@yakkoTDI Buy three-- it’ll be 3 phases, they most certainly won’t be out of phase by 120 degrees, but you’ll have 3 phases probably wildly different frequencies and voltages too
@jandrese thanks! Looking to upgrade from my Tenergy 300Wh Portable Power Station / Battery LiFePO4. Not sure this is a large enough upgrade to justify
@connorbush turn off humidifier and modem. You can also buy a dc cigarettes lighter plug to avoid dc to ac conversion loss. On my much smaller battery the above (except I just use AC) will get me a couple of days.
@connorbush@qazxto I’m in for one. Wondering how long I can go with my humidifier on. Either way, is the 12v output the way to go? Or is AC voltage for my CPAP?
@connorbush@mehmmmmark it’sa game changer for sure. Been able to just bring out the battery pack rather than the generator is much easier in the middle of the night.
I will say this, I bought a DC plug for my CPAP but somehow it appears to use more energy than AC. This is contrary to everything that I’ve read about I think maybe it’s just the model that I bought is bad. Sorry I don’t have the model information, but if I were running the calculation I’d just pick one up because they’re pretty cheap and you never know when you might need it.
@connorbush@mehmmmmark if you do buy an adapter and if you think to remember , let me know if your experience is different from mine. I’m not sure if it’s my adapter or my cheap meh bought snügmax.
@connorbush The manual that comes with it even has a section on how to configure the device for CPAP operation, making sure it doesn’t turn itself off due to low power draw.
What does it mean for a product that is fundamentally a battery to be “refurbished?” I wouldn’t be surprised if Meh has defined this for us somewhere, but if so I can’t find it.
@sfwineguy There is no official definition. The word just means “cleaned and polished to look like new”. Any additional operations or testing is at the discretion of the refurbisher and/or whoever contracted for the refurbishing.
@sfwineguy I’m guessing these have (had?) a crappy BCM that was cooking the cells before they hit the end of the warranty period and they had a bunch of returns.
As far as the price is concerned. High quality 500W battery packs are usually in the $600 range.
One area where it’s possible they cut corners is the inverter. It might be a modified square wave instead of the pure sine wave offered on more expensive products.
Most annoyingly I’ve been unable to find a picture of the back of the unit to see what the Solar connection looks like, nor do the specs include those details.
@jandrese@sfwineguy “High quality” units like Jackery and Goal Zero are just as crappy, and turn into pumpkins the moment their warranty is up with zero post-warranty parts/support.
@caffeineguy@jandrese@sfwineguy when this happens, I buy duplicate on Amazon and return the broken. Fuck Jeff Bozo (I always check that it’s Amazon sold and shipped. )
@caffeineguy@davidaddor@jandrese@sfwineguy bold move admitting to fraud on a public forum, while presumably using your real name. I’m sure the billionaire will suffer as a result, rather than the next unsuspecting customer who receives your returned item as an Amazon warehouse deal. It’s amazing how stupid people will attempt to justify criminal behavior just because someone else makes more money than they do. Fraud, shoplifting, etc. hurt consumers such as yourself, not the multi-billion dollar corporations or their billionaire leaders. Keep “sticking it to the man” though. It’s so edgy and heroic.
@davidaddor you’re laughing because I typed? Simple minds find humor in the simplest of things. How often do you rage at the thought of Bezos on his yacht? Do you think he’s laughing at people like you?
@davidaddor You’re so sensitive. I thought your type didn’t like using the R word. Weird that you just posted someone’s address like a coward pretending it’s yours. You’re a very strange little snowflake. Are you still giggling at me typing?
@davidaddor Care to try coding that? AI can’t read minds, and when the thread has multiple participants, how does the algorithm know who to trim out? Yes, by using multithreaded tree structures instead of single, you could have specific rabbit holes to chase down (anbd back up), but the indents get ugly and impossible to follow on a small screen in a hurry. Yes, Usenet newsreaders did a better job Back In The Day (IMO, anyway) but Usenet users also tended to be the tech types who knew how to keep a thread together - and stuff still got convoluted.
At least this setup allows focusing the reply. I’ll take dumb but compliant manual control over fucking stupid algorithms whose authors thought they were smarter than me any time.
Although the item is offered on Walmart it is actually “Sold and shipped by Heartland America” which is a third party Marketplace seller. You know, just like the ones you find on Amazon selling items at HIGHLY inflated markups hoping a sucker doesn’t do price comparison.
@IndifferentDude Also, Heartland America’s stock is new, not refurbished. Does Meh no longer append a parenthetical acknowledgment of the difference in condition?
@werehatrack I was referring to the price comparison – which doesn’t contain a parenthetical notation that the $500 listing is for the product in new condition.
(Note that my comment predates the Meh sale’s expansion to include new units for $149.99.)
@tylerjgarland I believe LiFePO4 is the better tech these days. Safer than lithium-ion (much less worry of fire / spicy pillow situations, etc), high amount of recharge cycles, etc.
@narfcake@tylerjgarland@w0rmwood It’s entirely possible that the eBay seller I found had no idea what specific chemistry was involved, and went with the most generic-sounding descriptor.
@narfcake@tylerjgarland@w0rmwood@werehatrack The heartland website agrees with the ebay seller.
500W continuous power, 650W at 5 minutes and 1000W at 3 seconds
120V AC charger
3 AC outlets, 2 USB-A, USB-C and DC ports
Pure sine wave output
Easy-to-read LCD display
Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
@andrewj I have zero doubt that Heartland has every bit as much extensive understanding of the technical aspects of their product’s operation as the sellers of the low-end paste-on-label LCD projectors we’ve seen so often in the past, whose specs were often replete with things that made no sense whatsoever. The vast majority of the outfits repping this crap make nothing, design nothing, and service nothing. Their actual understanding of what they are selling is a reflection of those facts. So when they say “Lithium ion”, they are probably just choosing the verbiage they’ve seen touted as being the best, without checking to see if it’s actually applicable.
@andrewj And actually, digging around, it turns out that “lithium ion” is the generic term; all lithium batteries, rechargeable oir not, are technically “lithium ion” cells, regardless of chemistry. So using that specific term pretty much means “It’s got stuff in it, yanno? Stuff! Good stuff! Lithium!”
OK, I’m not up on this stuff, so maybe somebody here can enlighten me. I thought solar panels were kinda wimpy compared to AC mains.
The specs above say recharge time is 7 hrs by AC, 4 by solar. Is that backwards? Or is that figuring on 50 solar panels, or what?
@phendrick They undersized the power brick that you plug into the wall. Probably a 60W brick. The solar charge controller can in theory handle up to 200W, so with perfect conditions it could fill the battery in 2 hours 23 minutes. In practice I doubt you’d be able to recharge this from 0 in less than 4 hours even with 200W of panels. I’m betting it doesn’t have enough cooling to handle that much sustained charging.
@phendrick what’s missing in this discussion is the solar panels are not included. So you have to go hunt around for solar panels that probably cost more than the power unit and find the right connections assuming the power block is compliant. many of the comparative units to this include the solar panel, which may cause a problem with the warranty.
@craigcush@phendrick the solar panels certainly will cost more. You can buy refurb panels or so I’ve heard. Big industrial clearing houses are out there.
@jandrese@phendrick From the look of the back of the unit, the power brick is internal, and yes, probably a bit undersized. There is nothing stated about alternate charging inputs other than the solar socket. The recently-disparaged Puleida allowed multiple simultaneous feeds.
@hchavers@phendrick I have 3 100W panels (perfect for cloudy weather to reach 200W when the sun isn’t shining as strong) from Renergy that I will use when the power is off for longer than is typical or worse a grid down situation. These are about 4 feet long by 18 inches wide and are lightweight for easy tempory deployment. These run about $100-$120 per panel from that evil over taker of Woot!
@phendrick We called it Outloo and Outleak. The full version was (and apparently remains) an inexcusably baroque horror, while the “Express” version that was summarily disabled was an actual joy to use.
@awk So what powers the local ISP during an outage? Routers would be intranet only during a power outage that lasts longer than the ISPs backup batteries/generators.
@awk@miniskunk Typical ISP operations have a sizeable battery-based UPS and a diesel generator. Sometimes this is owned by the colo operator where they have rack space.
@miniskunk I’ve never had my internet (AT&T fiber) go down during a power failure so I’ve never even thought about it. I assume they have weeks of backup power.
@bigmeh Not to be too synical, but while these appear ‘identical’ to the Coleman and the Duracell, there’s no guarantee they are using the same brand/quality cells as the better-known brands. It’s certainly possible all the discarded grade-C cells from LG/Samsung are populating this thing, or that they’re using the cheapest/most generic cells they can find.
I have a 224Wh and it is fine to run TV + Internet for a relaxing fun filled power outage for 4 hours So this should last 8.5hrs. Or 4 hours + Blender + Mini fridge.
@hockeyham@werehatrack only reason I’m likely doing to buy one otherwise if it were Duracell it would leak all over my closet. Appears Costco sold these at 400, 300, and 200 (199.97) respectively over the last 3 years.
I picked one up. The stats don’t lie. It’s a 99.9% chance this is the EXACT one as the Coleman. Same Chinese factory and most likely the Same Chinese 12-year-old screwed this thing together. Was it BEFORE or AFTER his or her lunch break? That’s the real question.
@bugger but… were the Duracell ones getting the real LG cells, the fake LG cells, the Samsung cells that failed QC, or the super generic, probably-still-contains-some-recycled-lithium cells from a generic fab in China? I’d really like the chance to disassemble and compare the pack assembly on the three (or more) ‘identical’ units from different brands.
@awk it’s all right there… results will be dreadful, there’s a slim chance it works, and you’ll yell at meh for a refund (edit: as I thought I was commenting on today’s offering)
I have a 500wh and 1800wh solar battery and they both work awesome camping. I can run my electric cooler all weekend without having to buy ice and worry about soggy food.
