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Charging 235 for portable battery pack

Hello!

Had my 235 for a while now and pretty happy with it, however......

With a view to doing some longer runs this year i got a portable battery pack to use to charge on the go (part of the reason i changed to the 235 from my 620)

the battery pack is this http://global.energizerpowerpacks.com/uk/energizer/portable-chargers/UE2601

idea being to plug the watch usb cable in and charge it on the go, in a back etc,

however when i tried it the other day had an issue. As per normal when i plug it in the charge indicator comes up on the watch and and the light on the engerizer pack comes on, charging away, but after a few minutes, prob 3 mins the charge indicator disappears, no % increase on the battery, and the indicator on the engerizer pack goes off!

this would indicate to me that the engerizer pack battery had died but it is not, its still fully charged! i have tried it with my iphone and garmin 510 and will recharge them fully!

anyone had any other experiences like this??? and any ideas?

thanks

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Yes, it's mainly to do with the charging circuit in the watch. There is incompatibility between the charge circuit in the watch and the battery management circuit inside the power bank. Not sure if this is the case will all power banks but ones with auto poweroff or other safety features will just stop providing voltage to the watch after the watches charging circuit internally disconnects the power bank briefly every few minutes.

This is only an issue with power banks rather than wall chargers or PC USB ports which usually never shutoff the voltage, hence no issue with the watches charging circuit.

0 Nighthawk700 over 9 years ago

I used a portable power pack to recharge a watch once (just to be sure it was working). So I guess it's not all of them? This one was a 5.0V, 800 MA with a capacity of 2600 MA if that helps any. I may try it again tomorrow, after reading this post.

0 murr_walker over 9 years ago

thanks for the responses,

seems to be an bit of an anomaly with different portable power packs,

i imagine the engergiser one is perhaps a bit 'smarter' than some as desbibed in the reply above,

will need to try a few more and see if i can find a compatible one!

thanks

0 jim_m_58 over 9 years ago

I use a PNY one with a 230. When I first plug it in, the led on the pack comes on, but goes off after a minute or two, but it keeps charging the whole time (it probably turns off the led to not burn the battery for that).

While using it, nothing changes on the 230 itself, and if it's running something that shows the battery level (a watchface or an app that shows it) the level is going up.

0 murr_walker over 9 years ago

FYI tried this with a defferent power supply, cheap petrol station one, and it now works!

0 PiratePoopyVonPain over 9 years ago

FYI tried this with a defferent power supply, cheap petrol station one, and it now works!

Am I correct in understanding that you can charge the FR235 without it ending your activity? So on an endurance run, say 24 hour, I could plug it into a portable pack for half an hour and it will still track GPS, etc during that time until I unplug it and put it back on my wrist?

0 Nighthawk700 over 9 years ago

Yes, your understanding is essentially correct, but: 1) You don't have to take it off your wrist while recharging. 2) A half hour isn't going to get you much, you'll probably need it on for an hour or two to fully charge it. (maybe more if it's charging while doing all the heavy work of GPS and tracking?)

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Ok, so it won't end your activity, but will it continue to track while charging?

Basically, I want to find a way around having to split up a 24-ish hour event. I want one track, one file, one activity, etc. And ideally, I'd be able to keep the 235 on 1-second sampling, since this'll be an off-trail hike at times and having accurate tracks will be useful.