Hi @MikeOnline , High current will not fry your EB70S, please don’t worry. It will only if the voltage is too high.
According to your solar panel parameters, it is compatible with our EB70S. Please feel free to use it.
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@MikeOnline like what Bluetti said, supplying too many volts is a problem from your panels to the power station, but since amps are requested/pulled from the power station, it will never exceed its maximum amp rating of 8A, even if the panels could supply more.
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Yeah, I was not too overjoyed at all when I found out that the “200W” charging was really 150W plus some marketing smoke. Particularly when I passed up a good deal on an EcoFlow River for the EB70S. Ah well, live and learn. I’ll likely end up needing to buy something else that will charge faster eventually, but this is a good storage solution when I have tons of time to charge it up on solar.
@Komitadjie to be fair though, 150W of solar will still charge your EB3A in under two hours: 268/150 = 1.78 hrs. With the full 200W of input it would be 268/200 = 1.34 hrs, so just a half hour difference which is not the most egregious marketing trick I’ve seen.
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I’m using an EB70S, though, not an EB3. Takes a fair bit longer.
At the rated 200W, it’ll charge in 3.58hrs
At the real 150W, it takes 4.77hrs.
Considering the number of peak solar irradiance hours in a day, that extra 1.19hrs, fully 25% of the listed time, is a fair bit! I don’t consider it a crippling issue by any means, I’m just kinda put out by the marketing fine print, I feel vaguely screwed on my expectations.
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Now if only they made an enhanced/smaller version of the D050S that could reduce the voltage down to 23.5V
(would be good to protect against over-voltage too)
(would even let us plug in a b230 into an eb3a or eb70s).
are there any third-party boxes that can do that?
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Now that’s something that would most definitely draw my attention! And likely my cash as well.
It is technically not a lie, just hard to practically achieve in real-world settings. Increasing the max amps by a few figures would be another alternative without having to increase the input voltage range.
All of this said, I do have to give Bluetti credit for the EB3A because I don’t know many portable solar power stations of this size (aside from the Ecoflow River 288Wh) that even accept up to 200W of solar input. The Jackery 300 accepts up to around 90W of solar input, the GoLabs R300 (and most other no-name brands) up to 60W. The EB55 and EB70 ought to have upgraded MPPT controllers given the larger battery, I am disappointed in that.
Indeed, that’s why I specified it as “marketing fine print.” I was unfortunately unaware that I had to look for that on these, I’ve learned a bit here! They technically were not lying - just shading the line pretty hard. Sure, your brand-new, well-marketed refrigerator will cool 25% faster!.. if you run it on 160VAC. xD
Yeah, my attraction was the LiFePo cells, as opposed to the LiIon, and the high rated charge, since I figured I’d just parallel a bunch of cells to get to full rate, and be able to charge up fast and easy. I’m really surprised they didn’t put a better controller in them, that’s just kinda disappointing. It seems great for the EB3 and just a couple hours of charge time! On the larger batteries, though, it’s kinda underwhelming. It IS faster than the cheap stuff, though. It damn well better be, though, given that it costs a ton more than the “no names” too. I’ll happily pay for quality on a system!
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Frankly i’m disappointed that the larger ones are still limited to 500W AC.
The competition can handle around 1500W AC (so can the AC300).
Why is the AC200MAX limited to 500W AC?
I mean, to be totally fair, a lot of it could also be battery life related. The faster you cram in the charge, generally (at least on LiPos for my drones) the faster you wear out the batteries. I’d imagine we could also be seeing some of that here as well, trying to optimize the cycle life on the cells?
Given the AC input voltage is fixed at 58.8V the limit of 500W is likely due to how many amps the input circuit can accept by design, which is 8.5A. The DC input for solar is capped at 900W for a combined 1400W total which is very formidable given the 2000Wh internal battery capacity.
then why is the AC300 far less limited?
Is it because the B300 can accept at 80A (according to the B300 manual) so up to 5000W?
Yes, the AC input port of the AC300 is a lot more capable at 3000W than the AC200Max’s 500W. It’s less limited because it’s a bigger and better performing product. You will need a special 30A AC charging cable to charge the AC300 at the full 3000W which needs to be plugged into a NEMA L14-30 outlet.