Alright, this is a pretty solid deal for $100. 478 Wh is a lot of energy for the price. These apparently have an 80 W internal PSU (so just need to plug in a cable to recharge) and the USB-C port will do up to 60 W out, which would be fine for basically any small device from a phone to a [non-gaming] laptop; the 12 V socket will do upwards of 120 W out and the AC sockets will output 500 W combined, continuously.
While obviously you could plug in any device’s AC adapter (e.g. laptop, gaming console, etc.) a neat thing you can do with the AC and 12 V sockets is attach USB-PD power adapters, like the ones from Anker (particularly their “nano” line, like for example the Anker 715 Nano 2 65 W that were <$30 each earlier this year on meh,) and others that meh sells all the time (including on the sister sites,) and just leave them connected to turn this thing into a monster battery bank. There are also chunkier but cheaper adapters that are in the $20-30 range but that output 100 W; you could easily get like 300+ W of USB-PD output for under $200 (with the aforementioned capacity) which is way less than you’d pay for other power banks.
Also note that sidedeal has a 12 V adapter for sale today, but I’d avoid that because it’s not a PD 2.0+ adapter and only has USB-A ports. A better example would be, from a previous meh sale, Aukey 2-port 30 W adapters for around $7 each, and if you need more than that you can find 12 V PD adapters that output 100 W pretty easily.
@Atomizer What’s interesting is that the “12V” output seems to suggest 9-12.6V @ 10A so it’s likely just a pass-through of a 3S battery voltage, no doubt through a PFET or NFET ‘switch’ that supports only 10A, and would probably have trouble/burn up if run for many hours at the full 10A. If one wanted to run DC2DC PD adapters, one might replace the 12V socket with a panel-mount PD socket that claims to support 60W power. Ultimately, the cheapo PD adapters are just passing the DC voltage through to the load after PD negotiates, no doubt suggesting a max load that matches USB-C wiring (~9-12V @ 3A gets you 27-36W). Note: A 100W USB-PD needs 20V@5A, something this unit likely can’t handle unless said adapter has DC to DC step up converters
@caffeineguy To be fair, a 12 V socket in a car is basically directly connected to the battery (maybe not literally via leads connected to the terminals, but you get what I mean) so I guess it wouldn’t surprise me that much if it was a similar setup in these power banks, but are you sure about that or just conjecturing?
Also, I’m not sure what you’re getting at in the last sentence regarding the 100 W PD adapter and this power bank not being able to handle it. Are you talking about a 12 V (direct) or 120 V (alternating) adapter to USB-PD? Why would either be an issue? The AC sockets are rated for 500 W out combined, and the DC socket can do 120+ W. The DC step-up would happen on the adapter side, not within the bank.
@Atomizer There exist fairly cheap (<$20) 12V sourced USB-PD chargers. https://www.amazon.com/Newest-Pack-58W-USB-Socket/dp/B09PDBWWDR After an initial protocol initialization, These things likely just allow the 12V (14-15V on a running car) to be passed through to the device being charged, and the PD negotiation says 'sure, you can have 12V @ 2.5A (~20-30W) or so. For higher output USB-PD, like 45W or gasp 100W you’d have to have 20V or more available, or the adapter would have to have DC2DC step-up circuitry built-in. But yeah, if you had a 120VAC powered USB-PD charger you could certainly use it, but you’re taking the lithium battery’s 9-12V, stepping it up to 120V, just to step it down to 15V, so your laptop can step it back down to charge whatever battery is inside. Each of those conversions loses efficiency.
@Atomizer and the example linked, has the two PD 3.0 ports limited to 20W (likely 12V@2A). The QC 3.0 port is limited to 18W, but also has a power switch, because whatever it does consumes power at idle (when USB is not connected)
The QC 3.0 port is limited to 18W, but also has a power switch, because whatever it does consumes power at idle (when USB is not connected)
I suspect that there’s a crummy boost circuit sitting there pulling more than it should without a load. I’ve tossed a couple of QC lighter-socket adapters that were suspiciously warm with no load.
@werehatrack From another amazon page-- They cheat and list these panel-mount USB-PD ports as dual voltage 12/24V. With this little caveat:
“Precautions for using the product 1.The input voltage is DC12-24V, (if the output power of port C is to reach 60W, the input voltage must be above DC24V)”
i.e. most likely a crummy passthrough in many cases
Will this pass thru 120v or supply usb/12v power while charging? And is doing that bad for li-ion batteries?
A while back I set up an Anker ~300w power bank as a hack-job UPS for a usb-c powered T-Mo home internet base station (Faster than cable and <1/4 the price; suck it, Comcast!) and it works great. Gonna set up another one, so if this won’t light itself on fire, seems like a good deal.
@blaadnort Doubtful it’s got AC passthrough. That would require some fancy electronics and relays that would easily exceed $100. Buy an old UPS and then replace the SLA battery with a drop-in Lithium pack (being aware many of these are only good to 10-20A, so would limit UPS output power)
Well, I’ve looked just about everywhere for the replacement battery cost as this will probably last no more than two or three years.
The Coleman specs say it will run a full size refrigerator which I take issue with. I had a1800 W generator that would just bog down and quit when the refrigerator cycled on due to the capacitive start motor.
@craigcush For a fridge, freezer or microwave, the practical minimum is a 3Kw continuous generator pack. I have a 4500 and a 6Kw, to power two fridges, a freezer, microwave, and other essentials, but it’s still not enough to run the AC.
@craigcush The batteries inside these are nearly always custom-welded packs that are not intended to be supplied as replacement parts. Even the “name brand” units are like that. You might find an exception from a supplier like GoalZero, but I doubt that they’ll sell you the pack, instead saying “send the unit to us and we’ll get back to you.”
@sanity_clause it claims to support 1000W for a few seconds, so it’ll certainly power a mini-fridge or chest freezer and might even have enough juice to power a smaller regular fridge long enough to get it cooled back down
@qazxto Wow, there is one review on the sidedeal amazon listing and it is obviously bought and fake. Hopefully our fine folks here at Meh could never possibly be giving units to vine reviewers for such and icky terribly informed and comical take. In this, must be, sidedeal sponsored post we find out that Phase 2 has excellent top notch customer service, that this battery will help you live green and save green (reviewer bought this and is now considering going off the grid) and that it is super duper efficient with solar panels.
@qazxto No banana detected. Note that the 'Zon itself will often cross-connect reviews to “identical” product listings, often even when they aren’t even close to identical items. This makes their “reviews” all the more useless.
I’ve been using a Jackery 290 for about a year now. I charge it in my car during the day and I use it to charge my devices at night. Depending on how much I charge I can only get it to last about a day or 2. I hope this thing will be able to last the weekend for when I’m not driving so much.
@sgtron Depending on your climate, I don’t know that I’d want a Jackery (or any brand Li-Ion battery system) in my car during the day. Temperature extremes like that are not good for batteries
@caffeineguy I live in hot country, but I figure aircon is always blowing in my car, so should keep battery safe. Been going good like this for about a year now. Battery still doing fine.
Odds are high these are just going to be returns, were poorly stored, discharged, and will probably have myriad issues like scratches, USB port not working, etc. I suggest everyone test every input and output on these things, and, after a full charge from one or both inputs, run a controlled load discharge, even if only a 60W light bulb and a stopwatch. If you make it through the first test and their capacity is at least 80% of the 478wH, after the meh warranty is up, I’d avoid running them at max inverter power for more than a few minutes, and probably limit the MPPT charging to a 100W panel instead of 200W (as these traditionally have inferior/overspec’d front ends with poor cooling)
@ohhwell I’m sad that I couldn’t take advantage of it, but glad that you’ve found my link useful. I spent $400 on about 750Wh during the most recent prime event and I wish I had waited because this Walmart find is a much better value.
bluetti_global
·
15 days ago
PS54 belongs to the old model of BLUETTI, with relatively older technology and craftsmanship. I would recommend that you purchase the EB or AC series portable models instead”
@fightingpillow@qazxto I think I may have read that one. I don’t care how old the tech is. $200 for 500 Whr of LifePo4, 700 W inverter and PD100 in the USB C is a no brainer for me.
@EScott12 I don’t know the specifics of your saw, but I expect it could, based on we have a battery powered electric polesaw (Ryobi). If that little 40V battery can do it then it would be surprising if a hefty battery bank could not, even assuming the saw is a bit more powerful.
@ravenblack thanks for the comparison idea! Looks like my saw is 6.5 amps, basic formula seems to be amps times volts (120 since it’s on a plug) is watts, so that’s 780 watts. I suspect the saw would turn slow if at all since this is a 500w block
@EScott12@ravenblack Or a more efficient saw. Brushless DC motors are more efficient than AC motors, giving way to battery powered tools that aren’t giving up any performance.
The caveat is that you’re not buying power tools persay but rather, buying into a battery platform.
@EScott12 That’s a bit tricky then - the full details of the power blob (from the linked Walmart site) says
Delivers 500W continuous power, 650W at 5 minutes and 1000W at 3
seconds.
Which I think, translated to English, suggests you probably could run a thing at 780 watts for a couple of minutes. And in general the amp rating of a device is peak not continuous, so it might be totally okay. But I don’t think I’d bother to try it.
@outsourced_bob typically you can, however be aware that this is hard on the battery so using it as a UPS is not a good idea. For on and off use this is fine and even common. Charging your phone while it is plugged into the solar? Fully expected.
@curtw4 you are going to have a hard time finding a portable battery-based system that can supply 10 Amps AC for an extended time. if you just need 10A briefly, there are ways to get that with an inverter and a battery. The inverters have come down on price. There are also some units from power tool companies that can do that with power tool batteries. But intended to power a large load for minutes of use, not hours. and all will cost a lot more than $99-$150.
@atomizer so which it the better unit, and which is the better deal for the price? Since I don’t understand all of this but think one or the other might be good to have while camping or as a backup power outages.
@jmrobinett bluetti , better known brand. Used to be well reviewed for quality (who knows how much is paid influencers). Battery tech can do thousands of recharges before 80% capacity vs this meh Li ion (~500 cycles is what they say) which is also just a fake company on name on top of an unknown company. For all I know it is made in the same factory but that doesn’t mean anything. LIFEPO4 will be heavier for same capacity and also less explosive/more stable (so less likely to burn your house down with you and your family trapped inside).
