I know when I charge mine, it acts the same whether I have anything drawing on the output or not. When it reaches 100% the battery bank becomes ice cold. Same as if it sits in a drawer for 3 month. My cameras are running off of the input power from the power pack and the battery is no longer being charged.
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The batteries are no longer being fast charged to reach 100%. The question is are they constantly drawing a tiny bit after that (which wouldnât generate much heat).
Lithium does not like that. Whether theyâre in series of the circuit and powering the device with the battery and charging the battery at the same time (which would likely generate some heat), or in parallel and keeping a voltage applied to the batteries all the time (probably not much heat at all until something goes wrong), neither is desirable.
Probably not a question that can be answered without pulling the unit apart or finding some sort of diagnostic access.
I believe there is some sort of sensing disconnect circuit for the battery. I come to this conclusion for a number of reasons.
- If I stop the charge at say 99%; unplug the charger and give it a minute, then plug back in the charger, it does NOT continue charging back up. The lightning bolt showing âChargingâ doesnât light up. At 97-98% it does allow to being charging again. Iâve noticed this on a number of attempts. Not for this camera project but when I use the battery bank for normal charging of cell phones. E.g. It was at 99% and charging, I unplugged it to move it to a different AC outlet, and when I plugged it back it it did NOT CONTINUE charging. Just showed 99%. I plugged the battery bank into my phone for a few minutes to get it down to around 97%-98% and plugged the charger back in and the lightning bold and charging DID continue charging the battery up to 100%.
- My cameras demonstrates a switchover from input and power. (Noticed by the CLICK âREBOOTâ I hear when the camera reboots because of temporary loss of power. If the battery and the input charge were in parallel to the output circuits, then my camera would never know there was a power disruption. The output circuit also wouldnât know the difference between the battery and the charger. The output device obviously isnât directly connected to the batteries. Power from the batteries have to go through some circuitry. Whereas the input power is already regulated and conditioned, and thus can run the device (Camera) directly.
Anyway; thatâs my technical conclusion. And that is actually common in most UPS. Part of the switchover; so the batteries donât have a constant input voltage applied to them 24/7. Unless of course itâs intentional; e.g. sealed lead acid battery, no circuitry, directly connected to a trickle charger/maintainer.
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My problem with the voltaic V25 OR the V75 is price. If I was buying these specifically as a backup to my cameras, then I wouldnât be worried about TSA rules or anything. Theyâd be used as my UPS system for my cameras. But⌠if Iâm going to spend $45 for the V25 or $99 for the V75, why in the world wouldnât I just spend $45-$48 on a traditional 450va 120ac UPS and plug the camera wall warts into them.
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Right, but this isnât a UPS 
Obviously youâve seen that by the fact that the camera reboots, but the reason for that is unknown, is there an intentional internal switch that is not fast enough, or just the lack of a capacitor or regulator to account for the re-routing of voltage (or something totally unrelated, like the display kicking in sucking up some of the output power, which would seem to possibly be the case if pushing the button to check the voltage bounces the output).
If it runs off wall power for weeks, does the 100% eventually drop down due to normal parasitic loss? Thatâs probably the only way to confirm it isnât actually keeping voltage applied to the batteries.
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That is a good point. 
Our use cases are different. As I stated earlier, I had good results with the 50,000mAh unit. If my use case was the same as yours I agree. The big unit works fine.
My case is different. The solar charging changes everything.
The good new is there is a technical solution to both our use cases. Would I spend $99 to backup an internal camera. I doubt it.
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Iâve had this battery bank in my night stand in the bedroom for 3 months at a time. (In between airplane trips; which is what I initially bought it for). After 3 months, the battery bank was STILL at 100% charged. Plugged in the charger anyway to test, still 100% and no additional charging. Iâve done this at least 5 times in the last year when I use it for traveling. I only recently (After buying the 2nd and 3rd v3 cameras) decided to use it as an UPS system for the cameras. My 1st (original) v3 is already on a UPS because of where itâs located. That UPS backs up power to a number of devices. But these 2 new cameras werenât in the same area of the house and didnât justify a $50 UPS for such little power. Especially a SLA battery that needs replacing every couple years. Vs my battery bank that has LiPo batteries that will last approximately 10 years, only costs $20, and Iâve already been using it for 2 years for ânormalâ battery bank use quite well.