The 80A is describing the maximum amps that can be passed through the B300 battery expansion port either for charging or discharging. An AC300 will utilize up to 51A when discharging 3000W via the inverter and the full 80A when charging via combined AC and DC input ports (5000W).
This is still lying to the customer and the wider marketplace, precisely because the claim is not realistic when using typical solar panels. Regulators don’t let car manufacturers claim extremely high gas mileage on their vehicles that are achieved through extreme driving techniques. They have to claim MPG according to standardized protocols that attempt to measure MPG in (arguably) realistic and comparable ways.
As much as people complain about government regulation, it is shady marketing practices like this that spur calls for industry regulation.
I concur. But as someone in this thread alluded to earlier, a 200 watt 12 volt panel may generate the 8.5 amp maximum input of the EB70 (approx. 150 watts for typical panels) even when weather and time-of-day are less than ideal. I.E. connecting solar panel(s) rated at 12 volts / 200 watts to an EB70 may be the ideal even if the EB70 can’t ever receive more than 8.5 amps.
Ultimately this is about how long it takes to recharge the EB55 and EV70. Bluetti could come clean about this by spelling it out more clearly.
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Thanks for clarifying this, “Admin”.
To a beginner like me, who knows nothing, when I read a specification that says:
OCV: 12-28 VDC
Input Current: 8A Max
I have no way to know that the OCV specification cannot be exceeded without possibly damaging the Bluetti Power Station or tripping an overvoltage condition, while the Input Current specification can be exceeded with no harm to the device. I suggest editing the specifications in your documentation, i.e.:
OCV: 12-28 VDC*
Input Current: 8A Max**
* Exceeding PV Input of 28 VDC may damage your Bluetti portable power station
and, for voltages exceeding ___ volts possibly pose a fire risk.
** The input current may exceed 8 amps; however, your Bluetti
portable power station will only receive up to the maximum
input current specified.
I’d go even further, by stating:
A typical 12 volt 200 watt panel (or pair of 12 volt 100 watt panels) will
exceed the Bluetti power station's 8 amp input current maximum under peak
conditions. The Bluetti portable power station will only receive up to the
8 amp input current limit. But having typical solar panels with current rating
above 8 amps is still beneficial, as these panels can generate more amps over
a longer period of the day, under less-than-ideal solar conditions, than typical
solar panels rated at exactly 8 amps of current.
And finally, claiming Input Power of “200W Max.” is deceptive when most 200 watt 12 volt panels can’t do this while staying under the 8 amp max current threshold. Better to claim 150W Max Input power for typical panels, then add an asterisk to state that 200 W Max Input is possible when using panels capable of sustaining 25 volts without exceeding the 8 amp input current limit.
What really makes me kinda wince is at the same time, over-voltage will, from other folks’ experiences right here, destroy the entire thing with no protection at all. So it makes the top end not only technically difficult to reach, but also dangerous from the sense of a high potential to fry your unit entirely!
I concur. Safety should be priority #1 for this market, especially since it is aimed at the D.I.Y. crowd rather than trade professionals. These products need some kind of over-voltage protection to mitigate the risk of damage or even fire. The following $30 device might be suitable for protecting EB55/EB70 power stations:
SVR1000 Single Phase Protection Relay Over-Voltage 20V-80V Under-Voltage 0.1V-30V AC/DC(AD48)
As for over-current protection, I can’t tell from the EB70S manual whether that is built-in, or whether it is critical to add a fuse between the power station and the solar panels. I intend to add a fuse, but I am not sure the proper rating (10 amp, or 15 amp) to place between an EB70S and a Renogy RSP200D-US 12 volt 200 watt panel.
There’s also no discussion of earth grounding in the manual. Needed? if so, where on the chassis is the ground screw?
From what I understand, there is no over-current risk, the unit will draw only what it needs. Over-voltage, there simply is no protection of significance, or if there is, it is very small and easily overwhelmed. The “max voltage” marking at the port is the protection for these units, it seems.
There is some wiggle room with the over-voltage before it permanently breaks the input circuit. Maybe around 10-20% over? For my EB3A (rest in pieces) I could input 32V and it didn’t explode and would continue working fine with < 28V afterwards.
Edit: Fixed typo