If you have the extra scratch and want less of a headache I’d say bluetti. This meh deal is a gamble but likely fine.
Edit; also this is without even considering the internal quality of things like the inverter, solar charger, power, adapter, etc. which the. Bluetti would probably win again. At $200 Walmart versus $150 here ( for new) it’sa no brainier.
@jmrobinett I’d say the meh one is the better deal for the price, albeit the “Bluetti” (a brand I hadn’t heard of before today) is slightly better in capabilities (namely the energy capacity and output ports.) It’s less of a consideration now that the sale’s over, but at that same price I’d still go with this one.
Wonder if charging this via a “dirty” generator is reasonable or will it kill it? Just thinking of real use-case during power outage. Charge it during day and use after dark. My portable generator keeps 2 fridges and a freezer going (along with various lights) during outages. This would be clean power for electronics and CPAP.
@mehmmmmark Gas generators produce a good sine wave by default, and the only thing making their output trashy is the switching on and off of load items. Unless one of the loads is generating voltage spikes (possible, unlikely) you should have no problems.
@mehmmmmark The “inverter generators” that use a tiny engine driving a DC alternator at high revs typically output a sawtoothier waveform that can be problematic for some electronics. The ones driven by a decent-sized Briggs or Honda (or Predator, or gods help the user, no-real-name Chinese knockoff) engine employ a conventional generator whose output frequency is determined by the engine RPMs and whose waveform is a very nice sine wave.
Ugh… In for three for triple the power AND regret. Meh thinks lowly of me based on my order number. Only time will tell if these batteries exhibit any nihilistic tendencies toward me and how they handle being operated in the real world. Now I must wait to see if any of these bastards get beckoned into the great beyond, suddenly or unsuspectingly transformed from the physical form into that irreversible vapor form via thermal runaway, and if it will take me with it if/when that time comes. So I have three of these now… this Meh purchase has become the most powerful one in the fact that it now has the power to both power my life and or burn it to the ground times 3. UGH WTF MEH?!
/showme lewd slumped creeper
Heads up - we’re about to sell out of the refurbished model of these, but we have secured a small amount of new (non-refurb) models that we’re now putting up at $150.
@dave got to wonder why you had so many of the refurbs to begin with and whether getting the new one is simply buying something that will be a future refurb.
@caffeineguy IME, much depends upon who’s doing the refurb. The outfit down in South Texas that was doing refurbs of Sony consumer electronics a few years back was barfing up hairballs more often than not, and Fuji had some goons in NJ refurbing their bridge cameras who shipped me two DOA units, and then the return for repair took so long that they extended the warranty by six months. By comparison, the Nikon-refurbed D7500 that I acquired in 2019 has been flawless. It has been a very mixed bag.
Umm—not to #debbiedowner on this step-right-up hotcake parade… but what is the remote but life altering possibility of this 13 pound Lithium-ion bunker-buster kinda like jus’—esplodin’🫣?How do you say in English, “Ba-ba-boomski”?…I mean I’ve heard of svelte li’l mobile phones committing hands-free harakiri and causing various levels of house fires and body boo-boos. And this behemoth battery is like idk maybe 40 cell phones all squished together ? Has it been tested by the modern iteration of ye old UL Labs? #justaskin
@ignoramus UL2743 appears to apply. I have no idea whether that means “No worries” or “just handle it like a bomb that you don’t want going ‘kaboom’ and everything will be fair dinkum, 'kay, mate?”
@ignoramus It’s simple-- If they have a tendency to fail catastrophically and start ones house on fire, Meh sold ~821 of them so you’ve got an 820/821 chance of someone else’s house burning down first and then coming to the forum to complain, (assuming they survive the blast and fire)
It’s always a possibility with these kinds of batteries. The brand name ones generally have pretty good protection circuitry since they don’t want bad publicity or lawsuits.
The no-name ones may or may not have the best safety features. Some are the same OEM as the brands, so they have better Q.C. and engineering, but it’s also possible they are rebadging the rejects from the brand or just using the case mold and placing inferior components inside. The overseas manufacturers can just disappear or change names if something happens, so it’s hit or miss as to how good they are.
I have a Bluetti and the last no-name unit Meh sold and both seem to be ok. The no-name isn’t Lithium based IIRC. If it dies as prophesized, I’ll probably gut it and install a lithium battery with a built in BMS and more capacity. The thing works well for now and ran a 300+ starting watt / 170 ish running watt fan motor for a couple hours per charge without breaking a sweat.
If you are concerned, you might consider keeping it in a separate garage or shed rather than inside the house. Same goes for gas/petrol powered stuff and BBQ grill propane tanks!
Lithium Ion batteries come in various chemistries. The more common ones are NMC (nickel manganese cobalt), LMO (Lithium Manganese Oxide), LCO (Lithium Cobalt Oxide), and LFP (Lithium Ferro Phosphate). Of those, LFP (or LiFePO4) tends to be the safest and most durable, albeit their energy density is lower than the other types.
Bought this refurbished (the only one offered at the time) from MorningSave and just received it. Looks brand new in an unopened factory box with no stickers etc saying refurbished and the LED window even had a peel-off protector on it. Who knows if the battery is new but for the price I’d figured I’d give it a shot. It came 70% full and is saying 2 hours to have a full charge.
Mine arrived a few minutes ago. Condition appears new, but the box is not a glossy six-sides-printed affair, and I suspect that’s what differentiates it from an officially “new” one. This is just speculation, of course; I do not actually have a new one to compare with. Nothing on the outside mentions “refurbished” in any way.
First impression only, it’s clear that they left some void space inside the case, as the mass/volume is lower than for either my Jackery or my Puleida. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as they also equipped it with a relatively hefty fan to circulate air while it’s charging. The display shows that the pack is at 76%, forecasting 1 hour and 40 minutes to full. Overall, I think I have a better initial feeling about this one than the Puleida. Time and testing will tell.
… and I suspect that’s what differentiates it from an officially “new” one. This is just speculation, of course; …
@werehatrack Alternatively, the original box was damaged in shipping so they could not be sold as new. Some of my Amazon Warehouse purchases have been as such – box in horrible condition, item inside was pristine. I’ll take the discount!
@werehatrack Mine just arrived today, but it’s definitely refurbished. Blemishes/scratches all over the case, but my LCD screen still had the plastic peel off. Pack was also charged around the same % as yours.
@Alesme2 That’s the default value that all of Meh’s ship,ments start out with. It usually gets updated when the box gets scanned on one of the automated scales at the FX hub.
Well it’s here…Fedex guy literally threw it on my porch; big thud. Hit display and reports 70% charged.
Plugged an LED lamp into it ~10W and the inverter works, but shows 0W yet 19 hours of battery remaining.
~10W x 19 hours = 190 wHr.
Anyone want to take a guess what the ‘real world’ capacity of these things is? Any less than 75% of design capacity (~350Whr) and it’s probably gonna go back
On a different paw, the LiFePO4 power station I bought from Amazon in July … well, that “brand” is no longer listed there, so I guess there may be others to come in the future.
(I went down the rabbit hole of solar panels during my lunch hour. $42 later for a 50w panel and adapter, I guess I’ll find out how it goes in a week or two.)
@narfcake same here…no sign of being a refurb or a sticker outside the box to indicate as such. Even the screen protector cling was still on an undamaged. I think a lucky percentage of us got a new unit. My order for 3 was significantly delayed(just got it today) so perhaps they sent new ones as an apology.
Strange-- Had a chance to babysit mine today while it charged from “70%”. It’s been sitting at 99% / “00:01 Hours to Full” / Sinking 80-85W for at least the last hour or two… So either the BMS is way out of cal, or it’s cooking a few cells of this battery pack.
@caffeineguy I’d be tempted to pull the plug, wait a minute or so, and reconnect to see if it’s still at those numbers. That does sound a trifle wonky.
@werehatrack Yeah-- waited a few hours, plugged it back in, and still 99% pulling a ‘full’ 85-88W, fan running, and 00:01 hours to full. It’s certainly topping off the charge, but probably just nuking a bad cell that won’t get up to full voltage
@werehatrack OK-- it sat at 99% for about an hour or two total at ~85W, dropped to 70W for about 30 minutes, then just finished and turned off the fan. It was likely just balancing the cells. I’m now plugging a 60W air filter into it with a kill-a-watt for some ground truth.
Starting at 100% the Kill-a-watt says 71W, while the LCD says 85W. I trust the former, the latter may include the inverter inefficiencies/fan. Estimated runtime 6:14 hhmm. We’ll see!
@caffeineguy Batteries always charge slowest when near full. You’ll notice the amount of watts going is much lower than the usual 70-80 watts. This is to prevent battery damage.
@miniskunk No, mine sat at 99% at 80-70W for a while. The BMS was obviously out of calibration from sitting for who knows how long at what state of charge
Has anyone tested the DC 12 output? I’m seeing a significant voltage drop at full battery (even at only a 50w load). At less than 40% battery the voltage drops to less than 9.6 volts and never recovers. It won’t run my iceco fridge below 40% battery. Even with the low voltage protection turned all the way down.
@aklecka It seems this is just a 3S Li-Ion pack, and the 12V button probably turns on a P-FET or similar digital switch (hence the 10A limitation that I wouldn’t recommend pushing). Enabled, it is just allowing raw battery voltage to the DC port. Fully charged it’ll be 4.2V/cell (12.6V), 3.6V nominal (10.12V), and can go as low as 3V/cell towards 0% state of charge (only 9V). A lot of other similar devices actually have a buck/boost supply to give a regulated 12V output.
@aklecka Starting at 100% charge, a cheap DC meter on the 12V port initially reported 12.4V, 12.1V at ~90%. I’ll keep watching it, but I’d suspect from 70-40% would be the nominal 3.6V/cell, so around 10V.
@caffeineguy thanks for the feedback and for testing. I suppose having regulated output was too much to ask for? I wonder if there is a way to fix this.
