B230 problem - rapid rundown w/o use

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So I got a new B230 this spring when they were on sale to pair with my EB240. It seemed to be fine recharging the EB240 and using it for an auxiliary 12 volt DC source in my van. Then I went camping for a few days when it was rainy and cloudy and thought I might have to use the B230 to recharge the EB240 without much sunlight. It turned out that I didn’t use much power on the trip and there was just enough sunlight to keep the EB240 charged up, so I didn’t use the B230 (which had been fully charged before this trip).
So a week later I was on another camping trip and wanted to use the B230 for the 12volt DC and the unit would NOT turn on, so I couldn’t use the 12volt DC. I could not get the unit to turn on, although I wouldn’t think it would run down on it’s own if I didn’t have anything plugged into it (and turned on).
So I contacted customer support, and they suggested recharging it. So I did and it recharged and then I was able to turn it on and off as normal and use the 12 volt DC.

My question is,…has anyone else had this problem? Or is it common for the B230 to run down in two weeks of non-use? I am used to the EB240 holding most of it’s charge for weeks.

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@MikeA yes, you need to fully turn off the b230 when not in use. Here’s a little experiment I did to see what the idle discharge was of the B230 units with no loads, but left on…

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“Results from a B230 Idle Discharge Test
(ROUND #1)

After using my B230 thru a few cycles paired with my OG AC200, I thought it would be fun to see how the idle discharge compares with my indiegogo AC200 beast.

Ran the test in my office (66*F) by simply powering ON the 100% charged (via wall charger) B230 and turning ON the DC side with no loads connected. (Unit was NOT connected to the AC200 during this test)

B230 took 383.42 hours to completely “discharge” to the point where it would power up, but the DC side wouldn’t turn on.

So out of the 2048 rated watt hour capacity of the B230, this test showed a 5.34 watt per hour idle consumption with DC ON & no loads attached.

Notes: I wanted to be around when unit dropped in percentage, so as you can see after the first few days, I started shutting the unit off daily when I left the office, rather then letting it run overnight… After about 94 hours the unit had dropped from the initial 100% to 20%… I powered off the unit (pressing and holding for 10 seconds) and when I came back in the morning & powered back up the unit, it showed 100% again?!? Not really sure why this happened, but I continued the test, checking in on the unit regularly and noting the percentage drops.

With a Poniie PN2000 “killawatt” meter I recharged the B230 afterwards & the meter showed a steady 420w draw taking 5 Hours 30 Minutes or 2.31kWh to completely charge back up the B230.”

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“ Results from a B230 Idle Discharge Test
(ROUND #2)

Ran the test in my office (66*F) by simply powering ON the 100% charged (via wall charger) B230 and turning ON the DC side with no loads connected. (Unit was NOT connected to the AC200 during this test)

B230 took 391.30 hours to completely discharge to the point where it would power up, but the DC side wouldn’t turn on.

So out of the 2048 rated watt hour capacity of the B230, this test showed a 5.23 watt per hour idle consumption with DC ON & no loads attached.

In the 1st test I had turned on/off the unit regularly (averaged 12 hours “on” and then 12 hours “off”) to try and catch when the unit dropped percentage. I had a camera on the unit this time so it ran continuously. 1st Test took 383.42 hours for unit to discharge. Concluding with a 5.34 watt per hour idle consumption.

Conclusion: “Cycling” the unit on/off to try and preserve power resulted in 7.88 hours of less “runtime” (used .11 watts per hour more)

With a Poniie PN2000 “killawatt” meter I recharged the B230 afterwards & the meter showed a steady 420w draw taking 5 Hours 45 Minutes or 2.33kWh to completely charge back up the B230.”

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Now is this the ‘fully turn off’ issue we see with a number of other users for the AC series where they don’t actually turn off the unit, they depress the power button quickly and it goes into ‘standby mode’ and not ‘fully off’ (which requires a held down depress of a few seconds)?

If you do fully turn off one of these newer units (main AC or B230 battery backups etc) they should be able to last longer without fully discharging right?

I think Bluetti should maybe make it more clear about the ‘switching off’ techniques as i’ve read a number of posts like this now it seems, where people keep them in standby mode, rather than fully off. Or am i wrong about this?

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@CK0Co2 Correct. & they will still charge if an input source is connected, so in my use cases, I always fully turn off the units by “long pressing” the power switch when I’m not using them. I’m not sure of the specific idle losses that’d occur simply in “standby” mode, but I’m assuming there still would be some as compared to being fully turned off.

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@CK0Co2 and my OG AC200 has gone months with VERY MINIMAL battery drain as I’ve kept it as a battery backup for the house. Sooo… I def always recommend fully turning off the units when not in use. Haha :metal:

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OK, Mike…thanks for the information!! I will try to always fully turn off the units in the future when they are not in use…

Mike A

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