I learned the hard way this morning that my Bluetti AC180 decided to turn of the AC outlets during a heavy rain storm last night. I had my sump pump plugged into the AC180 and the AC180 plugged into line power. There was no power outage that I’m aware of, but because I didn’t know the AC outlets turned off, I found water in my basement and it took me a while to figure-out why my sump pump stopped working. I know for sure the AC outlets were ‘on’ when I plugged in the sump as I tested it.
If nothing else, this is a warning to others and perhaps a feature request. I.e., I’d like it if there was a "Default AC to ‘on’ " feature so that the AC outlets on the AC180 (or any Bluetti power station) automatically turned ‘on’ in the event that the power station restarts, has connectivity issues, etc.
I read that the “AC-ECO” working mode is enabled by default on the AC180. According to the manual:
ECO mode: When operating on ECO mode, the AC/DC output will automatically turn
off if the AC180 is bearing low or no load for a while.
I’m assuming this is why I got surprised by the AC outlets being “off” when I know I turned them on. When having a sump pump connected, there are definitely long stretches of time, often days, where there is no power draw on the AC180.
Hence, I have turned “off” the AC-ECO mode and hope this will allow me to not have to pay so much attention to the AC180 when a storm rolls through.
Seems like a very bad idea to enable a default ‘eco’ mode that turns off the AC to save power even when plugged into line voltage. Someone needs some better user feedback before moving from beta to production.