Allpowers S2000 PRO charging from exterior battery or batteries

[SeattleSounder]

Newbie here....first question on the forum....please be gentle. I've been researching DC electricity and solar setups for a while now, but am having some problems still understanding a few concepts. I'm hoping you can help me with one.

We had a "major" power outage here in Seattle recently that put a fire under my butt to get my "night time" backup power system in place. I purchased a propane generator about 10 years ago and its worked great every time the power has gone out for longer periods of time, but I don't want to run it between the hours of 10pm and 8am so as to not disturb my neighbors (houses are very close together). I decided last winter that I wanted to have a backup battery system that could run my basic appliances at night (a few LED lights, two refrigerators, and chest freezer and maybe the motor fan on our natural gas furnace). I have a 10 circuit manual transfer switch hooked up for the generator so I was hoping I could hook something up to that for the night time hours. I haven't wanted to go "full in" cost-wise and space-wise for an inverter and battery setup just yet, but then freaked out after this last power outage and purchased an Allpowers S2000 PRO on sale. Probably a stupid move since I now see that there are lots of bad videos and discussion about Allpowers units....also the fact that the first one they sent me was DOA (their customer service was GREAT and they immediately replaced it and new one works great).

So with all that said, I'm trying to figure out the best way to extend the "run" time on the unit so that it will "run" as long as I can get it to (preferably for the 8 to 10 hours I need it) until I can start the generator in the morning. The Allpowers has an XT60 solar input port that I want to be able to plug into with an additional battery setup. I watched a few YouTube videos of people attaching an XT60 cable with alligator clamps to a 12v battery and having it supply power to an Ecoflow. I assume that something like this will work for the Allpowers as well, but haven't tested it yet. I also know that that type of setup will only charge at 120w which is not real great if I'm using between 800w and 1200w. I've also seen videos of people using some DC step up voltage converters to get 36v and triple the charging watts. Seems a bit extra difficult for what I want to do, but is it necessary for safety instead of just using a 36v or 48v battery setup directly?

Here's the crux of the question: The Allpowers specifications says this: (XT60 Solar Input：18-70V, 18A 650W Max)

I'm having trouble understanding the 18A specification. I believe that they are trying to say that there is an 18A maximum for the port, but I'm trying to understand how that relates to how the power or energy or whatever you call it is drawn out of the battery. Does that mean that if I get a battery that has a 20 amp maximum discharge rate that I will be OK? I finally saw a tutorial last week that showed me that a battery doesn't push the energy/power, but the unit needing the energy/power will pull it. So is the Allpowers going to try to pull 18A all the time? How does that relate to the cigarette lighter to XT60 cable that comes with the unit? I think that cable is only going to pull 10A from a 12v battery to get 120watts, but how does it know that it is only supposed to be drawing 10A of power/energy?

How do I get to as close to the maximum 650W input from a battery system (through the XT60) without frying the Allpowers unit and maintaining the safest battery setup possible? Thanks.

 

[Darren-55]

did you solve this problem?

 

[DIYrich]

You will need a 36 volt or higher battery to get to 650 watts at no more than 18a, so think about 48v battery. You will need some way to charge it, so you might as well get a proper system like a growatt.

Anyway, I'm guessing the allpowers will take up to 650 watts or 18 amps, and limit itself.

The cigarette cord is 12 awg, so can handle the max 18 amps. It will probably try to draw as many amps as it can get, up to 18.

 

[Geno Velasco]

How is you Allpowers S2000 pro working?

Any new issues?

I'm thinking of getting this unit since I like the fast charge time.
I did read the reviews with various issues but it seems the company honors the warranty.
Dissatisfied customers always scream the loudest while satisfied customers normally stay silent so we don't know what the actual failure rate is.

In answer to your question, it will draw max of 18 amps from your battery depending on battery voltage up to 650 watts max:

650 watts / 24 volt battery draw 27.08 amps but built in controller will limit to 18 amp.
650 watts / 48 volt battery draw 13.54 amps which is below the 18 amp limit.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[ejfluhr]

You can test it briefly with a few 12v batteries in series connected to the solar input port. Then once you are satisfied it works, go for a 48v battery of whatever capacity you want. 5kWh server rack batteries are quite popular. At 650W, the Allpowers should pull roughly 13A from a LiFePO4 48v battery, so roughly 7.5 hours of charging support for a typical size battery of 100Ah.

 

[SeattleSounder]

Sorry for the late response. Since I didn't see a response for two months, I kinda gave up on the post.

The unit has worked fine for the two power outages that we've had since I purchased it. I plug it into my 30 amp generator input receptacle and transfer switch and it runs everything that I need (two refrigerators, small chest freezer, blower on gas furnace, and multiple room lights).

I think my confusion/issue had to deal with the battery discharge rating and I didn't fully understand the controller in the unit would limit the maximum amps. I did some experiments with some smaller AGM batteries, but they didn't work very well and I ended up over discharging one of them and ruining it. I think I'm going to need to purchase a better 100ah or 200ah battery with a better discharging rate (and 48v as you have suggested).

I also have a second unit that was broken in shipping. I'm planning on removing the battery and trying to set something up with it.

Based on all the bad reviews I've read about these units and many other people having their first shipped unit arriving broken, I probably wouldn't purchase this one again. I've gotten lucky so far, but I haven't used it much and I got great customer service for my broken one (I've read bad reviews that weren't so lucky). Every time I go to use it I wonder if it will be working or not....that is not the kinda apprehension/reliability you want when you need one of these units in an emergency.