I am wondering if there’s any info on compatible chargers and battery banks for the Librem 5. Aside from the included adapter, all of my adapters don’t seem to charge it well at all, including some official branded ones such as my Oneplus and Samsung adapters (both of which have fast charging technology that the Librem 5 doesn’t support). When I use these adapters, the charging light on the phone sometimes will light up, however, the battery icon will not indicate it is being charged. This leads me to believe that while the battery is indeed receiving power, it is not enough to outperform the battery’s drain. I also have a 10ah Samsung battery bank which has the same issue and will become worthless once I start to daily drive the Librem 5 in the future.
Now looking at the included adapter it appears to use PD 3.0. My main question, TLDR, is whether this is the only requirement for charging the Librem 5 or if there’s more to it than that? Can I buy adapters and battery banks that support this standard and have them “just work” with the Librem 5?
Here are some examples, specifically the car adapter since as of now I have no way whatsoever to charge the Librem 5 when I’m on the road.
I wonder if Purism would consider selling spare chargers for the L5? I know I wouldn’t mind having a spare that I knew was guaranteed to be compatible.
Agreed. Also car chargers and battery banks. Especially with the L5’s current deplorable battery life, having multiple ways to charge it would be invaluable. However if it’s as simple as finding a PD 3.0 compatible charger/battery, then one can easily pick these up off Amazon for a fairly reasonable price point.
They do sell a power bank here: https://shop.puri.sm/shop/power-bank/
Though I have not tried it. It does have usb-c so maybe it privides enough juice to charge a librem 5?
With the one I have, the librem 5 will charge very slowly if it has just the modem switch on and the screen off. Far from ideal though.
I’ve kinda found that batteries (usb-a) is really only good for not draining the internal battery on the phone, and not really usefull for charging.
Very interesting, I did not know about that! This is unfortunate for me though:
NOTE for customers outside US: We will not be able to ship any orders that contain ONLY power bank(s), without containing a laptop and/or phone, due to regulations. Any such order will be cancelled and refunded.
So, I decided to take one for the team and give the Purism 20,000mAh Power Bank a try. Thanks @steve for costing me another $79.00.
A couple of points. First, I was disappointed to see that the Power Bank did not come with its own cable. I’ve got it charging now with the L5 cable, I just would have thought that for 80 bucks it would have come with one.
Second, it’s a little bit bigger than I expected it to be. Not bad for a laptop, but I wasn’t expecting it to be bigger than the Librem 5. Photo for comparison.
Thanks for checking it out for us,
Is it able to charge the librem 5 at a reasonably speed or is it like the other batteries that basically just prevent the main battery from discharging?
It’s charging at a reasonable speed so far. In about a 2 hr span, it went from 25% to about 70%. Keep in mind, I was using the phone during part of this period, including watching a video/podcast.
One thing to mention, had an issue later on tonight (after I removed from the powerbank, used the phone for a bit, then went back to recharge). I could not get the L5 to charge, either with the power bank, or the regular charger. Removing and resetting the L5’s battery cleared the issue and it began charging as normal. I have absolutely no idea if it was related to using the powerbank or not.
I’ve seen it very rarely, and most of the time by having a dead phone that’s plugged in. So I don’t think it’s related to the battery. If you see it again I ask you get the information asked in the ticket there.
This very kind post explains the basics involved (where source means that if some unknown PD power supply used … it might make Librem 5 happy, but not necessarily):
@TacticalPandaLE To be fair, I own a Samsung battery bank that is 10ah and it is roughly the same size as the L5. Granted it does also have wireless charging built in but I digress. I don’t think it’s too farfetched for a 20ah battery to be slightly bigger than the L5. Not coming with a cable is a bit unfortunate though they probably assume you already bought a relevant device and thus have a compatible cable.
@Quarnero This is very interesting. So perhaps not all PD technology is created equal. This seems an odd and unreliable choice for charging the Librem 5. I wonder why they didn’t go with the more universal QC or even just good old fashioned regular 2 amp charging.
Occasionally my Librem 5 does not charge. I need to remove the battery and after 5 secs install the battery and the phone reboots. One time the battery was so discharged that I could not reboot the phone. Removing and reinstalling the battery did not re-enable the phone to charge.
The I remembered that I bought a spare battery when I purchased the phone. The spare battery had enough charge and it rebooted the phone and I was able to charge the batteries.
I would have been really stuck without that spare battery.
All I want is the ability to charge the Librem 5 battery independently of being installed in the phone. I cannot find anything that will charge the Librem 5 battery standalone , ie not installed i the phone. I use a battery charger for other batteries I have. Would it be possible to adapt a battery charger to charge a Librem 5 battery, (a battery that is not installed in the phone)?
There’s practically no details on the store page so I can’t make a judgement call on whether or not the TSA would allow the 20,000 mAh power bank. Anyone know if either of them are TSA compliant? I’ve seen top 10 lists online that list banks with larger capacities, though that doesn’t confirm if Purism’s power banks are within the 100 Wh limit (or 101–160 Wh with airline approval).
As related advice already available, just remove your Librem 5 back cover again and:
You can make this or similar charging set (just make sure that termination voltage stays at 4.2V): Battery for Librem 5. Also, ISDT UC2, or more expensive ISDT UC4, might be implemented as chargers as well, but I do not have them. Anyway, by using pogo pin connectors (therefore called “battery holder” for + and − poles), as shown within my here linked post is where you’ll need to start to build some reliable external battery charger by yourself.
“… independently adjustable positive and negative pin position …”
As linked universal charger specs are: “Output: DC4.35V -600mA(Battery)”, it is not to be used with the Librem 5 battery. Yet, its pogo pin connectors are just about the very same ones that I recommended within my previous post.
