I’m testing my new AC70P running our standard fridge and it’s drawing about 375 watts. The fridge is shaking a bit which it does not do when plugged into the wall. Is this normal?
@MisterK AC70P supports 2000W lifting power, so powering your standard fridge should be no problem. :)
@MisterK do you have the power frequency set to the correct frequency hertz for your region? Additionally you should only use Power Lift for resistive loads like kettles or heating elements. I wouldn’t recommend using Power Lift for fridge. But the AC70 should handle the startup surge normally if it is not too high. Hopefully it is as simple as setting the correct frequency.
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I have Power Lifting on and the frequency set to 60 Hz. I did two firmware updates this morning. I will test again today and report back. Again, here’s what was happening; My fridge does not shake when plugged into the wall outlet, but it did when running off the AC70P.
@MisterK as I mentioned, I don’t recommend having Power Lifting on as the fridge is not a resistive load. Hope you can solve the issue.
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I have to say, other than the frequency setting that @Erebus mentioned, the only reason I can think of for a fridge (compressor) to shake would be if it was running when you unplugged it and then immediately plugged it into the power station. That might make the compressor fight against the pressure in the cooling system. If that was the case then wait about 5 minutes when changing the power source for the fridge.
Also, turn power lifting mode off as @Erebus suggested.
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I will turn Power Lifting off. Support told me to turn it on yesterday. Also, I ran my fridge from the AC70P all day yesterday. The fridge cycled on and off, and it shook every time the fridge called for power.
It is possible that the power station was using the power lifting mode when the compressor starts. The power station uses reduced voltage to handle the power needs, so maybe the compressor doesn’t like that? I’m not sure of course, but it is possible. Was it an ongoing shaking, or briefly at start-up of the compressor?
It is still shaking, and it shakes all the time the fridge is running using the AC70P.
I tested making a pot of coffee, charging my M12 and M18 batteries, running my shop vac (1100 watts!), a commercial fan, and my freezer in our garage. All of those work fine. The freezer does not shake.
I bought this to run a 12 volt car fridge. I bought one yesterday and it will be here next week. I hope that works.
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I really don’t understand why your fridge shakes when running on the AC70, it’s quite odd. I have 2 freezers, and 2 fridges, plus our home’s water pump (120 volt) all running on my AC300, and I’ve never seen anything unusual in how they operate.
I wish I had another power station to test, or another fridge. I’m not going to test on a neighbor’s fridge! I’m making an assumption that the problem is with my fridge, even though that makes no sense.
When a fridge compressor turns on, it can have a power draw spike of less than a second, before it settles down to around 300W. It might be possible that the power draw spike could be higher than the 1000W that the AC70 is rated to supply.
I have the same problem, my freezer shakes when running on the AC70 (when not connected to the grid / UPS / bypass mode). I ran the same test with my AC200L and everything works fine. I noticed that when connected to the AC200L the power pulled from the freezer is around 170W, but when connected to the AC70 the power goes up to 300W and that’s when it starts shaking.
That is interesting. I have no way to test another fridge or power station. It’s too bad that support does not know why this shaking happens.
I’d like to leave my experience here for others as well:
I have just received an AC70P and i can confirm the same is happening to my beer cooler. The compressor inside runs, but produces a lot of vibrations periodically every few seconds. Power draw from the AC70P is shown on the display at 300-450W (ramping up and down). When run from a wall outlet, my kill-a-watt intermediate plug shows only around 140W. The Cooler runs perfectly fine when either running from a wall outlet, or if the power station is connected to a wall outlet (guess in passthrough mode then).
I also observed that a my hairdryer in its intermediate setting (850W on the bluetti display) ramps up and down and does not run smoothly. Its max rating is 1300W and i was running it in intermediate fan speed and heat setting, so should be well below 1000W.
I am really disappointed with the AC output of the power station and am considering returning it, as its not really fit for my purpose.
What kind of power does the power station show for AC? Active or Apparent Power?
Apparent Power. The hair dryer is likely not purely resistive as it has a fan to blow out hot air. The newer inverters in these latest Bluetti units have been a huge letdown for me as well. Its why I’m clinging on desperately to my older EB70S and AC180. I bought an AC70 and it won’t even run my compressor-based dehumidifier which only uses 280 watts and 560W surge. No more Bluetti products for me until they fix their quality control. I have no doubt either the COVID supply chain or impending tariffs played a role in the decision to go with these let’s just call them “budget” inverters. They are advertised as more efficient, but the red flag is these newer units struggle to run various compressor driven appliances now. Of course I just bought a Bluetti PV200L last week and it works flawlessly in parallel/series with my other PV200 on my AC70, so do as I say and not as I do lol. I do love my newer PV200L (2nd gen) over my 1st gen PV200. The application they went with was perfect for the 200 watt panel. The problem is they tried to push that same style on the PV350, but the PV350L needs 4 legs and a rigid style setup, so I actually hate it on the PV350. Perfect for the 200 watt though. I have faith Bluetti will rectify the problem but I am pretty open about my feelings when it comes to product letdowns.
It sounds like the Ac70 is just not powerful enough to handle your fridge’s startup surge. The AC300 belonging to another poster worked fine for starting a fridge because the AC300 has around 3x the inverter power of the AC70. The issue is the large inductive load of a fridge starting and air conditioners will be the same way.
I like to think that you still have a good chance with your camping fridge, as it sounds much smaller than a household fridge and should have a smaller surge.
I haven’t yet managed to try my 100v2 with a fridge but won’t be surprised if it can’t start a full sized one. An AC70 only has enough battery energy to run a fridge for a few hours anyway, even ignoring the startup issue. So it’s not that good for backing up a fridge through a power outage if that is what you had in mind. Unplugging a fridge for a few hours won’t spoil the food inside. To back up a fridge you want a much bigger unit, like 2 KWH or more. My 100v2 (1 KWH) is not really enough either and I decided before I bought it that the fridge wouln’t be an important intended use.
Using power lifting mode on a fridge is a TERRIBLE idea and whoever suggested it has to have just been groping around for things to try. But the basic issue is the small inverters in these portable units. You can’t really do much about it except use something heavier and more expensive.
There are some fridges now that use inverters to run the compressor. Those have less startup surge, so you could look for that if you are shopping for a fridge to run from a power station…
I bought my AC70P to power my 12v fridge for car camping. It works great for that. Last summer, before I had my AC70P, our power in the house went out for four days. We lost a few perishables, but not a total loss. I had hoped the AC70P could be used for an emergency like that, and I tink it could. Even without it, the food loss from a 1 to 3 day power outage that might happen once a year does not justify purchasing a larger power station.
The AC70P really won’t help you with a 1 to 3 day power loss and a full size fridge. A big fridge uses maybe 2000WH per day and the AC70 iirc is a 768WH power station. At best it can keep the fridge running most of the night if that’s when the outage hits, so that you can go get a bag of ice or something the next day, instead of having to go out at 3am. A 20 lb bag of ice will keep your fridge cold for a day or so. Use a large dishtub or something to catch the melt water.
Another idea might be in an outage, move the most perishible stuff from your big fridge to your 12v fridge, and run the 12v fridge with the AC70.