I do not work for or receive any gratuity from any of the brand names noted in this post.
The above are my observations and personal processes and may not suit everyone. They are intended to note methods, pros and cons of my use and provide insight others may find of use.
My background is in elec/mech engineering design, within commercial industry and aerospace. However, as in most countries, a license is required here, to work with high voltage and current. Low voltage DC does not but, a knowledge is when performing work, as there are still associated risks.
ADDENDUM
Forgot to mention the kettle, toaster and toasty maker. These are there specification loads;
Folding Kettle = 1035, Elec Toaster = 820, Elec S/W Toaster = 740.
They all work from the AC70, even though the kettle exceeds the 1000W rated output of the AC70, it does not trip the inverter, nor was it set to power lifting mode. Make a hot sandwich and boil water for coffee whilst eating it. :)
On occasion, I take the kettle and S/W toaster with me in the 4x4 and make lunch using the AC70. I do have a 40lt Engel combi fridge/freezer in the rear of the 4x4 to carry food and drink.
My bad lol, I did not take any whilst away, at least of my setup. However, in a month or so, I am off again on another trip and will rectify, with future posts.
Although I could take pictures of individual items in the mean time, I feel that would lose on the “Real World” theme. Stay tuned.
This is the rear of my 4x4. To the left is a 40lt Combi Fridge on a slide. To its right a single drawer with a slimline 75Ah LiFePo4 battery fixed to the drawers right hand side. Sandwiched between it and the side of the vehicle are a small sack truck and folding stool. On top of the drawer is a fire extinguisher, behind that the Victron 375W inverter. Hung from an upper shelf is a 12VDC Oven.
Here are the kettle and Toasty maker, although both are shown plugged to the AC70, when in use it is one at a time as their combined W draw is well over the AC70s 1,000W inverter.
Here is an interesting result from a recent test on my caravan charging system.
The charging system is a Projecta PM300, rated at 30A charging to 2 x 100Ah LiFePo4 batteries. The charging amps is from the PM300 display. I used a separate power meter to measure V, A & W, Vmp is the voltage under charging load. The Watts AC70 & AC180 are what was read from the Bluetti display screen.
Of note, the power meter read 531, 531 & 531 from all 3 power sources, so constant. the additional Watts of 49W from the AC70 & 39W from the AC180 are the actual draw from the Power Bank battery and would be the efficiency loss of their inverters & the internal electronics. (7.3% for the AC180 & 9.2% for the AC70).
These % are as a % of the watts load and as far as I am concerned anything less than 10% is good.
These readings were all taken within 4 minutes and the 29.1A charge rate was constant.
From a RVers perspective, I also did a test on the queen size electric blanket fitted to the caravan bed. It is a 3 setting control of Low, Medium & High. I tested the AC180 only to power the electric blanket. (FYI, to remind readers, this test is done at nominal 240VAC 50Hz)
I set both sides (2 controls) to High for 15 minutes, to pre heat the blanket and the AC180 was at 100%. After 15 minutes the display read 96% and the average Watts read approx 92W on the AC180 screen.
I then turned both sides to the Low setting and ran the test for 4 hours. I also noted that the Watts fluctuated and periodically read zero W. This means the control acts similar to a compressor fridge thermostat, by turning on and off.
At the 4 hour mark, the AC180 reading showed a further 18% of capacity use. This calculates to 45% use over 10 hours set at low using both sides of the blanket, or approx 517Wh.
Given there were no bodies in the bed at the time, I can assume that the actual 10 hour usage would be less than the 517Wh, however 1/2 a kWh for 10 hours is pretty good.
As an aside, if I used a small 150W PS inverter from my caravan 12VDC system, it would equate to approx 40Ah of nominal 12V battery use. :)
I tested my electric blanket again, this time from the AC70. To remind readers, this is at 240VAC at 50Hz and the blanket has 3 settings of H, M and L. The AC70 display was at 98% battery capacity at the start of the test and both sides of the blanket (queen size) were on and equal settings. Here are some pics;
I have tabulated the results, below;
To explain; the Bluetti AC70 used 9% of capacity with the blanket set to H for 30 minutes. There was a 27.7W difference in power use and as mentioned due to the inverter, BMS parasitic loads.
I then ran the blanket at the L setting for 1 hour, again noting all of the data. At this setting the AC70 used 4% battery.
Conclusion - Most people may sleep for 8 hours, however for ease of calculation and “worst case scenario” I have assumed a 10 hour use at the L setting plus a 1 hour preheat at H.
The total capacity used calculates at 58%, leaving 42% from a fully charged AC70.
Does an AC70 have the battery capacity to run an electric blanket overnight? My answer is Yes it will, however, there will be a recharge of approx 400Wh to recharge.
Here’s my setup for the Caravan, when the sun doesn’t shine for several days. When that happens, not only can’t I charge the power bank/s, (PB) the van house batteries also suffer. I have enough stored power for 3 days of “crap” weather, but, I do watch the forecast, lol.