@awk Mine was running the fan 100% of the time it was charging. It sat at 99% for about 2-3 hours, slurping up 80W before it hit 100 and And immediately shut off when it finally charged.
@awk@werehatrack Interesting… I ran my air filter on it for an hour or two the other night, burned up about 110WH, and it reported ~75%. I’ll repeat the test another 2-3 times, bring it down to 25% or maybe even down to 0% briefly and see if the BMS ‘learns’ its actual capacity upon recharge. Still gotta verify all the USB ports work, and that the solar MPPT input works, but It’s looking hopeful that it’s not a dud. Longevity and crappy-cell self-discharge is another concern; particularly as the manual says to ‘leave it plugged in when not in use’, which is mildly scary.
The unit I received is displaying “E02” when the inverter is on, and the output watts remains at “0” when there should be a load. It is otherwise working to power a laptop, though I haven’t tested the output voltage or anything yet. Does anyone know what “E02” might mean? There is no reference to it in the user manual that I can see.
@jmnetus the manual makes reference to Hi Temp/Lo Temp/Overload, or solar input problems, none of which should apply charging a laptop, so might be something with the onboard shunt resistor/circuit that measures the power consumption. I see a return in your future. If you charge a phone w/ DC and/or plug something into the 12V socket do you get power readings that make sense? did the you charge it to 100%? did the fan come on when you charged, then go off when complete?
@caffeineguy@jmnetus With equally little useful information about troubleshooting. None of them mention error code EO2. Somehow, I find it difficult to be surprised about that.
@jmnetus Interestingly it has started working as expected, I’m going to put it through a couple cycles before resorting to a return (if the issue comes back).
12V socket seems to work just as I’d expect, inverter is giving good output, haven’t tested USB but if 12V is working OK I expect they’ll be OK as well. Only issue has been the worrying error code and initially no measurement of output watts.
@jmnetus I found that a very low load, <10W LED wasn’t enough. Also, plugging in my laptop with already charged battery saw my power jump between 60W and 0W pretty regularly. Sadly none of the reviews on Amazon for any of those seemed to mention E02 also
Just for grins, I did a little digging, and this appears to be the “manufacturer” of this unit, the physically identical Duracell-branded and Coleman-branded packs, and the larger but tellingly similar Energizer kit that ships with a solar panel for an MSRP of $1.899.00.
Actual support information was not present on their site in any location I found.
@werehatrack potentially but it advertises itself as a home backup solution for emergencies.
It can’t provide reliable heat or refrigeration, and certainly not at the same time.
Not much use in an emergency.
@simeon527 This can power many things with 400W output. Small fridges, fans, CPAP machines, a lamp, laptops, DVD players, TVs, portable stereo systems, and much more. The only thing not recommend is using it with anything that has resistance heating.
If this offer comes up again I recommmend to avoid it.
The refurb I recieved does not function and although MEH sent me a FEDEX REMA label and then once received, a refund, FEDEX will not honor the shipping label because it is a battery.
Learned a $100 lesson.
No more purchases from MEH
@SPACEOG904 that’s ridiculously silly. They shipped it via the same method (ground) in the first place, so they shouldn’t have given you any guff about it.
No worries though, I’ve got you covered. Check your email for an update on your case.
@Thumperchick If y’all are sitting on one or more of these returns that is otherwise going to recycling, I’d love to tear into it for making monster-power-wheels battery packs.
I received the unit, bought refurb, but there is no indication that it is actually a refurb. Unit seems to work perfectly except for, as another user mentioned, the “hold the power button to disable low power auto-shutoff”. I’m going to use this mostly to power some LEDs in a backyard gazebo, so having the power stay on is something I want unfortunately… perhaps powering a small fan will pull enough watts to keep it on. If anyone finds out how to actually turn off the auto-power off function, let me know!
@asjimene I think one of the problems with the auto-power-off is that the current monitoring electronics (power calculation) are terrible, so a 10W LED lamp load basically shows as 0W on some folks’ units.
Awful experience with this thing, just opened it this past weekend and plugged it in to charge. Battery meter showed 75% with the wattage showing at 0 and no display to state how many hours left until full. Left it plugged in for about 8 hours and no change in the status. Called the customer support number and the moment I mentioned the model they immediately told me they don’t have any replacement units as if they knew it was a faulty product and that I need to contact Meh.com So now I’m waiting to see what Meh says about this. It may just end up being a call to the CC company and have them resolve it.
@Devmani Why would you call your CC company? Meh will take care of you, just give them a day or two to respond. And if they don’t want it back after they refund you, I’d happily give you something for it and pay for your shipping to experiment on it.
Specs
Product: Phase2 Energy PowerBlock 500W/478Wh Portable Power Station (Refurbished)
Model: BS-P2EPB500
Condition: Refurbished OR New
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$499.99 at Walmart
Warranty
90-Days Refurbished / 1-Year New
Estimated Delivery
Friday, Jul 5 - Monday, Jul 8
I want a 3 phase power bank.
@yakkoTDI Buy three-- it’ll be 3 phases, they most certainly won’t be out of phase by 120 degrees, but you’ll have 3 phases
probably wildly different frequencies and voltages too
$99.99 Oh, pleeeze.
How long can this beezy run a CPAP?
@connorbush According to Google a CPAP machine needs between 30-60W of power, so this bad boy should have enough juice to run one for 8-16 hours.
@jandrese thanks! Looking to upgrade from my Tenergy 300Wh Portable Power Station / Battery LiFePO4. Not sure this is a large enough upgrade to justify
@connorbush @jandrese It is. This is 60% bigger then a 300Wh
@connorbush turn off humidifier and modem. You can also buy a dc cigarettes lighter plug to avoid dc to ac conversion loss. On my much smaller battery the above (except I just use AC) will get me a couple of days.
@connorbush @qazxto I’m in for one. Wondering how long I can go with my humidifier on. Either way, is the 12v output the way to go? Or is AC voltage for my CPAP?
@connorbush @mehmmmmark it’sa game changer for sure. Been able to just bring out the battery pack rather than the generator is much easier in the middle of the night.
I will say this, I bought a DC plug for my CPAP but somehow it appears to use more energy than AC. This is contrary to everything that I’ve read about I think maybe it’s just the model that I bought is bad. Sorry I don’t have the model information, but if I were running the calculation I’d just pick one up because they’re pretty cheap and you never know when you might need it.
@connorbush @qazxto I’ll try it both ways and see what works. All I know is after having a CPAP for 10+ years, I sure can’t sleep without it. Thanks
@connorbush @mehmmmmark if you do buy an adapter and if you think to remember , let me know if your experience is different from mine. I’m not sure if it’s my adapter or my cheap meh bought snügmax.
@connorbush The manual that comes with it even has a section on how to configure the device for CPAP operation, making sure it doesn’t turn itself off due to low power draw.
@connorbush My CPAP (uses a little over 30 watts AC) shows about 18 hours est run time.
What does it mean for a product that is fundamentally a battery to be “refurbished?” I wouldn’t be surprised if Meh has defined this for us somewhere, but if so I can’t find it.
@sfwineguy There is no official definition. The word just means “cleaned and polished to look like new”. Any additional operations or testing is at the discretion of the refurbisher and/or whoever contracted for the refurbishing.
@sfwineguy I’m guessing these have (had?) a crappy BCM that was cooking the cells before they hit the end of the warranty period and they had a bunch of returns.
As far as the price is concerned. High quality 500W battery packs are usually in the $600 range.
Examples:
https://www.jackery.com/products/jackery-explorer-500-solarsaga-100w-solar-generator
https://www.bluettipower.com/products/ac60
https://www.goalzero.com/collections/portable-power/products/goal-zero-yeti-500x-portable-power-station
So this thing is probably crappy, but it’s not blatantly overpriced.
Looks like they were originally $400.
https://www.battery-biz.com/products/phase2-energy-powerblock-500
One area where it’s possible they cut corners is the inverter. It might be a modified square wave instead of the pure sine wave offered on more expensive products.
Most annoyingly I’ve been unable to find a picture of the back of the unit to see what the Solar connection looks like, nor do the specs include those details.
@jandrese @sfwineguy
@jandrese @sfwineguy “High quality” units like Jackery and Goal Zero are just as crappy, and turn into pumpkins the moment their warranty is up with zero post-warranty parts/support.
@caffeineguy @jandrese @sfwineguy when this happens, I buy duplicate on Amazon and return the broken. Fuck Jeff Bozo (I always check that it’s Amazon sold and shipped. )
@caffeineguy @davidaddor @jandrese @sfwineguy bold move admitting to fraud on a public forum, while presumably using your real name. I’m sure the billionaire will suffer as a result, rather than the next unsuspecting customer who receives your returned item as an Amazon warehouse deal. It’s amazing how stupid people will attempt to justify criminal behavior just because someone else makes more money than they do. Fraud, shoplifting, etc. hurt consumers such as yourself, not the multi-billion dollar corporations or their billionaire leaders. Keep “sticking it to the man” though. It’s so edgy and heroic.
@caffeineguy @jandrese @sfwineguy @warpedrotors yawn. You can find me at 1206 canary island drive.
@warpedrotors had to comment again cause I’m still laughing you typed all of that out. Hope you like the taste of boot.
@davidaddor you’re laughing because I typed? Simple minds find humor in the simplest of things. How often do you rage at the thought of Bezos on his yacht? Do you think he’s laughing at people like you?
@davidaddor You’re so sensitive. I thought your type didn’t like using the R word. Weird that you just posted someone’s address like a coward pretending it’s yours. You’re a very strange little snowflake. Are you still giggling at me typing?
@caffeineguy @davidaddor @jandrese @sfwineguy
You sir, officially suck.
@caffeineguy @davidaddor @sfwineguy @snotbottom On a side note I don’t like how this forum software tags every person in the thread with every reply.
@jandrese You can edit them out selectively.
@werehatrack shouldn’t have to. You’d think after all these years the idiots behind Meh would have optimized something a little better.
