD-Display-Voltmeter-Ampere-Meter-Power-Capacity-Tester-p-933952.html
One of the neatest things about this unit is that it detects end of charge of whatever you have connected by a settable current threshold (30mA default) and will actually turn the charge power off completely to your device and beep to let you know it's finished charging.
The fact it displays mAh (current over time) means that it will provide a modestly accurate indication of the capacity of the cells in a USB power bank if it is fully charged from being in it's low-charge cutoff state.
To restart the charging you can press the single button that is also used to cycle through various data. A blue LED in the unit indicates when output power is active. An LED in the display would have been nice.
First full charge-from-flat test I did was on the little pink USB power bank featured in another video. It showed a cell capacity of 1093mAh. Not quite the 2600mAh quoted on the packaging!
I got it from Banggood at:-
http://www.banggood.com/Matek-USB-LCD-Display-Voltmeter-Ampere-Meter-Power-Capacity-Tester-p-933952.html
One of the neatest things about this unit is that it detects end of charge of whatever you have connected by a settable current threshold (30mA default) and will actually turn the charge power off completely to your device and beep to let you know it's finished charging.
The fact it displays mAh (current over time) means that it will provide a modestly accurate indication of the capacity of the cells in a USB power bank if it is fully charged from being in it's low-charge cutoff state.
To restart the charging you can press the single button that is also used to cycle through various data. A blue LED in the unit indicates when output power is active. An LED in the display would have been nice.
First full charge-from-flat test I did was on the little pink USB power bank featured in another video. It showed a cell capacity of 1093mAh. Not quite the 2600mAh quoted on the packaging!
get a gp 5200mah powerbank either from the original factory shop in the uk
+bigclivedotcom this is the only video of a USB Power monitor I can find on your channel, but it's not the one you are using in your later videos. Witch one are you using now days? And what happened to this Matek one? I can't seem to find the Matek one for sale anywhere any more. 🙁
Another bit if kit I don't fully understand, but feel I need to buy one 😀
I realize this is an older video, but I wanted to mention this on one where it's relevant. I recently got another USB power monitor that – while not as versatile as the Matek – has its own nifty little trick. Its brand name is "Keweisi" (SKU 248160 at BangGood.com) and it seems to have some kind of persistent memory – because I can interrupt the incoming power and when it's restored, the unit will pick up tracking time (hours and minutes, no seconds) and mAh where it left off. (There's a RESET push-button to clear the counts when you want to start a new test.) There might be times where one wants to do a full-discharge test on a power bank or the like and this would permit that without having to set up a camera to watch a Matek meter or some other similar work-around. The other nice thing is it's got a white LED backlighting the LCD display, so it's easier to read at times than the Matek.
I decided to order one as well as I think this will be a useful way of testing mobile phone batteries also, such as when charging a flat battery with the phone switch off to see what mAh it accumulates. With one previous phone (Nokia 5800), a full charge often lasted just half a day and a replacement battery didn't seem to fair any better, so I often wondered at the time whether the replacement eBay battery was underrated or if the phone itself was simply an energy hog
My brother has a new Nokia Lumia phone with a similar issue, so it certainly would be a useful way of checking the mAh accumulated during charging against the battery's rated capacity.
Another use would be to diagnose my PC's USB ports, as I occasionally have drop-outs especially on the front ports and my Wi-Fi dongle will not work on any on-board USB port, but works fine with USB ports on a USB3 PCIe card, so I'm curious to check the voltage levels with various USB devices plugged into it.