Problems remote charging a Nitecore Tube

Put your bank into low voltage mode-usually holding down the power button for 5 seconds until a white light appears. I have to do this for small low draw devices-earbuds, Apple Watch. Note-don’t forget to turn it off as it stays on until turned off in my experience.

Ah, thanks for the input!  I think my Nitecore NB10000 is a Gen 3 which is missing the white LED low power indicator that Gen 1 had.  Additionally, Gen 2 apparently had a bug (or poor design) where it can go into “lockout” mode if the power button is held too long (~10 sec, I think).  Anyway, I’m not yet sure how to tell whether or not the long-press actually placed it into a low power mode because there is no indicator.  Hmm… I’ll keep experimenting!

EDIT: OK, apparently the NB 10000 Gen 3 uses an “auto-detect low power mode” so that no button presses are required.  Only, some users (including me now) report that it doesn’t work right and fails to charge some small devices.  I’ll switch to the Veektomix to see if/how its low power mode functions.

I just got a NB10000 gen 2

I read about if you hold the button down for 10 seconds it will turn it off until you connect it to a charger.

That seems pretty weird, why would they do that???

I have the white light.  I should try that to see if it works.

It’s for low current.  So that the power bank turns off when it’s not connected to anything.  So the power bank doesn’t discharge.

If you plug a low current device into it it can’t tell the difference between that and zero current.

What if you had the nb10000 in your pack and something was accidentally pressed against the button for 10 seconds.

It would disable the nb10000 for the rest of the trip.

Yeah, they eliminated that lockout mode on the Gen 3.  I found some Reddit threads stating that the only way to get back out of lockout on Gen 2 in the woods was to connect a USB-A from another power bank to the USB-C input of the NB10000 and allow 5-10 minutes until it exits lockout.  Clearly a bug and not a feature, although Nitecore said otherwise.

I don’t like that ‘auto detect’ low power mode. Something with very low draw-as you have noticed-will likely not meet the threshold of that bank.

Yup — it doesn’t work with my lowly Tube.  I’m reading the Veektomix manual now but not seeing any mention of a low-power mode.

my earbuds are low current.  When I connect to my Anker it keeps turning off after a few minutes.  I can turn it back on at will charge for another few minutes.  If I do that 100 times it will charge the earbuds.

A better solution is to charge my phone while I’m charging the earbuds.  Even after the phone is charged, leave it plugged in and it will draw enough current so that the Anker doesn’t turn off

I think a better solution would be for the powerbank not to automatically turn off.

I will now have to push the button down for 10 or 20 seconds and see if this happens : )

I never knew this powerbank stuff was tricky for dinky devices like earbuds, watches, and baby flashlights.  Now I know.

Like I said, I just bought my gen 2 nb10000

I tried pushing the power button for 1 minute.  It never went into that weird hibernate mode.  Maybe they fixed that.  Maybe that hibernate mode would be useful for long term storage – “nobody would every accidentally hold down the button for 20 seconds would they?”

I plugged in a usb power meter with a ring attached and the nb10000 turned off after about 2- seconds – no lights on.

I tried holding the power button for 2 seconds and the white light went on.  Then I plugged in a usb power meter with a ring plugged into it – a low power device.  After 20 seconds it turned off, the blue lights turned off, but the white light stayed on.  The low power mode is not working.

Then I plugged in the usb power meter with ring, then turned on the white light, now it stays on.  The low power mode is working now.

So you have to plug in the low power device before turning on the white light.  That’s pretty weird.

If I plug in just the USB power meter which is a very low current device, turn on the white light, it turns off after 20 seconds but the white light stays on.  The USB power meter draws about 0.01 A.  The USB power meter + rung draws about 0.015 A.  So the low current mode reduces the threshold of current at which it shuts off, but if it’s very low current it will still turn off.  But the white light stays on sucking a tiny bit of battery capacity.

I guess I can work with that.  It’s sort of flaky, which makes me wonder about the design of this product in general, but people are using this successfully, so I guess I’ll just ignore.

At least you got it to work.

I’m not likely to buy another power bank just to charge up the Tube, so maybe I’ll just throw a second one in my bag for any long trips.  I actually got through a 5-night trip in November using nothing but the little Tube (but no night hiking obviously).  These things are a beast!