@davidaddor Care to try coding that? AI can’t read minds, and when the thread has multiple participants, how does the algorithm know who to trim out? Yes, by using multithreaded tree structures instead of single, you could have specific rabbit holes to chase down (anbd back up), but the indents get ugly and impossible to follow on a small screen in a hurry. Yes, Usenet newsreaders did a better job Back In The Day (IMO, anyway) but Usenet users also tended to be the tech types who knew how to keep a thread together - and stuff still got convoluted.
At least this setup allows focusing the reply. I’ll take dumb but compliant manual control over fucking stupid algorithms whose authors thought they were smarter than me any time.
@davidaddor I selectively edited to include only you, which took less than 2 seconds, just to ask you, why are you so negative and miserable?
@davidaddor @werehatrack he’s just going to descend into uncontrolled laughter now because you typed more than 3 words.
@warpedrotors {fat-phobic bullshit}
~TC edit
@davidaddor @warpedrotors this thread is going well, maybe let’s talk about abortion or Israel Palestine conflict to cool down?
Although the item is offered on Walmart it is actually “Sold and shipped by Heartland America” which is a third party Marketplace seller. You know, just like the ones you find on Amazon selling items at HIGHLY inflated markups hoping a sucker doesn’t do price comparison.
@IndifferentDude Also, Heartland America’s stock is new, not refurbished. Does Meh no longer append a parenthetical acknowledgment of the difference in condition?
@Rowsdower The literally parenthetical “(Refurbished)” is right there in the photo and the headline.
@werehatrack I was referring to the price comparison – which doesn’t contain a parenthetical notation that the $500 listing is for the product in new condition.
(Note that my comment predates the Meh sale’s expansion to include new units for $149.99.)
An out of stock eBay listing states that it uses li-ion batteries.
@werehatrack heck
@werehatrack isn’t that a good type?
@tylerjgarland I believe LiFePO4 is the better tech these days. Safer than lithium-ion (much less worry of fire / spicy pillow situations, etc), high amount of recharge cycles, etc.
@tylerjgarland @w0rmwood LiFePO4 is safer and can handle more charge cycles but they’re not as energy dense.
On the similarly cased Duracell Powerblock 500, a comment said it used LG INR21700M50LT batteries.
/image Duracell Powerblock 500w 478wh
@narfcake @tylerjgarland @w0rmwood It’s entirely possible that the eBay seller I found had no idea what specific chemistry was involved, and went with the most generic-sounding descriptor.
@narfcake @tylerjgarland @w0rmwood @werehatrack The heartland website agrees with the ebay seller.
500W continuous power, 650W at 5 minutes and 1000W at 3 seconds
120V AC charger
3 AC outlets, 2 USB-A, USB-C and DC ports
Pure sine wave output
Easy-to-read LCD display
Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
@andrewj I have zero doubt that Heartland has every bit as much extensive understanding of the technical aspects of their product’s operation as the sellers of the low-end paste-on-label LCD projectors we’ve seen so often in the past, whose specs were often replete with things that made no sense whatsoever. The vast majority of the outfits repping this crap make nothing, design nothing, and service nothing. Their actual understanding of what they are selling is a reflection of those facts. So when they say “Lithium ion”, they are probably just choosing the verbiage they’ve seen touted as being the best, without checking to see if it’s actually applicable.
@andrewj And actually, digging around, it turns out that “lithium ion” is the generic term; all lithium batteries, rechargeable oir not, are technically “lithium ion” cells, regardless of chemistry. So using that specific term pretty much means “It’s got stuff in it, yanno? Stuff! Good stuff! Lithium!”
@narfcake @tylerjgarland @w0rmwood That’s why LiFEPo are heavier
OK, I’m not up on this stuff, so maybe somebody here can enlighten me. I thought solar panels were kinda wimpy compared to AC mains.
The specs above say recharge time is 7 hrs by AC, 4 by solar. Is that backwards? Or is that figuring on 50 solar panels, or what?
@phendrick They undersized the power brick that you plug into the wall. Probably a 60W brick. The solar charge controller can in theory handle up to 200W, so with perfect conditions it could fill the battery in 2 hours 23 minutes. In practice I doubt you’d be able to recharge this from 0 in less than 4 hours even with 200W of panels. I’m betting it doesn’t have enough cooling to handle that much sustained charging.
@phendrick how big is a 200w solar panel? Thegreenwatt.com says 1 square foot gives about 17 watts. So, about 12 square feet of panels.
@hchavers @phendrick I have some Bluetti 200W panels and that’s how big they are (~ 86x20 inches).
@awk @hchavers @phendrick
Looks like this is the panel designed to charge, and it includes a pic of the cable.
https://www.amazon.com/Phase-Energy-Portable-High-Efficiency-Monocrystalline/dp/B0C31THBKP?th=1
@hchavers @phendrick 2 @ 2’x3’ panels will suffice.
@phendrick what’s missing in this discussion is the solar panels are not included. So you have to go hunt around for solar panels that probably cost more than the power unit and find the right connections assuming the power block is compliant. many of the comparative units to this include the solar panel, which may cause a problem with the warranty.
@craigcush @phendrick the solar panels certainly will cost more. You can buy refurb panels or so I’ve heard. Big industrial clearing houses are out there.
@jandrese @phendrick From the look of the back of the unit, the power brick is internal, and yes, probably a bit undersized. There is nothing stated about alternate charging inputs other than the solar socket. The recently-disparaged Puleida allowed multiple simultaneous feeds.
@craigcush @phendrick Good used panels are on craigslist for $50. I got a dozen for under $20 each and on a partly cloudy day produce over 1500 watts.
@hchavers @phendrick I have 3 100W panels (perfect for cloudy weather to reach 200W when the sun isn’t shining as strong) from Renergy that I will use when the power is off for longer than is typical or worse a grid down situation. These are about 4 feet long by 18 inches wide and are lightweight for easy tempory deployment. These run about $100-$120 per panel from that evil over taker of Woot!
What are the chances this won’t be a complete waste of $100?
@awk Ya mean $99.99.
@awk Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook bad
But it might be talking about the email program.
@Kyeh It takes $0.01 of effort to click the buy button.
@awk @jandrese Only time you’d catch me using that for email is when work made me.
@awk
@awk Most likely can power a modem and router for many hours during an outage. For some people that would be wort it.
@phendrick We called it Outloo and Outleak. The full version was (and apparently remains) an inexcusably baroque horror, while the “Express” version that was summarily disabled was an actual joy to use.
@awk So what powers the local ISP during an outage? Routers would be intranet only during a power outage that lasts longer than the ISPs backup batteries/generators.
@awk @miniskunk Typical ISP operations have a sizeable battery-based UPS and a diesel generator. Sometimes this is owned by the colo operator where they have rack space.
@miniskunk I’ve never had my internet (AT&T fiber) go down during a power failure so I’ve never even thought about it. I assume they have weeks of backup power.
Looks these are identical to the Coleman Voyager Go 500-Watt Battery Generator with Solar Capability sold at Home Depot for $550 (except for the color): https://www.homedepot.com/p/Coleman-Voyager-Go-500-Watt-Battery-Generator-with-Solar-Capability-CMBG500/326827383
There are no reviews nor Questions/Answers there but there is some more info, such as it’s Li-ion and has a pure sine wave output.
@bigmeh to pile on that, the coleman is on amazon here
https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Voyager-500-Battery-Generator/dp/B0CF2SF6WS?th=1
@bigmeh There is a photo of the back which yields more info:
link to the full image
oops, Anderson connector, not MC4
@bigmeh Not to be too synical, but while these appear ‘identical’ to the Coleman and the Duracell, there’s no guarantee they are using the same brand/quality cells as the better-known brands. It’s certainly possible all the discarded grade-C cells from LG/Samsung are populating this thing, or that they’re using the cheapest/most generic cells they can find.
/giphy more power
I have a 224Wh and it is fine to run TV + Internet for a relaxing fun filled power outage for 4 hours So this should last 8.5hrs. Or 4 hours + Blender + Mini fridge.
Looks an awful lot like the Duracell:
https://manuals.plus/duracell/powerblock-500-gasless-generator-manual
@hockeyham Fortunately, Duracell is doubtless uninvolved in the actual manufacture of this unit.
@hockeyham @werehatrack only reason I’m likely doing to buy one otherwise if it were Duracell it would leak all over my closet. Appears Costco sold these at 400, 300, and 200 (199.97) respectively over the last 3 years.
I picked one up. The stats don’t lie. It’s a 99.9% chance this is the EXACT one as the Coleman. Same Chinese factory and most likely the Same Chinese 12-year-old screwed this thing together. Was it BEFORE or AFTER his or her lunch break? That’s the real question.
@bugger Totally implausible. No way would she get a lunch break lol
@bugger but… were the Duracell ones getting the real LG cells, the fake LG cells, the Samsung cells that failed QC, or the super generic, probably-still-contains-some-recycled-lithium cells from a generic fab in China? I’d really like the chance to disassemble and compare the pack assembly on the three (or more) ‘identical’ units from different brands.
Okay let’s see how this goes.
/giphy dreadful-slim-yell
@awk it’s all right there… results will be dreadful, there’s a slim chance it works, and you’ll yell at meh for a refund (edit: as I thought I was commenting on today’s offering)
I have a 500wh and 1800wh solar battery and they both work awesome camping. I can run my electric cooler all weekend without having to buy ice and worry about soggy food.
DIPLOMAT! RAT-A-TAT! FAT CAT! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot
/giphy rat a tat
Alright, this is a pretty solid deal for $100. 478 Wh is a lot of energy for the price. These apparently have an 80 W internal PSU (so just need to plug in a cable to recharge) and the USB-C port will do up to 60 W out, which would be fine for basically any small device from a phone to a [non-gaming] laptop; the 12 V socket will do upwards of 120 W out and the AC sockets will output 500 W combined, continuously.
