I purchased an Anker 737 (PowerCore 24k) to charge my Framework 16 (first generation motherboard). I’ve found that even with the USB-C cable from the Framework charger, the computer will not charge from this battery back. It seems like it’s failing to negotiate, because the battery pack says it’s outputting power, then drops to 0, cycling back and forth fairly quickly.
Interestingly, if I use a really cheap USB-C cable, like one from a cell phone charger, the battery will happily dump about 60W into the laptop with no trouble (other than probably going above the max rating for this cable)
Does anyone have suggestions for how to get the laptop to charge from this battery?
If not, are there battery packs known to work well with the Framework 16 that anyone recommends?
From what I know about this model. It has supplied cable visually marked as 140W but e-marked 180W, which may cause issue. However since the USB-C cable from the framework charger also has the same issue, I would say the battery pack is problematic. Try using another one, 100W should be enough to power the FL16 with expansion bay shell
Cannot negotiate charging for certain portable EPR power banks. Some power banks do not follow USB-C 3.1 EPR entry timing which is the root cause of this issue.
I’m using 2 different powerbank which I bot some time ago, both of them delivers only 100W but works OK
A charger has two methods to negotiate charging.
EPR vs SPR
SPR is a simpler protocol and supports up to 100W, so you using a usb-c cable for a phone forced it to use SPR mode.
EPR is more complex and thus devices are more likely to have bugs.
My guess is that there is maybe a bug in the anker charger EPR code causing the incompatibility or maybe a bug on the FW side.
That’s very interesting. Glad to know it’s a known issue! I wonder if that is being publicly tracked. I found a couple issues on Github, but neither seem to have a ton of engagement.
The symptoms from the title of the first one, where it cycles every second, are exactly what I’m seeing. I even see it sometimes with an Anker wall charger, but much less frequently.
I’ve tried lots of different USB-C cables with the Anker battery pack, so it really seems to be the interaction between the laptop and the battery. Unfortunately I don’t have the expertise to diagnose it further.
Hopefully this issue is resolved in an upcoming BIOS update!
I looked into that a while ago when looking to purchase a battery pack for my FW16. I went through the posts linked above and went with the Anker Prime Power Bank (27K, 250W) and haven’t had any issues with it. I’ve used it on flights to extend my battery life while playing games on my FW16.
There is (or was) a known issue with the handshake between the Framework 16 and specifically the Anker 737, there’s a thread about it somewhere around here. I don’t know if it was ever resolved, but it’s specific to that SKU and like 1 or 2 others (not Anker).
I have had nothing but a positive experience with my Anker Prime though.