I am able to top up the van batteries from any of the PBs I own, how much is dependent on their capacity. The orange box is an “Amphibian”, it has a 15A - 240VAC socket for RV connection, a 10A circuit breaker and a 10A plug top. This is the only legal way to connect a 15A load to a 10A supply in Au.
To save weight and space, I bought a Gentrax Pro 800W inverter generator with a 700W constant load and weighs 9.3kg or just over 20lbs. My caravan charger draws 510W at full load, it will therefore charge from the AC70 & AC180 inverters. Plus, set to silent the Genny will charge the AC70 & 180 and probably both in Standard mode, but why run a genset flat out. :) As mentioned, previously, I also have the 375W Victron in the rear of the 4x4.
The primary thing to note is, redundancy;
My setup shows, multiple sources of battery power, multiple sources of grid equivalent power and multiple methods of charging i.e. solar genset and vehicle. We can’t guarantee the weather, sometimes run out of fuel, sometimes don’t drive for several days and that’s without equipment failure. When free camping, the last thing we need is a warm beer, lol.
I returned from a recent 3 week off grid camp. This trip, I took the AC180 and left the AC70 at home. As it is winter here, my 460W of solar did not make it on 4 days of the 20 away. I used the above 800W inverter genset to cover these days to top up both the caravan batteries and the AC180. Not a huge impost as I was prospecting and on these wet overcast days, couldn’t go out anyway.
However, I did note an issue using the AC180. I use an electric toothbrush and on occasion an electric shaver. both are rechargeable battery operated. As I use the AC180 primarily for microwave use, when using, I also plugged in the toothbrush. The microwave was 6-7 minutes use, but I would leave it on for a couple of hours to give the toothbrush a charge as it is a daily use item.
It didn’t charge and I found the shaver was also not charging. More…
I did some tests from a 12VDC LiFePo4 battery and a small 150W PSW inverter I have using a DC power meter between the battery and inverter and an AC power meter on its output. The results;
The toothbrush showed zero W on the AC power meter and a net 1W increase on the idle load of the DC load.
The shaver showed an AC load of 4W and a net load of 4W on the DC side.
Even added together the total load seems too low to trigger an AC output from the AC180.
(Note: As I previously noted “Redundancy”, I do carry a normal toothbrush and a razor, just in case. )
I am going to use the above 150W inverter from the caravan (RV) house batteries to provide the small load VAC charging. I’m estimating roughly 15-18W of load = 1.25 to 1.5A. As the shaver if charged after each use only takes a couple of hours to recharge and similarly the toothbrush, it’s a small load of <5Ah. If plugged in before I go out for the day and switched off on return, the solar array will drive this load with no net loss on the system.
As an aside, I also have a Samsung Flip3 mobile phone (Cell) and another on a different provider as signals can be sporadic. These were also plugged into VAC power via their adaptors.
The total loads for both phones, toothbrush and shaver were; 50W of 240VAC from the inverter. I should note, the phones are normally charged via 5VDC USB from the “Van” 12VDC system when travelling, as it’s not efficient to invert 12VDC to 240VAC to then drop to 5VDC via adaptor.
Unfortunately, no pics, I forgot, lol.
A couple of days ago, I had home solar installed, nearing the end of the install, power was cut to the home for the electrical part of the install. Therefore this is what I setup as home backup during the 90 or so minutes of outage.
As mentioned, I have an AC200P, AC180 & AC70, connected as follows;
AC200P - the kitchen fridge and a small bar fridge using an extension cable were plugged in.
AC180 - Here I plugged in the large TV and DVD-R, laptop and 2 phones on charge.
AC70 - Walk in robe powering the fibre optic internet box and the WiFi modem/router.
Both the AC70 & AC180 were pre positioned, fully charged and connected to the grid ready to operate in UPS mode. Both operated flawlessly in everything connected not “missing a beat”. Once grid came up and after the installers left, all got put back into storage.
The AC200P does not have UPS and is not pass thru, but I know it will operate the fridges for near 24 hours, so it was plugged in midway through the day. I recharged it, the next day with the help of the newly installed solar array.
FYI - The modem and fibre boxes combined drew 25W and the TV etc around 80-85W total.
Conclusion - keeping in mind this is not an auto switch or even manual switchable system, the units did everything I needed to keep important and want to have home systems working. All 3 power banks combined came in at a 1/4 the price of something like a powerwall.
As an aside, I’m going to run the home solar for around 6 months, monitor the savings and how much grid power is used at night when solar is not operating. Then will calculate the cost of a powerwall v how long it will take to amortise that cost.
The second reason for delaying is the Tesla Powerwall 3 is about to be released in Au and I believe the chemistry is changing to LiFePo4 in V3. The better cycle life of LFP4 and safety being 2 reasons for delaying.
Why PW3, well the inverter now on the wall will not need to be changed as PW3 has its own VAC driven charger inbuilt. (To my knowledge)