While obviously you could plug in any device’s AC adapter (e.g. laptop, gaming console, etc.) a neat thing you can do with the AC and 12 V sockets is attach USB-PD power adapters, like the ones from Anker (particularly their “nano” line, like for example the Anker 715 Nano 2 65 W that were <$30 each earlier this year on meh,) and others that meh sells all the time (including on the sister sites,) and just leave them connected to turn this thing into a monster battery bank. There are also chunkier but cheaper adapters that are in the $20-30 range but that output 100 W; you could easily get like 300+ W of USB-PD output for under $200 (with the aforementioned capacity) which is way less than you’d pay for other power banks.
Also note that sidedeal has a 12 V adapter for sale today, but I’d avoid that because it’s not a PD 2.0+ adapter and only has USB-A ports. A better example would be, from a previous meh sale, Aukey 2-port 30 W adapters for around $7 each, and if you need more than that you can find 12 V PD adapters that output 100 W pretty easily.
@Atomizer What’s interesting is that the “12V” output seems to suggest 9-12.6V @ 10A so it’s likely just a pass-through of a 3S battery voltage, no doubt through a PFET or NFET ‘switch’ that supports only 10A, and would probably have trouble/burn up if run for many hours at the full 10A. If one wanted to run DC2DC PD adapters, one might replace the 12V socket with a panel-mount PD socket that claims to support 60W power. Ultimately, the cheapo PD adapters are just passing the DC voltage through to the load after PD negotiates, no doubt suggesting a max load that matches USB-C wiring (~9-12V @ 3A gets you 27-36W). Note: A 100W USB-PD needs 20V@5A, something this unit likely can’t handle unless said adapter has DC to DC step up converters
@caffeineguy What you wrote (above). What I saw: Είναι ελληνικό για μένα.
@caffeineguy To be fair, a 12 V socket in a car is basically directly connected to the battery (maybe not literally via leads connected to the terminals, but you get what I mean) so I guess it wouldn’t surprise me that much if it was a similar setup in these power banks, but are you sure about that or just conjecturing?
Also, I’m not sure what you’re getting at in the last sentence regarding the 100 W PD adapter and this power bank not being able to handle it. Are you talking about a 12 V (direct) or 120 V (alternating) adapter to USB-PD? Why would either be an issue? The AC sockets are rated for 500 W out combined, and the DC socket can do 120+ W. The DC step-up would happen on the adapter side, not within the bank.
@Atomizer There exist fairly cheap (<$20) 12V sourced USB-PD chargers. https://www.amazon.com/Newest-Pack-58W-USB-Socket/dp/B09PDBWWDR After an initial protocol initialization, These things likely just allow the 12V (14-15V on a running car) to be passed through to the device being charged, and the PD negotiation says 'sure, you can have 12V @ 2.5A (~20-30W) or so. For higher output USB-PD, like 45W or gasp 100W you’d have to have 20V or more available, or the adapter would have to have DC2DC step-up circuitry built-in. But yeah, if you had a 120VAC powered USB-PD charger you could certainly use it, but you’re taking the lithium battery’s 9-12V, stepping it up to 120V, just to step it down to 15V, so your laptop can step it back down to charge whatever battery is inside. Each of those conversions loses efficiency.
@Atomizer and the example linked, has the two PD 3.0 ports limited to 20W (likely 12V@2A). The QC 3.0 port is limited to 18W, but also has a power switch, because whatever it does consumes power at idle (when USB is not connected)
@caffeineguy
I suspect that there’s a crummy boost circuit sitting there pulling more than it should without a load. I’ve tossed a couple of QC lighter-socket adapters that were suspiciously warm with no load.
@werehatrack From another amazon page-- They cheat and list these panel-mount USB-PD ports as dual voltage 12/24V. With this little caveat:
Review your fire insurance coverage before purchasing.
Will this pass thru 120v or supply usb/12v power while charging? And is doing that bad for li-ion batteries?
A while back I set up an Anker ~300w power bank as a hack-job UPS for a usb-c powered T-Mo home internet base station (Faster than cable and <1/4 the price; suck it, Comcast!) and it works great. Gonna set up another one, so if this won’t light itself on fire, seems like a good deal.
@blaadnort Doubtful it’s got AC passthrough. That would require some fancy electronics and relays that would easily exceed $100. Buy an old UPS and then replace the SLA battery with a drop-in Lithium pack (being aware many of these are only good to 10-20A, so would limit UPS output power)
Well, I’ve looked just about everywhere for the replacement battery cost as this will probably last no more than two or three years.
The Coleman specs say it will run a full size refrigerator which I take issue with. I had a1800 W generator that would just bog down and quit when the refrigerator cycled on due to the capacitive start motor.
@craigcush For a fridge, freezer or microwave, the practical minimum is a 3Kw continuous generator pack. I have a 4500 and a 6Kw, to power two fridges, a freezer, microwave, and other essentials, but it’s still not enough to run the AC.
@craigcush @werehatrack If it can’t power a fridge or chest freezer, then even for $99 what it can do isn’t worth it afaiac
@craigcush The batteries inside these are nearly always custom-welded packs that are not intended to be supplied as replacement parts. Even the “name brand” units are like that. You might find an exception from a supplier like GoalZero, but I doubt that they’ll sell you the pack, instead saying “send the unit to us and we’ll get back to you.”
@sanity_clause it claims to support 1000W for a few seconds, so it’ll certainly power a mini-fridge or chest freezer and might even have enough juice to power a smaller regular fridge long enough to get it cooled back down
This picture has a banana for scale.
https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Voyager-500-Battery-Generator/dp/B0CF2SF6WS?th=1#review-media-gallery_1698308197657
@qazxto Wow, there is one review on the sidedeal amazon listing and it is obviously bought and fake. Hopefully our fine folks here at Meh could never possibly be giving units to vine reviewers for such and icky terribly informed and comical take. In this, must be, sidedeal sponsored post we find out that Phase 2 has excellent top notch customer service, that this battery will help you live green and save green (reviewer bought this and is now considering going off the grid) and that it is super duper efficient with solar panels.
Your , I must assume, sidereal sponsored take: https://www.amazon.com/Phase2-Energy-Battery-Generator-500/dp/B0CCFB2CWB#customerReviews
@qazxto No banana detected. Note that the 'Zon itself will often cross-connect reviews to “identical” product listings, often even when they aren’t even close to identical items. This makes their “reviews” all the more useless.
@qazxto @werehatrack
@awk thank you, how did you do that?
@qazxto it’s from a customer review image on the Amazon listing.
@awk @qazxto @werehatrack Just a banana. It’s a banana sitting there.
I’ve been using a Jackery 290 for about a year now. I charge it in my car during the day and I use it to charge my devices at night. Depending on how much I charge I can only get it to last about a day or 2. I hope this thing will be able to last the weekend for when I’m not driving so much.
@sgtron Depending on your climate, I don’t know that I’d want a Jackery (or any brand Li-Ion battery system) in my car during the day. Temperature extremes like that are not good for batteries
@sgtron do you live in your car?
@caffeineguy @sgtron Seattle? No prob. Boston? Might be OK. Tampa? Buy the extended warranty.
@caffeineguy I live in hot country, but I figure aircon is always blowing in my car, so should keep battery safe. Been going good like this for about a year now. Battery still doing fine.
@warpedrotors About 4 to 6 hours a day…
/buy
@caffeineguy It worked! Your order number is: surging-swampy-medium
/image surging swampy medium
Odds are high these are just going to be returns, were poorly stored, discharged, and will probably have myriad issues like scratches, USB port not working, etc. I suggest everyone test every input and output on these things, and, after a full charge from one or both inputs, run a controlled load discharge, even if only a 60W light bulb and a stopwatch. If you make it through the first test and their capacity is at least 80% of the 478wH, after the meh warranty is up, I’d avoid running them at max inverter power for more than a few minutes, and probably limit the MPPT charging to a 100W panel instead of 200W (as these traditionally have inferior/overspec’d front ends with poor cooling)
Ooooohhhhh… A used LI-ion battery. What could go wrong?
There’s a brand new (not refurbished) bluetti with LiFePO4 cells for twice this price at Wal Mart https://www.walmart.com/ip/3849608522
@fightingpillow Nice find! I just bought that one.
@ohhwell I’m sad that I couldn’t take advantage of it, but glad that you’ve found my link useful. I spent $400 on about 750Wh during the most recent prime event and I wish I had waited because this Walmart find is a much better value.
@fightingpillow @ohhwell here is a Reddit discussion I found in this model:
“ interesting, from reddit:
bluetti_global
·
15 days ago
PS54 belongs to the old model of BLUETTI, with relatively older technology and craftsmanship. I would recommend that you purchase the EB or AC series portable models instead”
@fightingpillow @qazxto I think I may have read that one. I don’t care how old the tech is. $200 for 500 Whr of LifePo4, 700 W inverter and PD100 in the USB C is a no brainer for me.
Lemme see here, I paid $800 for 1000WH a while back.
/buy
@blaineg It worked! Your order number is: animated-happy-phantom
/image animated happy phantom
/giphy animated happy phantom
/showme animated happy phantom
Ima hope I don’t regret this.
/buy
@werehatrack It worked! Your order number is: terrorstricken-unnerved-harpy
/image terrorstricken unnerved harpy
I’ve yet to figure out the math but have often wondered if one of these could power an electric pole saw
@EScott12 I don’t know the specifics of your saw, but I expect it could, based on we have a battery powered electric polesaw (Ryobi). If that little 40V battery can do it then it would be surprising if a hefty battery bank could not, even assuming the saw is a bit more powerful.
@ravenblack thanks for the comparison idea! Looks like my saw is 6.5 amps, basic formula seems to be amps times volts (120 since it’s on a plug) is watts, so that’s 780 watts. I suspect the saw would turn slow if at all since this is a 500w block
Would love to be corrected!
@EScott12 @ravenblack At 6.5 amps, overload should kick in and cut the power off.
@narfcake @ravenblack at least now I know what my watt goal is. Or buy a smaller saw I suppose
@EScott12 @ravenblack Or a more efficient saw. Brushless DC motors are more efficient than AC motors, giving way to battery powered tools that aren’t giving up any performance.
The caveat is that you’re not buying power tools persay but rather, buying into a battery platform.
