Remote Monitoring On Capacity of Portable Power Bank in Testing Laboratories
Remote Monitoring On Capacity of Portable Power Bank in Testing Laboratories
Remote Monitoring On Capacity of Portable Power Bank in Testing Laboratories
Abstract—In this paper, we successfully demonstrated an Moreover, power consumption is not only raised by the
application in monitoring the capacity of portable power bank by hardware only. At 2007, the network provider in market
developing a system with the Arduino platform which allows the provided the second generation of wireless mobile
testing practitioners in the testing laboratories to test, record and telecommunications technology (2G) to support the mobile
analyze the portable power banks under test in a remote manner. network. As time goes by, mobile network develops to the
For standardizing the measurement, a testing standard for third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications
measuring the capacity of portable power bank was drafted technology (3G) and the fourth generation of wireless mobile
according to the circuit design in charging and discharging, telecommunications technology (4G). Customers are using the
environment and users’ habits in Hong Kong. The developed
energy to exchange the mobility communication speed. It
system was implemented by analyzing numerous portable power
aggravated the power consumption of smartphone in daily life.
banks existed in the market following the procedures listed in the
drafted standard. The result showed that only the tested In order to solve the lack of battery, power bank was
portable power bank labelled with rated capacity could deliver designed for portable appliance to charge the battery when
the capacity mentioned. All of the tested portable power bank socket is not nearby or available. Nowadays, power banks
labelled with capacity only could not provide adequate become a necessary and important accessory of smartphone.
information for fair comparison which measured capacity was As the popularity of power bank, many different model,
always lower than the capacity on the package. capacity and design of power bank are introduced to public.
The problems of these portable batteries came up in past few
Keywords—remote monitoring; portable power bank; testing
laboratories
years that most of the portable batteries are not compliant with
the requirement in traditional standards. Besides the safety
I. INTRODUCTION problem, the capacity of the power bank is the other important
issue. In fact, the practical charging capacity of these power
Traditional mobile phones with speaking functions and
banks is not close to the rated capacity either. According to the
battery of 900 mAh only were still used by the majority of
authors’ best knowledge, there is still no international standard
people in the world at the end of last century. This small
for testing the capacity of portable power bank. It is difficult to
amount of capacity is still acceptable as its durability is
give a fair and useful report to the customer on this issue. The
adequate for the phone without games and videos in high
testing laboratories are also hard to deliver a test report with
resolution. In 2007, the introduction of smartphone changed
lack of international standards.
the concept of mobile phone from mainly communication to a
multi-functional portable personal computer. The “smartphone In this work, the techniques for measuring the capacity on
generation” was opened up since this year. Smart phone portable power bank were developed. It is aimed to detainment
started getting into human’s daily life and become more and the power bank capacity in a more economic and convenience
more common because of user-friendly and efficiency. way in the testing laboratories. A wireless device for testing
was demonstrated while a standard for testing the capacity of
Smart phone manufacturers tried their best way to improve
power bank was drafted for Hong Kong which is a developed
and invite different hardware of their phone. Monitors were
metropolitan city in Asia. Also, analysis on the portable power
upgraded from LCD monitor to LED or OLED. The functions
bank in the market by the drafted standard was done.
of smartphone like camera are also used widely. These
changes of upgrade increased the power consumption and II. CURRENT RELATED STANDARDS
decreased the usable time. Although designers increase the
battery capacity of smartphone, most of these products can A. UL Standards
only maintain the talk time at 8 hours. Because people start UL standards are established by Underwriters Laboratories
using different in-built function of smartphone, for example Inc. which is usually applied in North America. The UL 1642
monitor display for watching video, the apps using Wi-Fi for [1] is safety standard for primary and secondary lithium cells
surfing the internet, these actions rapidly consume all the and batteries. Primary cell and battery can on discharge once
electrical power in the battery. Therefore, the capacity of but secondary cell and battery are rechargeable. The UL 1642
battery in smartphone cannot withstand a whole day. contains performance test, electrical test, mechanical test,
l-)))
environment test and fire exposure test. It is a safety standard standards IEC 61960 and GB/T 18287 for the capacity of
but not concern in battery capacity. It only contains a small portable batteries can be taken as reference for building up the
clause in discharge test which is the capacity test. The standard for the capacity of portable power bank.
