A versatile charging solution

[Droning on and on...]

With the switch to the Power Delivery standard for supplying power to charge the batteries, new more flexible options are possible. Here's a recommendation: Get a high power, high capacity power bank, and if you want to save money, a cheap low power PD charger to charge it.

I have one of these Alfox power banks, and absolutely love it. True to its specs, it outputs up to 100W on the USB-C port (PD), 18W on the USB-A port (QC), 83W combined total (65+18). No power bank ever actually puts out it's rated storage, due to all sorts of lossy factors. The good, efficient ones get close. I get pretty close to 30,000 mAh from this.

It also charges as fast as 60W, so can be topped off quickly, or fully charged in about 2.5 hours.

Why is this so great? You can fast charge your batteries in the field. It will charge A3 batteries about 6 times. Starting with 3 full batteries, you can fully recharge the first one during the time flying the second two.

$90 at Amazon.

 

[megapixle]

So is this what you use for charging your batteries at home as well?

Do you have any concerns about battery longevity with charging at 100W?

 

[Droning on and on...]

So is this what you use for charging your batteries at home as well?

Do you have any concerns about battery longevity with charging at 100W?

No, I use a 130W capacity AC adapter and let the power bank rest.

Not concerned at all charging any batteries via Power Delivery protocol at the max power they'll draw. I trust the engineers.

PD is a negotiated, active, variable voltage protocol. A PD load has to query the supply to see what power/voltage configurations are available, then request a voltage. The load then determines how much power it will draw.

Not like the old days where you just put whatever voltage the adapter supplied on the battery terminals and let it draw whatever it did as a passive load. That's when you could blow things up and cause fires by plugging a 9V supply barrel connector into a socket expecting 5V.

No more. Yay!!!

 

[KenG]

Great advice and I just checked Amazon and the price for the Alfox power bank is down to $75.99.