@narfcake @ravenblack thanks! Confess my saw was bought because it was cheap
@EScott12 That’s a bit tricky then - the full details of the power blob (from the linked Walmart site) says
Which I think, translated to English, suggests you probably could run a thing at 780 watts for a couple of minutes. And in general the amp rating of a device is peak not continuous, so it might be totally okay. But I don’t think I’d bother to try it.
Can this unit simultaneously be charged while outputting power?
@outsourced_bob Apparently yes, reading between the lines in a different-brand (but visually identical) user manual.
@outsourced_bob typically you can, however be aware that this is hard on the battery so using it as a UPS is not a good idea. For on and off use this is fine and even common. Charging your phone while it is plugged into the solar? Fully expected.
500 Watts, that’s only 4 Amps of AC @ 120 volts. It’ll only save my bacon if it’s capable of 10 A.
@curtw4 you are going to have a hard time finding a portable battery-based system that can supply 10 Amps AC for an extended time. if you just need 10A briefly, there are ways to get that with an inverter and a battery. The inverters have come down on price. There are also some units from power tool companies that can do that with power tool batteries. But intended to power a large load for minutes of use, not hours. and all will cost a lot more than $99-$150.
@atomizer so which it the better unit, and which is the better deal for the price? Since I don’t understand all of this but think one or the other might be good to have while camping or as a backup power outages.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/3849608522
@jmrobinett bluetti , better known brand. Used to be well reviewed for quality (who knows how much is paid influencers). Battery tech can do thousands of recharges before 80% capacity vs this meh Li ion (~500 cycles is what they say) which is also just a fake company on name on top of an unknown company. For all I know it is made in the same factory but that doesn’t mean anything. LIFEPO4 will be heavier for same capacity and also less explosive/more stable (so less likely to burn your house down with you and your family trapped inside).
If you have the extra scratch and want less of a headache I’d say bluetti. This meh deal is a gamble but likely fine.
Edit; also this is without even considering the internal quality of things like the inverter, solar charger, power, adapter, etc. which the. Bluetti would probably win again. At $200 Walmart versus $150 here ( for new) it’sa no brainier.
@qazxto ok, well I bought the bluetti listed here. Hope it works for us for extra power when camping off grid! Thanks!
@jmrobinett I’d say the meh one is the better deal for the price, albeit the “Bluetti” (a brand I hadn’t heard of before today) is slightly better in capabilities (namely the energy capacity and output ports.) It’s less of a consideration now that the sale’s over, but at that same price I’d still go with this one.
Wonder if charging this via a “dirty” generator is reasonable or will it kill it? Just thinking of real use-case during power outage. Charge it during day and use after dark. My portable generator keeps 2 fridges and a freezer going (along with various lights) during outages. This would be clean power for electronics and CPAP.
@mehmmmmark Gas generators produce a good sine wave by default, and the only thing making their output trashy is the switching on and off of load items. Unless one of the loads is generating voltage spikes (possible, unlikely) you should have no problems.
@werehatrack i thought I’d heard they are “stair steps” instead of a curve. In my simple mind anyway.
@mehmmmmark The “inverter generators” that use a tiny engine driving a DC alternator at high revs typically output a sawtoothier waveform that can be problematic for some electronics. The ones driven by a decent-sized Briggs or Honda (or Predator, or gods help the user, no-real-name Chinese knockoff) engine employ a conventional generator whose output frequency is determined by the engine RPMs and whose waveform is a very nice sine wave.
Worth a shot
/buy
@broken665 It worked! Your order number is: rabid-hopeless-cape
/image rabid hopeless cape
Ugh… In for three for triple the power AND regret. Meh thinks lowly of me based on my order number. Only time will tell if these batteries exhibit any nihilistic tendencies toward me and how they handle being operated in the real world. Now I must wait to see if any of these bastards get beckoned into the great beyond, suddenly or unsuspectingly transformed from the physical form into that irreversible vapor form via thermal runaway, and if it will take me with it if/when that time comes. So I have three of these now… this Meh purchase has become the most powerful one in the fact that it now has the power to both power my life and or burn it to the ground times 3. UGH WTF MEH?!
/showme lewd slumped creeper
@dasBen
/giphy lewd slumped creeper
12 hours later and I’m still on the fence of getting one or not …
/8ball
Yes definitely
/giphy cowardly-leaking-seance
Heads up - we’re about to sell out of the refurbished model of these, but we have secured a small amount of new (non-refurb) models that we’re now putting up at $150.
@dave are you going to tell us anything about WHY these were refurbished?
@caffeineguy @dave Buy the new one for $50 more and you won’t need to worry about refurb issues.
@dave what is the warranty on the new one?
@rosros one year warranty on the new ones
@dave oh crap.
@dave got to wonder why you had so many of the refurbs to begin with and whether getting the new one is simply buying something that will be a future refurb.
@dave @mattig88 Yes, generally I trust refurbs to the not-refurbs-yet
@caffeineguy IME, much depends upon who’s doing the refurb. The outfit down in South Texas that was doing refurbs of Sony consumer electronics a few years back was barfing up hairballs more often than not, and Fuji had some goons in NJ refurbing their bridge cameras who shipped me two DOA units, and then the return for repair took so long that they extended the warranty by six months. By comparison, the Nikon-refurbed D7500 that I acquired in 2019 has been flawless. It has been a very mixed bag.
I hope I do not regret not getting the new!
@eslabs1 you might, seeing this. https://www.walmart.com/ip/BLUETTI-PS54-700W-Solar-Generator-537Wh-LiFePO4-Power-Station-Portable-Solar-Generator-for-Home-Backup-Off-Grid-Living-Best-Camping-Power-Station/3849608522
@eslabs1 @qazxto You mean a future refurb?!
@mattig88 @qazxto No already paid for Refurb then the new came on
@qazxto wish seen this before buying maybe I can cancel
@eslabs1 I can help with that. If you want to cancel, let me know or write in to meh.com/support and ask for thumperchick.
Heh, I like the title
Well done.
Well I took too long. Probably for the best. Thanks meh!
In for 2 new ones for camping w cpap. Fingers crossed it lasts the night and lasts a season or two!
/image convulsing-nastybook
@mehjohnson
Meh, was hoping for more convulsing nasty than that…
Umm—not to #debbiedowner on this step-right-up hotcake parade… but what is the remote but life altering possibility of this 13 pound Lithium-ion bunker-buster kinda like jus’—esplodin’
🫣?How do you say in English, “Ba-ba-boomski”?…I mean I’ve heard of svelte li’l mobile phones committing hands-free harakiri and causing various levels of house fires and body boo-boos. And this behemoth battery is like idk maybe 40 cell phones all squished together ? Has it been tested by the modern iteration of ye old UL Labs? #justaskin
@ignoramus UL2743 appears to apply. I have no idea whether that means “No worries” or “just handle it like a bomb that you don’t want going ‘kaboom’ and everything will be fair dinkum, 'kay, mate?”
@ignoramus It’s simple-- If they have a tendency to fail catastrophically and start ones house on fire, Meh sold ~821 of them so you’ve got an 820/821 chance of someone else’s house burning down first and then coming to the forum to complain, (assuming they survive the blast and fire)
It’s always a possibility with these kinds of batteries. The brand name ones generally have pretty good protection circuitry since they don’t want bad publicity or lawsuits.
The no-name ones may or may not have the best safety features. Some are the same OEM as the brands, so they have better Q.C. and engineering, but it’s also possible they are rebadging the rejects from the brand or just using the case mold and placing inferior components inside. The overseas manufacturers can just disappear or change names if something happens, so it’s hit or miss as to how good they are.
I have a Bluetti and the last no-name unit Meh sold and both seem to be ok. The no-name isn’t Lithium based IIRC. If it dies as prophesized, I’ll probably gut it and install a lithium battery with a built in BMS and more capacity. The thing works well for now and ran a 300+ starting watt / 170 ish running watt fan motor for a couple hours per charge without breaking a sweat.
If you are concerned, you might consider keeping it in a separate garage or shed rather than inside the house. Same goes for gas/petrol powered stuff and BBQ grill propane tanks!
@mikelikesbbq It most likely is.
Lithium Ion batteries come in various chemistries. The more common ones are NMC (nickel manganese cobalt), LMO (Lithium Manganese Oxide), LCO (Lithium Cobalt Oxide), and LFP (Lithium Ferro Phosphate). Of those, LFP (or LiFePO4) tends to be the safest and most durable, albeit their energy density is lower than the other types.
Most expensive purchase on Meh ev-er for me. Hope it works well w my cpap when we have outages!!
/giphy ghostly-delirious-wolfman
Bought this refurbished (the only one offered at the time) from MorningSave and just received it. Looks brand new in an unopened factory box with no stickers etc saying refurbished and the LED window even had a peel-off protector on it. Who knows if the battery is new but for the price I’d figured I’d give it a shot. It came 70% full and is saying 2 hours to have a full charge.
Someone told me it looked like a PlayStation 2 and now I have to convince myself it isn’t one.
Mine arrived a few minutes ago. Condition appears new, but the box is not a glossy six-sides-printed affair, and I suspect that’s what differentiates it from an officially “new” one. This is just speculation, of course; I do not actually have a new one to compare with. Nothing on the outside mentions “refurbished” in any way.
First impression only, it’s clear that they left some void space inside the case, as the mass/volume is lower than for either my Jackery or my Puleida. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as they also equipped it with a relatively hefty fan to circulate air while it’s charging. The display shows that the pack is at 76%, forecasting 1 hour and 40 minutes to full. Overall, I think I have a better initial feeling about this one than the Puleida. Time and testing will tell.
@werehatrack Alternatively, the original box was damaged in shipping so they could not be sold as new. Some of my Amazon Warehouse purchases have been as such – box in horrible condition, item inside was pristine. I’ll take the discount!
@werehatrack Mine just arrived today, but it’s definitely refurbished. Blemishes/scratches all over the case, but my LCD screen still had the plastic peel off. Pack was also charged around the same % as yours.
