I am considering purchasing a Bluetti AC180. I plan to connect it to 2X100W solar panels and then attach a continuous load of at least 25W, which is my modem-router. What I expect to happen is for the power station to use power all night and then draw enough solar power from the panels to keep the system charging and discharging continuously. Depending on the amount of sunlight I get each day, which will vary a lot day by day and seasonally, since I live in Wisconsin, I expect to also charge other devices and small power stations when extra power is available.
My question is whether this is an appropriate use for the AC180. Will all that constant input charging and output discharge damage the unit or cause it to lose its chargeability in any way, or have any other adverse effect I should know about or compensate for?
welcome to the bluetti community forum, thanks for your question.
The first thing that comes into my mind is the size of the unit for your usecase. AC180 is a fairly powerful unit with big inverter. Big inverter means more selfconsumption.
When you router draws 25W, that means 24h would take about 600Wh for the whole day. The AC180 does have 1152Wh. So nearly double the energy you would consume a day.
A better alternative, when you have enough sun to charge the unit over the day, would be the AC70 or AC70P with 768Wh or 864Wh. The unit is cheaper, smaller inverter but still enough to cary you router through the day and night. The Solar Input is nearly the same (60V on AC180 and 58V on AC70).
When you thinking about other usecases too, like take the Powerstations sometimes out for some other appliances, then the AC180 could make sense. Just for the Router, i would go with AC70.
AC70 and AC180 are both designed to use as UPS, so no problem with that to let it run longer.
Hope that helps
Erik
Totally agree with Erik.
I use my AC70 as an UPS for my fibre optic modem, the WiFi router and my Cat 6 connected security cameras, WiFi.
The total load is around 30W. This is a far more efficient power supply than the AC180s I use. I’ve tested it to “run flat” at 25 hours, so 200W of solar will recharge the use in normal conditions and extend use when solar is low.
The AC180s I have are used on the home fridge and my TV entertainment area (1 x on each). Their loads are around 90 to 120 for the TV depending on DVD-R use. Home fridge is cyclic at around 100W as it is an 465lt inverter fridge. Although the AC70 would run all of these items, the reason for AC180 use is battery capacity.
The other option to cover low solar output for a time is;
I have a spare 100Ah LiFePo4 deep cycle battery, along with a cable to connect to the MC4 Bluetti solar cable. Connected to the AC70 or any of my AC180s, it will extend run time by a further 1200 to 1300Wh.
On the 25W load it will charge the AC70 quicker than the load depletion and replace 90W of the 100+W loads of the AC180s.
For your load this will give you around 45 hours of extended use. (likely, slightly less due to inverter efficiency loss) This turns the AC70 into a 2,000Wh battery.
FYI - I’m in Australia, it’s summer here, the house has a 6.6kW solar array, 5kW 240 VAC inverter and at this time of the year we are “pumping” out between 45 & 50kWH of solar/day. Our issue here is heat, the next few days are forecast to be 40-42 deg C (104-108F in your speak). Consequently, grid outage is quite probable, hence our need for fridge, internet, lighting and TV UPS, lol.
Although not relevant to your Q. We also have an AC200P, during hot weather power outs, I have a small evap aircon, that draws around 90W so, close to 20 hours run time.
If we have cold beer, can be cooler drinking it, with entertainment, ya gotta be happy, lol.
