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Quick IKEA Solbana Powerbank review

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I recently was at the IKEA and saw the solbana powerbank for around € 15,– (combination of two discounts). Given my old powerbank was crap and I already re-used the battery for another project. I decided to get one as a possible source for more cheap cells.

Solbana

Specifications

Energy 37 Wh
Max Output 5V 2A
Charge Current 5V 2A
Charge port Micro USB
USB port USB A

Tear down

Battery

The battery is a Pow-Tech PT925675 3.7V 5000mAh, FCC Info. There are two stacked together, making total of 37Wh.

Battery

There is a small NTC taped to the batteries under the yellow tape.

PCB

The front looks pretty decent:

Front

The back is a bit more spotty (nothing IPA cannot fix), but a few of the soldering connections could be touched up.

Back

On the PCB we find a MCU Holtek HT46R003B Datasheet. And a AXV6ZE power management chip?

Measurements

I did some measurements using a USB Power meter (UM25), 2A charger and a (35W) dummy load.

Charging (2A) 44Wh
Discharging (2A load) 32Wh
Discharge Voltage 2A 4.8V

Assuming it charged the full capacity of the battery pack (37Wh), this gives a charging efficiency of around 86%. Discharging it gives around the same efficiency, 86%.

If the load exceeds 2.1A, the powerbank turns itself off.

Under full load or charging, it only get slightly warm (even though it is 38+ degrees celcius outside ).

All in all, not a bad result.

Slightly less great

The powerbank has an auto-power down function that is very annoying, if the load is under +-0.5W it turns itself off after a while.

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