Tesla Powerwall. But I’m impressed by what I see from Ecoflow too.

Great to hear it! Yes, you've got it right - I made 3 bundles - 1 each for 3.3V, 5V, and 12V wires. I separated them, cut them to common length, stripped the ends, and soldered them together, and then onto the posts on the back of the banana sockets. One cool trick is to use a fine wire to physically wrap the many ends together, like an old style broom. Then solder that whole mess together, without having to hold each strand. Another method is to slip silicone heat shrink over the bundle and shrink it all together, then solder. The silicone won't melt like other heat shrink. Good luck! And thanks for the feedback!

@elliottfmills How is your 600W supply project coming along? That's a lot of power, you won't be disappointed!

Yeah factory RoHS lead-free solder is impossible to work with! And cold round solder joints have a tiny contact patch against your iron initially, so there's little heat transfer potential. Everyone says not to melt solder directly on your iron and I say that's nonsense. You melt Sn/Pb fluxcore onto your iron to make a conforming blob that can transfer heat over greater surface area, AND transfer flux, AND alloy with the existing material, all at once! Both of my vices are from PanaVise. I was fortunate to pick them up at an estate sale. I recommend setting up an alert via eBay/Craigslist/Marketplace. They're so nice!

You made my day. Thanks!

Sorry, I only repair things for myself.

The voltage is a result of the both the power source and the device you are connecting. You need a device capable of USB Power Delivery at the 12V "PDO". Different devices support different PDO's, like 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, 20V. And some devices skip a PDO. It all depends on the choices made by the product engineers. For example my MacBook charger skips 12V. My car does supply 12V, even when parked.

It depends on what cells are inside, and their state of charge. But for me it usually takes about an hour.

Is there a reason you’re posting this?

@@colindgrant I just bought one of these noco jump starters and came across your video. I'm just wondering why you're doing this. Why not return it. It seems like a lot of work for no reason.

@@dogbreath6861 As mentioned, I bought this on eBay. So return isn’t an option. Also as mentioned the purpose of this video is to explore the root cause of the issue.

That's great! The fast blinking was probably because the battery still needed more time on your charger before the NOCO BMS could take over. Nice work.

You're right, this was before I had made many YT videos. The voltage/Hz on this model are tied together and are directly proportional to RPM. So you just turn the governor spring screw in or out. Set it a little high, so that it's correct under load, and measure on the end of an extension cord, not at the generator head. Loads will pull down the frequency and voltage on this type of generator since it doesn't have a way to compensate. The key is to make sure the engine is operating properly ahead of time. If it's surging, you almost certainly have a lean mixture. Fix the carburetor before you mess with the generator. And make sure your linkages are clean, free to rotate, and that springs are tight. I wasted a lot of time following bad advice fiddling with the governor before the carb.

Thanks

The one I tried was horrible. It got too hot to touch, the light didn't work correctly, the 90 degree interface was awkward, and it disconnected too easily. Basically it was awful enough that I made this video! I've read the same from other commenters. I bought mine on eBay, and I haven't seen any better ones. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

The Apple OEM MagSafe charger creates noticeable heat, but nothing excessive. I've come to realize that most wireless chargers out there are junk.

Sold a few months ago, it was a cool toy though, and not a lot of videos on them so I figured I would leave it up.

Thankyou very much sir.

You must not have watched the video.

I had to modify the dolly with some brackets. I think they were unistrut brackets that I bent into the right shape to mount to the square tubing. As I recall, I only removed the hitch on top.

Had to find the new failure point!

Awesome. What is the current on the battery maintainer? I bet it's in the right range for charging this thing up.

Here is my cautionary tale: My unit was 10 years old, and after I hot-glued into place the new cable and went to screw-down the video board, I tightened the screws too much, and three of the tiny brittle plastic towers supporting the screw sockets simply disintegrated, leaving the sockets unusable and the video board poorly reattached. Perhaps for that reason the monitor no longer worked. For lack of diagnostic equipment and knowledge, I abandoned the unit for parts. (I note that a less arduous fix is to buy a used cable like the original as a replacement, and live with the Thunderbolt 2->3 adaptor being outside the case, and just ignore the magsafe power cord).

Similar, except it's trickier to replace a cell in this type of pack. Super high drain pouch cells and if you don't match the capacity of the replacement they just go out of balance again.

Hey @jfink, here's the meter I use: amzn.to/3W4qnbI

I especially like the load feature of it. It can do constant current or constant power, with low voltage cutoff. Not needed for this video, but it's really useful for testing out battery banks and all sorts of other stuff.

Thanks! I can't answer completely. But I can add a few things: 1) The USB-C port incorporates a buck-boost converter that adapts between the pack voltage and that of the device plugged in. When you plug in a charger, it boosts the voltage UP, and then that power is passed on to a special lithium ion battery charging IC, which charges up to around 16V. When you plug in a load, it bucks the battery voltage DOWN to 12 or 5V. USB-C devices identify themselves as sources or sinks (chargers or loads), and with the voltages they support, and there is a negotiation between devices at both ends of the cable. So you have a chicken and egg problem. The USB-C circuitry inside the pack has to be powered in order to achieve this negotiation, so that it can receive power! It's analogous to a car battery with an alternator. A truly dead battery won't signal the alternator to make power in order to charge the battery, so roll starting won't even work. 2) As for why the battery gets drained in the first place, I think there must be some small parasitic draw, maybe listening for you to press a button. If you jump start a car or two, you deplete the pack, and then if you don't get the thing onto a charger soon, the parasitic draw brings the pack voltage down below some built in safety threshold. Theoretically a low cell may be an indicator of a damaged cell. So most lithium ion battery management systems are designed to refuse to charge low cells, out of extreme caution. Remember these things can't be allowed to catch fire on an airplane, or after leaving outside at 20 below, or in your car at 160F on a hot day. So manufacturers have to play it safe, and just refuse to charge when there is any indicator of any risk at all. Sorry for the novel, hope that helps!

@@colindgrant Thanks Colin for sharing your thoughts. Do you think that having a charger connected to the USB C port of the NOCO which is not turned ON could drain the battery via the USB C port? I use a laptop USB C charger which I run via an inverter in my car. The NOCO is connected to the charger all the time, except if I want to use it outside of the car. So it is only charging when the engine is running. The car can sit in the garage for several days sometimes. It is interesting though, that I have been using it like this for almost a year and it just died one day....

Nice explanation

It just has to be a 60W+ USB-C compliant cable. Nothing special. There are tougher cables, but my experience Apple cables are reliably compliant, so it's what I reach for. It didn't matter so much before, but in the age of USB-C, there are a lot more requirements of the cable, and many cables simply don't meet them.

Do not do that. You have no idea how much current that DeWalt battery can dump into those tiny wires in certain circumstances. Easily over 100 amps, from a 5S battery pack while the NOCO is a 4S pack. And DeWalt is the worst choice of all power tool batteries to use because they are unregulated (DeWalt puts the battery smarts in the tool, everyone else puts it in the battery). I have no doubt it worked for you, but it's it great way to melt wires or much worse. A 12V wall adapter would at least limit the current and the voltage. Lastly there's no reason to expose wire, or to use the yellow wire, when you've got access to the heavy duty red and black lines direct to the pack. I'm a safety 3rd kind of guy, but this is really dangerous advice. Please don't follow it.

Works great if you keep it charged.

Bummer. What length did you use? I'm using a few of the same cable with success, but all shorties.

@@colindgrant it was 2.6 ft.

@@box4aza Hmm, next step I would test without the extension, direct from the adapter to the computer.

I’ll go in reverse! I don’t remember the tire size for the frame but a small set is worthwhile, in the T5-20 range. If you want to do the internal usb-c conversion you can just leave out the steps I did for the voltage conversion entirely. Remove the umbilical cable and just stuff the TB2 to TB3 converter inside like I did. The voltage conversion was to change from MagSafe 2 to MagSafe 3 which is really just Power Delivery over USB-C, a part of the USB spec. The monitor won’t care that you’re not pulling power from it. Good luck!

@@colindgrant Ah, I see, thanks. The great paradigm changing innovation of having anything: data, input power, output power - anything but analog sound, come over a single cable type must have had _some_ overhead in specs.

@@stevenlord7793 Sorry not following on the "overhead in specs"

I was philosophically referring to the new specs being required of the entire industry to accommodate the upgrade to USB-c, but yes, they were required here too. (I just want to repeat that your walkthrough was super clear!)

@@stevenlord7793 yeah totally. Thunderbolt 3/4 especially has lots of new functions going over USB-C!

I can confirm that this does work. NOCO did tell me that only in Override will it go below this threshold, if using it normally it will protect itself.