clause.7.1 Discharge mentioned “Primary batteries are to be
completely discharged by connecting their terminals through III. CONSIDERATION ON THE PROPOSED STANDARD FOR
resistors that provide the desired level of discharge within 60 CAPACITY OF PORTABLE POWER BANK
days. Batteries are to be discharged at room temperature” only. A. Printed Circuit Board in Portable Power Bank
Both of the procedure and condition are not clearly mentioned
in the clause. For secondary battery and cell, there is no The difference between power bank and battery is the
description on dealing with them at all. printed circuit board (PCB) in the power bank. Whatever the
material used for battery is lithium-ion or lithium-ion polymer,
The standard UL 2054 [2] is also a safety standard for they are all controlled by the PCB to complete the function of a
batteries use as a power sources in product. It is similar to UL portable battery. To study the capacity of the power bank, we
1642 but not only cover lithium battery. UL2054 cover all may first need to understand the structure of the PCB and how
cells and battery contain 10 amp hours (Ah) in capacity. It also does it work during charging and discharge.
contains performance test, electrical test, mechanical test,
environment test and fire exposure test. But it does not have a There are two main parts on the PCB. One-part control the
discharge test to verify the capacity of cell or battery. charging of the battery while another part handles the
discharging performance. When we give an input to a power
The standard UL 2056 [3] is the only one standard writing bank, the battery will charge up from a low voltage to a high
for power bank only. It covers power bank which are some voltage until reaching their highest capacity. Different power
portable backup USB battery charger. UL2056 contain few banks have their own capacity; they have their own end up
safety test (for instance, abnormal charging test, abusive voltage for charging. PCB for charging function is monitoring
overcharge test, surface temperature test base on UL2054) and the capacity in cells or battery to avoid overcharge. Integrated
performance test power input test, overload of output ports test. circuit in the PCB detects the voltage in the battery and gives a
The most related part is the clause 12 capacity test based on signal to cut off the charging input when the battery is
IEC 61960. In the capacity test part, it asks user to follow IEC completely charged.
61960 expect several equipment mention in UL 2056.
Digital product nowadays works in a voltage range from
2.7 V to 4.2 V. There is no current flow if the voltage is on the
B. IEEE Standards same level. Therefore, the power bank needs to increase the
IEEE standards are developed by the IEEE Societies and internal voltage up to 5V in order to charge up our phone or
the standards Coordinating Committee of the IEEE Standards other equipment. Such procedure is controlled by the
Association Standards board. IEEE 1625 [4] is the most discharging part of the PCB. The Microcontroller Unit (MCU)
detailed standard for rechargeable battery. The first sentence detects the signal of battery. Once the USB inserted and
of 1625 is “This standard is a guide for the complete the circuit, the battery will release the stored energy.
manufacturer/supplier in planning and implementing the When MCU detects the energy from battery, it will give a
controls for the design and manufacture of lithium-ion (Li-ion) signal to the inductor. The inductor will start increasing the
and lithium-ion polymer (Li-ion polymer) rechargeable battery voltage by changing electric energy to magnetic energy. When
packs used for portable computing.” It is not only considering the voltage increases to 5 V, the MCU gives a signal to the
battery only, also consider host device, adapters and even the inductor to release energy by changing the magnetic back to
quality system. At the battery consideration part clause 6, it electric energy. During the discharging process, the voltage
gives more concern in manufacturing process. For example, it between the power bank and the equipment will become closer
gives out the guide of battery pack design and assembly to same level. The discharging of the battery will end after a
precaution. For the testing part, it only gives several relevant period.
standards to ask the testing practitioners to follow. It helps
The importance of PCB in the power bank is that the PCB
user or manufacturer to build up a suitable battery instead of
will consume the energy during controlling the battery. The
testing the capacity of portable battery or power bank.
output of the energy may not equal to the capacity of the
battery as energy loss through PCB. As a result, PCB is our
C. IEC, GB/T, CNS and JIS Standards main concern for studying the capacity of the power bank.
The standard IEC 61960 [5] is a standard written by the
international Electro technical commission which is one of the B. Environment for the Standard
international standards and conformity assessment body for all
To apply the capacity test in Hong Kong, Hong Kong
fields of electro-technology. The standard GB/T 18287 [6] is
testing condition should be created. Data from Hong Kong
written by the Standardization Administration of China which
observatory [9] can help to generate the average Hong Kong
is the ISO and IEC Chinese National Committee. IEC 61960
condition. Table I is the average temperature from 1971 to
and GB/T 18287 are standards for lithium batteries with both
2000 while Table II is the Hong Kong average temperature
safety test and capacity test. They contain detail description on
from 1981 to 2011.
