GaN Chargers and High-Speed Power Banks - Device Charging For Bikepacking

[alexfthenakis]

Update on my initial list of products I was trialling. Direct copy/paste from my Exposure thread:

I ended up taking the following two for the GBDuro:

@alexfthenakis

• Baseus 65w 20,000mAh - 464g - cheap for what it is, has a metal casing, and at least as fast as any charger I’m willing to carry right now. Charges Exposure lights using a USB-A to C adapter but not through the USB-A ports themselves (more on this below though). Further testing required before I’m willing to rely on it in a race.
• Zendure 10,000 - 181g - only one that arrived shrinkwrapped, so I might struggle to make a return. I think I’ll still end up opening it though. It’s significantly lighter than the Baseus 10k and should be smaller too. If it can handle Exposure lights it will be my small capacity preferred option.

Zendure was my backup so I knew I’d have 10k mAh spare if I crashed or broke my bike or something and got stranded in the middle of nowhere. I never used it and probably could have gotten away with something half the size, but I’d also happily rely on this for an Audax or something similar as my only powerbank.

Baseus caused a world of pain. It charged my devices just like it had in testing without fail, but charging the powerbank itself was the problem. After about 2 days it would only charge when plugged into a USB-A charger via my Wahoo’s USB A to C charge cable, which meant it was limited to charging at 18w (or less?). The whole point of relying on this unit was to be able to charge at 65w (or 57w as-measured).

To make matters worse, if I plugged anything else into my Ugreen wall charger at the same time as my Baseus powerbank, the powerbank reset itself every 5-10 seconds which meant the charger renegotiated wattage with all connected devices and none of them ever ended up charging. So I had to charge the powerbank all by itself at 12-18w either before or after recharging all my other devices, which made everything take longer. And the trial-and-error of testing to find out what device or combination of devices were the source of the problem ate up loads of valuable charging time too.

About halfway through the race I bought one of the Apple USB-C iPhone chargers with the folding plug tip so I could at least charge one other device at the same time as the powerbank. Unfortunately I couldn’t connect the powerbank to the Apple plug charger as the Baseus wouldn’t take a charge over USB-C to C.

As soon as I got back I raised a support ticket with Baseus and basically told them I want nothing to do with their product and they should take it back and give me a refund. I haven’t even received a response and it’s been 3+ weeks.

A shame to have that happen with such a promising product, but based on that experience I don’t think I could ever trust anything from Baseus during a race again. Serves me right for running something from an unknown brand. But now none of the rest of you can say you didn’t know!