When connected to electric outlet, but without the aforementioned power-off-then power-on trick to force charging to start; no charging LED illuminated):
I noticed today that a place where I frequently shop sells solar power banks (from a different brand), so maybe Iāll pick one up soon and report back here.
OK, so that looks like complete failure to interoperate, right? No difference at all when you then disconnect the powerbank, right?
Iām assuming that you are using a USB-A to USB-C cable. I guess you should try the USB-C end in both orientations. (If using a USB-A to USB-C adapter with a USB-C to USB-C cable then same challenge but 4 orientations.)
Unfortunately I donāt have a powerbank in order to illustrate what it should say and/or confirm that it can work. Maybe someone else does.
The first time around I was using the USB-A to micro-USB cable that came with the power bank, plus an adapter to USB-C, which yielded the result above (output 1).
I just tried again, testing two different orientations, and this time the charging light and charging notification icon both came on immediately:
State is shown as āDischargingā in the Power Statistics app.
When I first tried the power bank today, I left the cable somewhat coiled and bound with a rubber band, rather than stretching it out to connect, so possibly that was an issue. Either that, or my phone is just temperamental. (Entirely possible, given several issues Iāve had with it, as described in other posts.)
So, rejoice, allā¦ Iām charging my L5 from a solar power bank, using the energy stored from earlier sun exposure, and currently from a lamp in my living room.
Thatās small progress then! That (1.5A @ 5V) should be more than enough to run the Librem 5 while leaving some for battery charging.
This would still say that, if starting from scratch, you would buy a powerbank that supports USB PD 3.0. (For example, āmeā , since I donāt own a powerbank.)
Iām not sure what your question means but if it refers to the formatting of the output for POWER_SUPPLY_USB_TYPE then I agree that it is not very user friendly. Basically the square brackets enclose the actual option that is being used. So regardless of what options are listed, you want to see [PD] among the options but that will never happen unless both ends support USB PD and they successfully negotiate it. Instead you are just getting vanilla power via USB port (which it is referring to as [C] because the phone has a USB-C port but really it applies to any USB port going all the way back to much earlier standards).
@irvinewade and @dos
What I find interesting, though, is that connecting to the power bank when the phone is powered on, immediately initiates charging.
Conversely, when I connect the powered-on L5 to an electric outlet, charging simply will not start unless and until I power down. And it has been that way for many months.
It seems to me like the best way to accomplish this would be to mount everything to a printed circuit board. One side of the board could be the regular Librem 5 battery glued tightly to the PCB. Very thin film contactors could go down in to the battery cavity, to deliver a power connection to the top side of the PCB. The top side of the PCB could include a small area to mount a handfull of small electronic components to act as the battery management system, and to boost the charging voltage as high as needed, to satisfy the additional batteryās charging voltage requirements. Most of the top side of the board would be to host battery clips mounted on to the board to snap in individual lithium-ion batteries to. With the control circuitry and additional batteries all mounted on to a PCB, the phoneās access to power would only be limited by how much additional thickness you want to add to the phone. If using a 18650 battery size, you could get a lot more than 10000 mAh added by adding about three quarters of an inch to the thickness of the phone. Each 18650 battery can store 3500 mAh of power and is about the size of an AA battery. You might get eight or more batteries mounted to the board. Someone would need to print a case to enclose everything on the back side of the phone.
I went on a trip earlier this year where I brought 4 batteries fully charged to a cabin with no electricity. Was fine, at the end of 4 days I still had like 2 batteries to go. I made a web page from the cabin and sent it to friends. It was great.
But, I think a custom back that itself had slots intended for replaceable batteries might add a lot of user comfort, hence the topic.
On further observation, the L5, connected to the power bank and placed directly under a lamp, stopped charging after a while. I imagine this means that the stored energy from earlier sun exposure became depleted, and the light from the lamp wasnāt enough to continue charging, and the L5 started draining again.
A more āpowerfulā solar power bank might perform better, and/or accumulate more stored energy, I suppose. In any case, daytime direct sunlight exposure is likely enough to ensure charging. Will test tomorrow.
Treating the lamp in isolation, I am pretty sure that is correct. Letās suppose you are in the 21st century and all your lamps are energy efficient. A typical wattage (power consumption of the lamp) might be 9W, of which not all of that comes out as light. Then your typical light-to-electricity conversion in the PV is poor efficiency (say 10%-20%, unless you know otherwise). Convert that to current at 5V.
In any case, Conservation of Energy says that thereās not enough to run the phone.
Of course, itās a little more complex than that because I imagine that you were not in a darkened room, and so some light is coming from a source other than the lamp.
But then there are also other losses in the system e.g. in charging and discharging batteries. 85% efficient?
In any case, the starting point would be to know what the wattage of the PV panel is. Itās probably fairly small but it may be enough. That is, you want to know what the weakest link is.
Solar power can charge the battery. But using a solar battery small enough to mount on to the back of the phone is way too small to contribute any noticable charge to the battery. Itāll take about 1 foot by 3 feet or more of solar panel to charge the phone, even slowly. Youāll also need a charge controller matched to the phoneās charging needs.
Here is a link to a good wall charger. It charges my Librem 5 faster than the charger that came with the phone, while also quick charging my Samsung phone at the same time.
The idea of a solar-charging backplate is apparently not so far-fetched, although the L5 is, of course, vastly different from smartphones in its energy requirements. Maybe the best we could hope for is prolonging the discharge phase a little.
A portable (separate piece) solar power bank with enough power to keep the battery alive would still have a lot of practical benefits, though.
Great concept, but Iām wary of electronics with unpronounceable alphabet-soup names. And, of course, itās outside the scope of this thread, since it requires an electric outlet.
For strictly emotional satisfaction purposes for those who do not understand the technical significance or complete lack thereof, mounting a solar panel on the back side of the phone is a great idea.
I guess if you want to leave your phone out in the sun unused for several weeks, you might get an extra minute or two of use of the phone afterward. But the night time drawdown of the battery will more than offset the gains from solar charging. So be sure to turn the phone off every night, take it inside, plug it in, and charge it just enough overnight, to take over only where the battery was in its state of charge from when the sun set that same day. Otherwise, you might accidentally charge it fully, thus nagating the benefits of solar charging.
, since I donāt own a powerbank.)