capacity test procedure for lithium battery. CNS 15364 [7] and
JIS C 8711 [8] are standards based on IEC 61960 but written in We decide to use ambient testing temperature from 21.4
Chinese and Japanese with a new format. Therefore, the °C to 25.6 °C because it is near to 2017 and can represent the
Hong Kong environment condition changing during global “Power bank” is our test sample it should be defined at the
warming. Table II is the Hong Kong average relative- first place. Our aim is to verify the capacity of those power
humidity data from 1971 to 2001. banks which is used to charge up smartphone. The upper
definition we copy the first sentence from UL 2056. We need
TABLE I. AVERAGE HONG KONG TEMPERATURE FROM 1971 TO 2001 to develop a new standard for power bank because it is
Highest average Lowest average different from battery. Although power bank and battery are
Average standalone and can also providing mobile power for low
temperature temperature
25.6 23.1 21.1 voltage devices, their operating voltage are different. Power
bank are mostly aim to powering smart phone which have a
normal operating voltage 5 V. But a normal lithium battery
TABLE II. AVERAGE HONG KONG TEMPERATURE FROM 1981 TO 2011
only has 3.7 V or maximum 4.2 V. A lithium battery needs a
Highest average
Average
Lowest average voltage upward conversion to respond the smartphone demand.
temperature temperature As a result, a printed circuit board (PCB) with boost converter
25.6 23.1 21.4 must contain in power bank to provide 5 V or other voltage
output. So “A power bank must contain printed circuit board
TABLE III. AVERAGE RELATIVE HUMIDITY FROM 1971 TO 2001 and battery.” is added into the definition.
Highest average
Average humidity
Lowest average 2.2 Rated capacity is the quantity of electricity Ah
humidity humidity (ampere-hours) declared by the manufacturer which a battery
82% 78% 71% of power bank can deliver during a specific time period
declared by the manufacturer.
The average relative-humidity data from 1981 to 2011 is “Rated capacity” is the true capacity of the power bank. In
same as Table III. We assume Hong Kong’s pressure is no Hong Kong, many power bank products mostly contain a big
different from other place so we just apply the electrical testing marking of “power bank capacity”.
pressure requirement from the IEEE standard 3-1982 [10]. As a Fig. 1 is a sample showing a normal power bank marking.
result, we add the following clause into the power bank The 10000 mAh marking is very big. But, we can see there is
standard. 3.6 V nearby and this show that is it the “lithium battery
capacity”. It is the quantity of electricity battery without any
4.1. Unless superseded by a requirement in clause, all tests
conversion. But as the power bank definition part, voltage
for power bank use in Hong Kong should do in following
upward conversion must occur in lithium battery power bank.
condition:
After the conversion and PCB operation, the final energy
Ambient temperature from 21.4 °C to 25.6 °C output must be less than the 10000 mAh capacity. Back to the
picture, we can notice that there is a small marking of “6250
Range of Relative humidity from 82% to 71% mAh 5.1 V”. It is the rated capacity which is the “true power
Range of testing pressure 101.3 kPa to 81.5 kPa bank capacity” after conversion. There isn’t a legal requirement
on the marking of rated capacity in Hong Kong. Many
If user does not want to apply Hong Kong condition, they manufacturers do not rate capacity marking because the battery
can apply the testing requirement from the IEEE standard 3- capacity value is greater and present their power bank have a
1982 by following clause 4.2. better quality.
4.2. Unless superseded by a requirement in clause, all tests
for product not specific use in Hong Kong should do in
following condition:
Ambient temperature of 20 °C ± 5 °C
Range of Relative humidity 11 grams of water vapor/m3
(65% at 20 °C)
Range of testing pressure 101.3 kPa to 81.5 kPa
C. Terms and Definition in Standard
The standard in this standard is a power bank capacity test Fig. 1. One of the power bank markings in the market.
standard so there are some discharging test related terms need
to be defined. D. Sampling Plan for Product Inspection
2.1 Power bank sometimes also known as portable USB According to IEC 61960, only 3 samples are required for
chargers, portable backup battery or power pack which is the capacity test to verify the lithium battery capacity. But
standalone device that incorporate batteries for mobile according to [11], low risk product including power bank shall
powering of low voltage electronic devices. A power bank use a 1.5% AQL plan. The AQL sampling method
must contain a PCB and battery. determinates the sample size by the lot size. User can apply
AQL sampling plan with the capacity test or just apply the not bigger than 8 hours and the longest charging time of
capacity test for each product. applying current (1 time C) ampere shall not bigger than 4
hours.
E. PCB in the Portable Power Bank Charging procedure
Apart from the understanding for standard, the structure of
Step 1. Monitor the output voltage of power bank,
the power bank should also be researched. The structure inside
discharged at 20 °C ± 5 °C at a constant current of 0.2 It A,
the power bank is that batteries controlled by a printed circuit
down to a specified end-of-discharge voltage which is defined
board (PCB). That means know more about the PCB as it is
by manufacturer.
the biggest difference between power bank and a Lithium
battery. The circuit mainly protects the batteries when Step 2. Unless otherwise stated in this standard, cells or
charging and help the battery to discharge at a voltage of 5V. batteries shall be charged at 20 °C ± 5 °C using the method
declared by the manufacturer.