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Yes. Your idea makes perfect sense for you.
I have either option.
Is your solar charger charging a battery bank of any kind? I canât believe youâre operating the cameras directly from the solar panels
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Definitely. Yours fits you and you did the homework and testing. For what I do, a reboot is not a issue for me.
Solar panel to voltaic V75. V75 to wyze camera
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No. Not me. @ronl4625 is using a Voltiac v75. I am just using AC.
That is a good selling point for my situation. Youâve tested them for quite some time without having any fires.
So, your solar panel has itâs own regulation and everything built in? Pretty normal. Not knowing how big the panel is, as I mentioned previously, you can have the panel connect to a tiny/small 12v 4amp Sealed Lead acid battery. $18 and the size is 4"x4"x2.7". SLA battery can handle constant trickle charge forever. Thatâs what trickle chargers and mainainers do.
Then for an extra $12, you add the 12v to 5v converter. Many versions. 10-32v input and 5vdc output. (Dual USB-A connectors). Just what your camera is looking for. For $30, you can CONSTANT 5v to the cameras. They will NEVER KNOW there is ever a power outage. The size is really small. And that 4 amp hour battery will last quite a long time. Would a 20,000mah or 30,000mah battery bank âlast longerâ? Probably. But the solar, to 4amp SLA, and 10-32v to 5v USB converter would be the absolute cleanest and most stable power youâll ever get.
But, if duration (days) are needed, maybe the battery banks work well; if you can live with the camera reboot when thereâs the possible power switch. I donât mind the reboot.
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Two of my cams have these. I got them on sale.
APC Back-UPS Connect BGE90M,120V, Network Backup with USB Charging ports Amazon.com: APC Back-UPS Connect BGE90M,120V, Network Backup with USB Charging ports : Electronics
Which tells me the display isnât terribly accurate. And how do you know it is not charging? Are you connecting a USB power meter to the input with nothing on the output? But the real question remains, when using it in passthrough mode, will the charge ever drop below 100% or not, which unfortunately does not seem like the display can reliably tell you.
Highly dependent on the answer to the above. If they are constantly having voltage applied, they will last a lot less than that.
Iâm not saying you shouldnât be doing this or youâre wrong, just for the sake of others that may consider using them in this way, need to be aware that it is not really a use case these packs are designed for.
I donât fully know why, but Amazon has blocked my ability to post reviews or questions. Been that way for years. I got them to unblock it once, and then their system added the block back on shortly after that. None of them can explain why, which is why they unblocked me once. Now I just gave up. 
Looks awesome, but I am a cheapskate 
If I consider spending that much money Iâm likely to copy the set up by @bryonhu which Iâve long admired and bookmarked for future consideration.
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Iâve seen small APC units go for $30 to $40 multiple times over the past year (even with all the inflation going on, they still seem to hit that from time to time). That would be my preferred approach even when comparing with a $20 or $25 battery pack. I do not want to be concerned when away from home that something is going to go wrong. Not that UPSes are immune to problems but in my experience, even when an SLA battery goes bad or the charging circuit messes up, the battery will swell, possibly even leak some electrolyte or even off gas a bit, but never seen one explode or catch fire.
Now Iâve seen some fairly spectacular failures of SLAs in cars but those are subject to much higher current and in all cases it was someone doing something idiotic.
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Do you use VPN? Have heard that can cause that. Also gets you shadowbanned on reddit and various other things. Youâd think these places would realize VPNs are quite common now.
Or maybe their bot detection doesnât like the way you type (or maybe you are a botâŚ)
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