Why You Should Care About the Safety of Your Promotional Power Chargers
Promotional Power Chargers and Safety: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
Austin, Texas: We sell hundreds of different models of promotional power chargers and power banks for giveaways at trade shows, conferences and as gifts.
With so many different options, how do you know which ones are safest–and why should you care?
After all, they basically all look alike on the outside–right?
Lithium ion batteries tend to run very hot – and unless they are constructed with the necessary safeguards they run the risk of catching fire.
In fact, there have been many product recalls lately from imported power chargers and power banks from companies skimping on use of proper parts and assembly techniques. So many that the airlines are considering some type of bans on carrying these batteries in bulk in their cargo bins in the future.
The main component of a power bank is a lithium ion / lithium polymer battery. Although these types of batteries are commonly used, the safety of battery product is always the utmost concern.
Power Bank safety can be addressed on two fronts:
1. Battery Quality Grade A is a general concept used to denote a very good quality battery. The real test is whether or not the battery has a UL Certification. Though our power banks have many certifications, our most popular power bank batteries have passed the UL 1642 test which is a set of rigorous Electrical, Mechanical, Environmental, and Fire Exposure Tests. UL is the most widely accepted certification that denotes a battery’s compliance with recognized safety requirements in North America.
2. Protective Circuitry The Protective Circuitry or PTC is considered a “Safety Valve”. It protects the equipment, the charged device, and user. PTC prevents Internal and External Short Circuit, Abnormal Charge/Over Charge, forced Discharge, and more.
It’s easy to reduce the costs of power banks by cutting out the cost of battery certifications and protective circuitry.
The potential risk of fire and the added product liability that using non-certified chargers presents to businesses and organizations makes it imperative to pay a little bit extra for peace of mind and insist only on chargers that are are FCC,CE and RoHS certified.
Does this certification cost extra? Sure. Testing is not cheap.
is it worth every penny? You bet–especially from a potential litigation point of view. We also run UL testing on many of our batteries for even more assurances.
It goes back to the cost vs. value scale. Do you want the cheapest power charger or the best value?
These certifications show that they have passed all necessary tests to ensure your promotion is a success — and not a fiasco.
Be sure your promotional power banks have been tested and are FCC / CE / RoHS certified. (We have certificates available upon request). This means they have built in short circuit protection systems and are tested to meet the standards for air transport.
Be sure to buy your promotional power chargers from a company that understands safety and certifications.