When the micro USB inserts into the power bank, the
current goes into general purpose input port to wake up the In the discharging test which is the capacity verification
MCU. Then the current tells the MCU about the input voltage. test, user needs to charge up the battery we mention before. It
After that the current of a group of capacitors will save energy gives out the same discharging procedure as the charging
in order to stabilize the input current. Then the current will go procedure but added a time for increasing battery stability
to the battery and charge it up. During the charging process, before discharging. User may don’t how long time the Power
over voltage protection will monitor the input voltage to bank store in cargo. The power bank may need charge several
prevent a large voltage that damages the battery. If the input times to recovery to its true capacity when it was unused and
voltage is too large, the MCU will control and cut the input stored for long time. So, steps 1 to 4 may be repeated up to
current. four additional times, as necessary to satisfy 100% capacity
The second part is the discharging of battery. When a USB requirement. In GB/T standard, it also contains the
port was inserted, the inductor will increase the voltage up to requirement of 23 °C ± 2 °C. The GB/T standard require
5V in order to charge up our device. Then current comes out discharging time of the battery shall not less than 5 hours.
from battery to a resistance network and charge up the device. Discharge performance test
During the discharging process, the over current protection
monitors the current of the battery. If the battery voltage is Step 1. Charged up with clause of charging procedure.
under a defined low level, the current stops flowing out for Step 2. Store sample in stable area for more than 1 hour
protecting the battery. but less than 4 hours.
F. Other Extracts of the Proposed Standards Step 3. Monitor the output voltage, discharged at constant
current 0.2C A, until voltage equal to end-of-discharged
As mentioned in Part II, the standards IEC 61960 and voltage which is defined by manufacturer.
GB/T 18287 are taken as reference for the charging and
discharging of the portable power bank. In the charging Step 4. The capacity (Ah) delivered during step 3 shall be
procedure, Step 1. is discharged at a constant current of 0.2 C not less than 100 % of the rated capacity which is declared by
A, until power bank voltage equal to end-of-discharge voltage. manufacturer.
Low current in discharge stage can reduce energy waste. The
Finally, the capacity of the power bank is calculated
power convention for using a low current is better than using
regarding the following formula
high current for example 1 times capacity. Moreover,
manufacturer states the capacity is based on 5 hour periods. Capacity (Ah) = charging current (A) × charging time (h)
So, 0.2 times capacity is matched to manufacturer
specification. to compare those requirements.
End-of-discharge voltage or Cut-off voltage is the bottom IV. POWER BANK MEASURING DEVICE
of working voltage of battery. Normally lithium batteries’ A. Hardware
working voltage is 2.7 V to 4.2 V. Battery will be harmed if
we discharge over than the cut-off voltage. We use the value The photos shown is Fig. 2 is the layout of finished product.
as a guide to define when the discharge state finishes. We can Different testing devices was taken as a reference for the
only use the cut-off voltage given by the manufacturer because design. The device had a power button and a red light to show
the cutoff voltage can only define base on the chemistry that the device was working. The device has 5 functional
composition of battery which is the manufacturing internal buttons. The top one is the power plug that use for charging,
information. Step 2 asked user to follow manufacturer’s the middle one is the discharge USB port and the right-hand
charging procedure because manufacturer shall be realizing side is the charging USB port. There are two tunes on the left-
what the best condition of charging their battery is. The GB/T hand side that can coarse tune and fine tune the current value.
standard has stricter temperature requirement of 23 °C ± 2 °C. At the back of the device, there is a port that can use a cable to
User can use a high current (1-time C) ampere to charge up connect the device to computer and a power supply on the right
the battery. Also, it adds one more requirement: the longest corner.
charging time of applying current (0.2-time C) ampere shall
The hardware was controlled by the system on the platform Hc-12 [13] is a low costs module compare to other wireless
Arduino [12]. The reason on choosing the Arduino is that it is device, it is small and simple installation to the Arduino. It is a
inexpensive, flexible hardware and simple programming
V. EXPERITMENAL RESULT AND DISCUSSION amplitude, better the quality of output current. The best
performance of power banks was shown in Fig. 5.
Power bank Rated capacity The best measured
Pass / Fail
description (mAh) capacity (mAh) VI. CONCLUSION
Brand A 3400 (no mention) 1664 Fail In conclusion, a general standard for power bank capacity
Brand B 3600 (no mention) 1000 Fail verification test suitable for Hong Kong was completed. New
standard contains very detailed capacity test procedure and 3
Brand C 5000 (no mention) 2369 Fail
more additional tests. When concluding the result and analysis,
Brand D 6000 (no mention) 2000 Fail the power banks manufactured by companies providing more
Brand E 6000 (no mention) 3818 Fail information have better current output and store more electrical
energy although these power banks are more expensive than
Brand F 10000 (no mention) 8500 Fail
the power banks with less information.
Brand G 6250 6386 Pass