The supplied AC adapter comes with one hollow-plug power input connector. USB charging is not supported. The adapter features a green LED (as shown on the image below) but it really serves no purpose, as it just indicates that the adapter is plugged in. The LEDs on the device itself serve as a battery capacity indicator.
You can always check the power pack capacity prior to use. Simple press the On/Off button for a few seconds and the power level indicator will activate. If all three LEDs are visible (image below) the device is at full capacity (>75%). Two visible LEDs indicate it’s half full, or half empty, while one visible LED indicates low capacity (<20%). The LEDs are marked Low / Med / High and it’s all self-explanatory from here.
While the PowerPack 12000 is being recharged, power level indicator LEDs activate automatically, letting us see the current capacity of the battery. The LEDs will flash until the next power level is reached, e.g. if the device is charged to half capacity, the High capacity LED will flash, while the other two will stay lit..
When the battery is fully charged all power level indicators will glow and that’s all there is to it.
If we connect a device to the power pack, and it starts charging, the On/Off indicator will glow blue. We can press the On/Off button again to check battery capacity level; this will not interrupt the charging process.
On one occasion we did not use the PowerPack 12000 in over a month, but we observed that the capacity was still at full once we tried it out again. However, discharging and recharging the battery periodically will help keep it fit and healthy.
To fully charge the battery it takes between seven and ten hours, so it is an overnight affair. The charging time will be shorter if the battery is not fully discharged. Devices cannot be connected to the power pack while it is charging from the AC wall charger.
We used HTC’s One S smartphone with a 1650mAh battery to try out the power pack. We could charge this phone five to six times, depending on how much we used the phone during charging and how low its battery was. From this we can conclude that PowerPack 12000 can deliver about 8500mAh while it consumes 12000mAh. This means that big tablets with battery capacities in excess of 6500mAh can only be charged once.
After we charged the phone two to three times the battery capacity indicators showed a drop in capacity, from three to two LEDs.
You have to be careful when the battery capacity is low. The low cattery capacity indicator is basically a single LED, so sometimes the device will contain enough power to charge a phone, but it could be practically empty as well. If you are in the middle of nowhere and you depend only on the PowerPack to charge your phone, it’s a good idea to keep track of the capacity. However, if you do end up in such a situation, chances are that you will succumb to exposure or dehydration before the PowerCharger 12000 runs out of juice.
The USB connector designated OUT1 is rated at DC 5V 1A, while the second one named USB2 is DC 5V 2.1A unit. Obviously, charging through the USB2 connector can speed up charging by 50%, provided your device supports 2.1A.
Two devices can be connected for charging at the same time.