So according to FedEx mine only weighs 1lb and is 6x4x1. Should be interesting to see on Wednesday.
@Alesme2 That’s the default value that all of Meh’s ship,ments start out with. It usually gets updated when the box gets scanned on one of the automated scales at the FX hub.
@Alesme2 Mine also said that, I received what I purchased today though.
Well it’s here…Fedex guy literally threw it on my porch; big thud. Hit display and reports 70% charged.
Plugged an LED lamp into it ~10W and the inverter works, but shows 0W yet 19 hours of battery remaining.
~10W x 19 hours = 190 wHr.
Anyone want to take a guess what the ‘real world’ capacity of these things is? Any less than 75% of design capacity (~350Whr) and it’s probably gonna go back
@caffeineguy Charge it full and put a higher load on it to truly test out its capacity.
I want one !! Please!
Mine arrived at 75%; will be charging it up later (off peak) and putting it to the test with one of my desktop computers as a load.
Absolutely no indication of being a refurb. Maybe it’s because the P2E brand label on the top front wasn’t straight, so it was rejected for QC?
@narfcake Dang, seems like some got lucky. Commented in another post, but mine was definitely refurbed, blemishes/scratches on the case.
On a different paw, the LiFePO4 power station I bought from Amazon in July … well, that “brand” is no longer listed there, so I guess there may be others to come in the future.
(I went down the rabbit hole of solar panels during my lunch hour. $42 later for a 50w panel and adapter, I guess I’ll find out how it goes in a week or two.)
@narfcake same here…no sign of being a refurb or a sticker outside the box to indicate as such. Even the screen protector cling was still on an undamaged. I think a lucky percentage of us got a new unit. My order for 3 was significantly delayed(just got it today) so perhaps they sent new ones as an apology.
Strange-- Had a chance to babysit mine today while it charged from “70%”. It’s been sitting at 99% / “00:01 Hours to Full” / Sinking 80-85W for at least the last hour or two… So either the BMS is way out of cal, or it’s cooking a few cells of this battery pack.
@caffeineguy I’d be tempted to pull the plug, wait a minute or so, and reconnect to see if it’s still at those numbers. That does sound a trifle wonky.
@werehatrack Yeah-- waited a few hours, plugged it back in, and still 99% pulling a ‘full’ 85-88W, fan running, and 00:01 hours to full. It’s certainly topping off the charge, but probably just nuking a bad cell that won’t get up to full voltage
@werehatrack OK-- it sat at 99% for about an hour or two total at ~85W, dropped to 70W for about 30 minutes, then just finished and turned off the fan. It was likely just balancing the cells. I’m now plugging a 60W air filter into it with a kill-a-watt for some ground truth.
Starting at 100% the Kill-a-watt says 71W, while the LCD says 85W. I trust the former, the latter may include the inverter inefficiencies/fan. Estimated runtime 6:14 hhmm. We’ll see!
@caffeineguy Batteries always charge slowest when near full. You’ll notice the amount of watts going is much lower than the usual 70-80 watts. This is to prevent battery damage.
@miniskunk No, mine sat at 99% at 80-70W for a while. The BMS was obviously out of calibration from sitting for who knows how long at what state of charge
Has anyone tested the DC 12 output? I’m seeing a significant voltage drop at full battery (even at only a 50w load). At less than 40% battery the voltage drops to less than 9.6 volts and never recovers. It won’t run my iceco fridge below 40% battery. Even with the low voltage protection turned all the way down.
@aklecka It seems this is just a 3S Li-Ion pack, and the 12V button probably turns on a P-FET or similar digital switch (hence the 10A limitation that I wouldn’t recommend pushing). Enabled, it is just allowing raw battery voltage to the DC port. Fully charged it’ll be 4.2V/cell (12.6V), 3.6V nominal (10.12V), and can go as low as 3V/cell towards 0% state of charge (only 9V). A lot of other similar devices actually have a buck/boost supply to give a regulated 12V output.
@aklecka Starting at 100% charge, a cheap DC meter on the 12V port initially reported 12.4V, 12.1V at ~90%. I’ll keep watching it, but I’d suspect from 70-40% would be the nominal 3.6V/cell, so around 10V.
@caffeineguy thanks for the feedback and for testing. I suppose having regulated output was too much to ask for? I wonder if there is a way to fix this.
@aklecka @caffeineguy A boost/buck converter. Something along the likes of this:
https://www.amazon.com/Valefod-Efficiency-Converter-Buck-Boost-Transformer/dp/B082GD23W3/
@caffeineguy @narfcake I learned today. Thanks gents.
Got mine a couple days ago, working great so far. A few things I noticed:
@awk Mine was running the fan 100% of the time it was charging. It sat at 99% for about 2-3 hours, slurping up 80W before it hit 100 and And immediately shut off when it finally charged.
@awk @caffeineguy Mine charged to 100% within five minutes of its initial projection. I took that as an encouraging sign.
@awk @werehatrack Interesting… I ran my air filter on it for an hour or two the other night, burned up about 110WH, and it reported ~75%. I’ll repeat the test another 2-3 times, bring it down to 25% or maybe even down to 0% briefly and see if the BMS ‘learns’ its actual capacity upon recharge. Still gotta verify all the USB ports work, and that the solar MPPT input works, but It’s looking hopeful that it’s not a dud. Longevity and crappy-cell self-discharge is another concern; particularly as the manual says to ‘leave it plugged in when not in use’, which is mildly scary.
@caffeineguy My fan did come on during the first charge but I don’t remember it coming on for very long since. The unit’s been working fine though.
The unit I received is displaying “E02” when the inverter is on, and the output watts remains at “0” when there should be a load. It is otherwise working to power a laptop, though I haven’t tested the output voltage or anything yet. Does anyone know what “E02” might mean? There is no reference to it in the user manual that I can see.
@jmnetus the manual makes reference to Hi Temp/Lo Temp/Overload, or solar input problems, none of which should apply charging a laptop, so might be something with the onboard shunt resistor/circuit that measures the power consumption. I see a return in your future. If you charge a phone w/ DC and/or plug something into the 12V socket do you get power readings that make sense? did the you charge it to 100%? did the fan come on when you charged, then go off when complete?
@jmnetus Also, the Duracell “PowerBlock 500” and Coleman “Battery Generator 500” both have identical user manuals.
@caffeineguy @jmnetus With equally little useful information about troubleshooting. None of them mention error code EO2. Somehow, I find it difficult to be surprised about that.
@jmnetus Interestingly it has started working as expected, I’m going to put it through a couple cycles before resorting to a return (if the issue comes back).
12V socket seems to work just as I’d expect, inverter is giving good output, haven’t tested USB but if 12V is working OK I expect they’ll be OK as well. Only issue has been the worrying error code and initially no measurement of output watts.
@jmnetus I found that a very low load, <10W LED wasn’t enough. Also, plugging in my laptop with already charged battery saw my power jump between 60W and 0W pretty regularly. Sadly none of the reviews on Amazon for any of those seemed to mention E02 also
Just for grins, I did a little digging, and this appears to be the “manufacturer” of this unit, the physically identical Duracell-branded and Coleman-branded packs, and the larger but tellingly similar Energizer kit that ships with a solar panel for an MSRP of $1.899.00.
Actual support information was not present on their site in any location I found.
https://www.battery-biz.com/collections/powerpacks/products/phase2-energy-powerblock-500
Huh, it’s really 400 watts output.
This makes it an oversized phone power bank as nothing meaningful falls into that watt range.
@simeon527 Laptops. It will easily power three of them with typical power demands, though it might only handle two moderately heavy gaming ones.
@werehatrack potentially but it advertises itself as a home backup solution for emergencies.
It can’t provide reliable heat or refrigeration, and certainly not at the same time.
Not much use in an emergency.
@simeon527 @werehatrack My fridge is about 100 watts running, so this will handle it for several hours.
@simeon527 This can power many things with 400W output. Small fridges, fans, CPAP machines, a lamp, laptops, DVD players, TVs, portable stereo systems, and much more. The only thing not recommend is using it with anything that has resistance heating.
Received one refurb one new.
The refrub does not work at all
@SPACEOG904 sounds like meh.com/support is your next stop.
If this offer comes up again I recommmend to avoid it.
The refurb I recieved does not function and although MEH sent me a FEDEX REMA label and then once received, a refund, FEDEX will not honor the shipping label because it is a battery.
Learned a $100 lesson.
No more purchases from MEH
@SPACEOG904 that’s ridiculously silly. They shipped it via the same method (ground) in the first place, so they shouldn’t have given you any guff about it.
No worries though, I’ve got you covered. Check your email for an update on your case.
@Thumperchick If y’all are sitting on one or more of these returns that is otherwise going to recycling, I’d love to tear into it for making monster-power-wheels battery packs.
I received the unit, bought refurb, but there is no indication that it is actually a refurb. Unit seems to work perfectly except for, as another user mentioned, the “hold the power button to disable low power auto-shutoff”. I’m going to use this mostly to power some LEDs in a backyard gazebo, so having the power stay on is something I want unfortunately… perhaps powering a small fan will pull enough watts to keep it on. If anyone finds out how to actually turn off the auto-power off function, let me know!
@asjimene I think one of the problems with the auto-power-off is that the current monitoring electronics (power calculation) are terrible, so a 10W LED lamp load basically shows as 0W on some folks’ units.
Awful experience with this thing, just opened it this past weekend and plugged it in to charge. Battery meter showed 75% with the wattage showing at 0 and no display to state how many hours left until full. Left it plugged in for about 8 hours and no change in the status. Called the customer support number and the moment I mentioned the model they immediately told me they don’t have any replacement units as if they knew it was a faulty product and that I need to contact Meh.com So now I’m waiting to see what Meh says about this. It may just end up being a call to the CC company and have them resolve it.
@Devmani Why would you call your CC company? Meh will take care of you, just give them a day or two to respond. And if they don’t want it back after they refund you, I’d happily give you something for it and pay for your shipping to experiment on it.
@caffeineguy I mean calling the CC would be the last resort obviously