PowerBank Xiaomi Mi в Экибастузе

This is a Chinese manufacturer, which is most widely known for their high value phones. This might have been a wise choice, as it seems that counterfeit units are already hitting the markets. Unboxing My unit came in a nice matte cardboard box with a simple, understated, Apple-like grey print of their branding.

The front had the logo, and the back had the mi.

PowerBank Xiaomi Mi в Экибастузе

On the side of the box, there were barcoded serial numbers and the model number. On the opposing side, there is the product specifications and a scratch off verification code panel which allows you to check the genuine status of the power bank more about this in the next section.

Inside the box, there is a short flat USB micro-B charging cable that also has the data pairs connected, the power bank itself and a Chinese manual. The ports on the power bank are covered up with a white piece of tape in transit. The ends, are made of plastic. Similar to the box, the front has the logo, the rear has the URL. The front end houses a power button you can use to check the power status of the power bank.

Original Xiaomi Mi Pro Power Bank

Four small holes allow for a white LED indication to be shown. If you need more ports, buy a second power bank! The capacity itself is rated at 3. For the purposes of helping users detect a fraud on the suggestion by a friendly reader from Germany , the weight of this unit was measured on a cheap set of scales at grams.

Specifically, they also claim the availability of over temperature protection, over-current protection, over voltage protection, automatic load detection, over current protection and PTC protection in the battery cells.

I hope that we can verify some of these claims in action. No doubt some purchasers may have issues with their power bank that lead them to question if their power bank is genuine.

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One way is to perform a visual inspection of the device, following information provided by online websites, such as this. Another method is to verify the unique code on the scratch-off panel. To do this, you need to first scratch off the silver coating on the label with your fingernail or a coin, to reveal a 20 digit code. As many people might not be familiar with Chinese, and neither am I honestly, I will guide you through the process pictorially.

Click on the purple power bank icon. Then enter your 20 digit code, in four sets of five digits, starting from the top into the boxes from left to right. Then answer the math problem in the box with Chinese characters and click on the orange submit form button. You should see a result screen like this if it is genuine. The screen provides a confirmation it is genuine, and the number of times the code has been entered.

If the code has been entered many times, it is likely to be a fake. In this case, it has been entered one time numbers from 1 to 10 in Chinese for reference: If you still have problems, then you may have been a victim of a fake!

Shipping Methods

Teardown Opening the Xiaomi power bank is pretty easy. The first thing to do is to carefully pry off the white plastic facia on the USB port side. This is secured to the chassis by clips and double sided tape. There is a white strip of label paper attached to the LED holes — these act as diffusers, making the indicator much less glary.

Both the power banks see a price hike of Rs 100.

Then, you need to undo the four black screws that hold the black plastic shell in the aluminium chassis. Once it has been undone, you can give it a good shake and the innards should slide out. Already, it is impressive to see the insides of the power bank as one of the claims is immediately obvious — the black lead that leads from the PCB to the battery pack is an NTC thermistor and is used to sense the temperature of the battery pack.

It seems likely that the over-temperature protection is no lie.

Xiaomi Mi PowerBank

Another thing that is very impressive is the use of orange mylar tape, which is normally used in proper battery pack construction e. The PCB itself is a nice blue colour, and looks well made. The white component near the negative, marked with a 10, appears to be a fuse, thus corroborating their claim of having over current protection in the cells.

Flipping it over, we can take a close look at the cells. These cells are rated mAh each, for a total pack capacity of mAh exactly as stated. However, it seems that the cells do claim to be 3. The terminal tab spot welding looks pretty decent, save for some nicks in the heatshrink and in the tabbing on the left side of the right-most cell. This suggests the PCB design may date from 30th December The PCB itself is dated Week 18, There is a fair amount of semiconductor transistors, diodes and MOSFETs on this side, as well as a 1 ohm SMD resistor, likely as a current shunt to implement over-current protection.

No doubt, careful design using a quality solution like this should see good efficiency results. There also seems to be several multi-layer ceramic capacitors to keep the power quality under control, although one spot seems to be unpopulated. Also visible is the tops of the cells, and it seems that the heatshrink around the second cell from the left has been damaged during manufacture.

Performance Testing Performance testing was run based on the new rig and methodology used in previous tests. This included the use of a Keithley Model capturing data on voltage and current in dual measure mode, with the power bank loaded by a resistive test rig that I built myself. Charging the power bank took about 5. The capacity results are as follows: