Anypower T Power Plus Alpha [full review video added]

[USDashCamera]

Feature

• - Bypass output and fast charging at the same time
• - Low Voltage Cut-Off for preventing vehicle battery discharge
• - No discharge by Zero Standby current
• - Huge capacity of 15,600mAh
• - Samsung,LG official Li-ion battery, Origin of Korea
• - Low heating for safety
• - 5V USB port to use 5V mobile and outdoor appliances
• - You can select a continuous connection or a cigarette lighterreceptacle connection.

Spec

• - Capacity: Li-Ion 3.7V 15,600mAh
• - Output: 12V DC / 5V USB
• - Input: 12V DC
• - Dimension: 141 x 82 x 22mm
• - Weight: 375g
• - Components: Input cable, Output cable

Application

• - 12V mini-sized home appliances – vehicle black box, car camera, dash cam, camera recorder, netbook computer, GPS, portable monitoring camera
• - 5V appliances - smartphones, iphone, ipad, tablet PC, outdoor lightings and more

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Video Review:

Testing [Jan/20/2015]:

So I received my T power plus alpha as a replacement for my other power supply that had an issue and was not outputting power even with a full battery.

Main difference is there is no longer a reverse charge feature to "jump start" your car. I am not sure how well that worked to begin with, but either way I had my own seperate jump starter battery I keep in my car anyways.

Instead of the reverse charge feature they added a USB port to charge your phones/tablets which is nice if you do not already have an external battery.

The front of the device is now different, there is one less LED, and when it is plugged in you can not actually turn it off to prevent the battery from powering your camera (for example you want to park in a garage, you know your car battery will cut off soon because of the cold weather, and want battery remaining the next day). So I assume the only solution is to unplug the output.

They advertise that it has the digital blocking technology, and I need to do testing, but it seems like it makes my camera last noticeably longer than the standard plus model.

But one issue I have noticed is the next day, my camera will be shut off, but it claims that there is still a charge in the battery. So either the LED is incorrect, or it is shutting off my camera before it should be. I emailed anypower to see what they say about that.

No unboxing/first impressions video this time. Since I did both that and a review last time, I am only gonna do one video for the full review. will probably be up by next week.

 

[USDashCamera]

Updated with review. After testing it for awhile it was just too hard for me to get good enough time measurements on charging and battery usage. It did seem like it was an improvement but any evidence I came up with would have been anecdotal so I can't say for sure 100% it is noticeably better than the previous model.

The USB addition is nice though, unless you wanted the reverse charge feature.

 

[bobby14]

What is the Low Voltage Cut-Off point set at or can choose?

 

[USDashCamera]

What is the Low Voltage Cut-Off point set at or can choose?

You can choose 11.8, 12, 12.2, 12.5. It also has a cigar mode which basically means it turns off once your car is off. But if you have it in cigar mode whole hardwired it might drain your battery.

 

[bobby14]

Does it take voltage from the car battery when car is off? Or it only takes it from the battery to charge the power pack when car is on? What I want is a battery pack to provide power to the camera when car is off and when car is on it takes power from the car battery which I think that's what that pass through function is. It would be a plus feature if when the car is off, and the power pack is powering the camera and when power pack is depleted, it takes power from the vehicle battery as a backup to power the cam until it reaches the 11.8v or 12v shut off.

 

[USDashCamera]

Does it take voltage from the car battery when car is off? Or it only takes it from the battery to charge the power pack when car is on? What I want is a battery pack to provide power to the camera when car is off and when car is on it takes power from the car battery which I think that's what that pass through function is. It would be a plus feature if when the car is off, and the power pack is powering the camera and when power pack is depleted, it takes power from the vehicle battery as a backup to power the cam until it reaches the 11.8v or 12v shut off.

It takes power while you car is off from the car battery first and only uses its own internal power when it hits the voltage cut off. It charges while the car is off too I believe as long as your battery is at 12.5 volts.

 

[Zuntax]

@USDashCamera
Another more powerful Battery Pack model "Cellink B"

http://www.blackvue.com.sg/cellink-b-battery.html
Any thoughts on new Cellink B Battery Pack?

 

[USDashCamera]

Blackboxmycar is going to send me a cellink to review but it'll likely be a few weeks.

I guess I don't understand electricity enough but how does the cellink offer longer times with a smaller battery? The anypower packs around 15000 mAh versus 6000 in the cellink.

 

[bobby14]

This T Power Plus Alpha runs hot while charging and powering the dash cam at the same time. Most the heat is on the end with all the connectors. They should haves made the case with material like aluminum to better dissipate the heat. I am concerned about the heat in the summer .

 

[USDashCamera]

This T Power Plus Alpha runs hot while charging and powering the dash cam at the same time. Most the heat is on the end with all the connectors. They should haves made the case with material like aluminum to better dissipate the heat. I am concerned about the heat in the summer .

Mine get hot while charging but during the summer I didn't need them even, my car battery alone was capable of running then 12 hours.

 

[fastcarguy1]

Blackboxmycar is going to send me a cellink to review but it'll likely be a few weeks.

I guess I don't understand electricity enough but how does the cellink offer longer times with a smaller battery? The anypower packs around 15000 mAh versus 6000 in the cellink.

I bought my Cellink B from BlackboxMyCar a few weeks ago and have nothing but good things to say about BlackboxMyCar and the Cellink product. Like all battery powered units everyone will get different results based on the dashcam drain and how active the dashcam is where you car is parked. The LiFePO4 battery technology works much better than the standard lithium batteries in other units. The Cellink B charges in about 1 1/2 hours which is much faster than other units. So far I have gotten 48 hours in parking mode out of my unit operating a BlackVue DR600-GW-HD in an underground parking garage. Since I don't drive my car on a daily basis I bought a T-Power 5 amp home charger for the Cellink B. The charger can be purchased here:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/B00N3FQMWY

 

[USDashCamera]

I bought my Cellink B from BlackboxMyCar a few weeks ago and have nothing but good things to say about BlackboxMyCar and the Cellink product. Like all battery powered units everyone will get different results based on the dashcam drain and how active the dashcam is where you car is parked. The LiFePO4 battery technology works much better than the standard lithium batteries in other units. The Cellink B charges in about 1 1/2 hours which is much faster than other units. So far I have gotten 48 hours in parking mode out of my unit operating a BlackVue DR600-GW-HD in an underground parking garage. Since I don't drive my car on a daily basis I bought a T-Power 5 amp home charger for the Cellink B. The charger can be purchased here:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/B00N3FQMWY

Does that 48 hours include running off the car battery until the voltage cut off or just the cellink battery.

 

[fastcarguy1]

Does that 48 hours include running off the car battery until the voltage cut off or just the cellink battery.

That was just the Cellink battery. Again based on a BlackVue DR600 and the amount of traffic in my underground parking at the time. My Lukas LK-530 lasted 7-9 hours so a big difference.

 

[fastcarguy1]

Last night with it being -21 degrees Celsius which is -6 Fahrenheit my dashcam was busy recording 85 files which over 21gb of data the Cellink was dead in 11 hours. As you can there are a lot of variables, activity, temperature and the type of dashcam. Also when I say dead that means the Cellink B shut off at the normal 12.1 volts inorder to protect the batteries. That is the bad part about Lithium type battery packs as they all have circuitry that shuts them off between 10 and 12 volts. It looks like the Cellink B is designed to shut down at 12.1 volts. S0 from a full charge of 14.5 volts you can see there is almost 2.5 volts of usage. There are LiFePO4 battery packs that shut down at 9.5 volts giving a good 5 volts from full charge. The downside is they are only battery packs that don't have the features of the Cellink B or the T-Power Plus ALPHA. If you drive your car every day long enough to recharge a dashcam power supply then you are ok.

 

[bobby14]

The manual says the T Power Plus Alpha will have blue led when fully charged. I haven't ever seen it light up blue and my typical drive is 1 hour. Have you seen it fully charged blue led lit?

 

[USDashCamera]

The manual says the T Power Plus Alpha will have blue led when fully charged. I haven't ever seen it light up blue and my typical drive is 1 hour. Have you seen it fully charged blue led lit?

There is no blue led, I can't find it saying that in my instructions.

 

[bobby14]

 

[michael007]

The 6amp input of the Cellink B Battery Pack makes it stand out compared to anything else on the market. That is outstanding as it would be good enough to charge to a useful capacity while I'm driving!

Unfortunately, the markup is too high for my current budget.

Schumacher makes a portable car starter / external battery that's also made from LiFePO4 cells and is double the capacity (12000mAh vs. 6000mAh for the Celllink) for half the price. It comes with a 12v cigarette lighter input and output and so it has the same features as many of the packs here (except for voltage cut-off, hardwire and charging rate) and can be used as a power source for a cam when the car is off.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00LQW3COW
I'd thought of purchasing the schumacher but the 1amp charging port won't charge fast enough in the car to be useful .

Not everyone wants to hardwire into their car. I hardwired and discovered my battery can't handle the blackvue being on for more than a few hours. Hopefully external batteries for dashcams will become more widespread in the future with a charging rate similar to the Cellink because I'd love to buy a pack at a lower price point (which the schumacher price proves, is still profitable for the manufacturer). Wishful thinking for now..

 

[USDashCamera]

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Oh you were talking about in that cigar mode instructions I didn't check there. I've never seen it blue before they must have screwed up their own instructions.

 

[USDashCamera]

I am receiving a cellink to review also so I'll try my best to compare the t power alpha plus to the cellink b. I'll likely connect them to a camera running all day in my house (which will mean warm temp).