Tekkeon TekCharge MP2250 Battery Pack – First Impression

I purchased the Tekkeon MP2250 along with the Cradlepoint PHS300 from 3GStore.com. Until now, I haven’t had the time (nor really a need) to use the external battery pack. I charged the battery when I first received the unit, plugged it in to the router to see that it did indeed work, and that was about it.

A quick note here, the Tekkeon is an small rechargeable, external lithium polymer battery. It goes hand in hand with the Cradlepoint routers, but can power other 5V devices, with its 25.9 Wh output power.

This past week, I decided I was going to check it out. In preparation, I placed the unit(s) on charge overnight. When I got to work on Friday, I attached the PHS300 to the TekCharge and powered up the router. I noted the time at 08:51. I admit the unit got somewhat light usage through the day, and when I powered it off at 14:52, the battery indicator on the Tekkeon had only dropped a couple of bars / lights.

After I got home, I fired it up again. That was at 17:37. I used the unit to continue to power the PHS300 and Franklin Wireless CDU-680 combo. My 17″ MBP was the only device using the wireless, but had more moderate usage while I surfed, ran some speedtests, sent some emails, and other general internet activities.

I hadn’t paid close enough attention, but somewhere later in the evening, I had exhausted the Tekkeon battery and the PHS300 was running on internal power. I turned the PHS300 off at 23:42, and disconnected it from the Tekkion in order to recharge the battery pack over night.

At 08:23 this morning, I once again powered up the PHS300. I left it disconnected from the Tekkeon to try and get an idea of overall total battery run time. The unit finally shut off at 09:39. This was after heavy use running Remote Desktop, performing server admin “stuff”, and other general internet activities.

All in all, it adds up like this:

This is a whopping 15 hours and 21 minutes of total use! That far exceeds what is advertised, and in my opinion might not be a true test, but it was realistic. I didn’t use the unit continuously, but in real world scenarios, this may be typical. For example, in a power outage, or for portable use, you likely wouldn’t be running continuously anyway. A larger issue would probably be your laptop battery giving up the ghost long before the Tekkeon/PHS300 combo.

The other item that may be different than your situation is my generally excellent RSSI. In the office, it varies, but is around -70dBm. However, here at home, I currently enjoy about -57 to as good as -51dBm. I also can achieve almost 2.7Mbps downloads with the CDU-680, that gives my 3Mbps DSL connection a run for its money. So the stronger signal, I’m sure, helps by requiring less power, and thus increases battery life.

All in all, I am thoroughly impressed with the performance. I’ll be looking to give the battery powered router another test, under less ideal conditions.  I’ll also devote some time to try and do a continuous run from power on to exhausting both the Tekkeon and the internal PHS300 batteries.

Certainly stay tuned for future updates.

Tekkeon MP2250, PHS300, CDU-680 combo

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