Hello folks! I joined the forum specifically to post this question, because I love Will's YouTube channel and straight-shooting smarts. I don't have the resources or ability for solar power at home, and my needs are on the road, portable, for car camping and remote travel in different vehicles, thus a portable solar generator (with maybe on day some solar panels). I have already purchased a Jackery (details below).
My needs: two people using CPAP at night, probably in the range of 45 watts on average between the two, should be able to handle at least 2 nights at 8 hours each. In theory that's 720 Wh needed via the inverter. I considered Jackery, Goal Zero, Bluetti, and EcoFlow, but since the main use case is sleeping at night, and the Bluetti and EcoFlow seem to have loud fans, I ruled those out. Jackery seemed to have better customer service compared to Goal Zero online, and non-techie, non-DIYers seem to be in love with Jackery, so that is the way I went. I would have much rather had better LiFePO4 batteries, but I it is simply a juggling balance of many things, so don't shoot me for the decision! Pretty rugged, reliable, easy to haul around, etc....
With that in mind, and with Jackery's claim of 85% efficiency, I purchased the Explorer 1000. Testing at home with a single CPAP for a few nights, I estimated about 670 Wh effective capacity based on measurements with a new Kill-a-watt P4460. Since that was nowhere near claimed or what I needed, with great effort and terrible customer service, I was finally able to return it. I figured that if the Explorer 1500 had a similar efficiency, that would be about 1000 Wh, which should be more than adequate for my needs. So, for all the same reasons as above, despite the terrible customer service, I then purchased an Explorer 1500, which I have had for almost 2 weeks.
Lo and behold, but the 1500 did little better than the 1000 with the low power CPAP draw, getting about 720 Wh estimated out of the battery using only the AC inverter. I believe that at low power the inverter inefficiencies add up over the hours, and so I tested again with higher power and shorter time, and then with higher power yet again. Basically all of my data is on the attached graphs, and I would love some thoughts about this. Do all AC inverters operate on a logarithmic efficiency scale like this one seems to? With just the CPAP, the fan never turned on. With the lamp, it turned on briefly on occasion, and with the coffee pot, it was on continuously. Can we tell where these inefficiencies are coming from based on this data? Is it solely from the inverter? Is this simple Kill-a-watt meter up to the task? I assume so, since the data is so consistent and clear. Am I missing something here? I have not yet tried doing the math to see how much power the inverter is using at baseline and how much it might be losing as a percentage of the power going through it, and not sure if I need to know that, but any observations would be appreciated.
My needs: two people using CPAP at night, probably in the range of 45 watts on average between the two, should be able to handle at least 2 nights at 8 hours each. In theory that's 720 Wh needed via the inverter. I considered Jackery, Goal Zero, Bluetti, and EcoFlow, but since the main use case is sleeping at night, and the Bluetti and EcoFlow seem to have loud fans, I ruled those out. Jackery seemed to have better customer service compared to Goal Zero online, and non-techie, non-DIYers seem to be in love with Jackery, so that is the way I went. I would have much rather had better LiFePO4 batteries, but I it is simply a juggling balance of many things, so don't shoot me for the decision! Pretty rugged, reliable, easy to haul around, etc....
With that in mind, and with Jackery's claim of 85% efficiency, I purchased the Explorer 1000. Testing at home with a single CPAP for a few nights, I estimated about 670 Wh effective capacity based on measurements with a new Kill-a-watt P4460. Since that was nowhere near claimed or what I needed, with great effort and terrible customer service, I was finally able to return it. I figured that if the Explorer 1500 had a similar efficiency, that would be about 1000 Wh, which should be more than adequate for my needs. So, for all the same reasons as above, despite the terrible customer service, I then purchased an Explorer 1500, which I have had for almost 2 weeks.
Lo and behold, but the 1500 did little better than the 1000 with the low power CPAP draw, getting about 720 Wh estimated out of the battery using only the AC inverter. I believe that at low power the inverter inefficiencies add up over the hours, and so I tested again with higher power and shorter time, and then with higher power yet again. Basically all of my data is on the attached graphs, and I would love some thoughts about this. Do all AC inverters operate on a logarithmic efficiency scale like this one seems to? With just the CPAP, the fan never turned on. With the lamp, it turned on briefly on occasion, and with the coffee pot, it was on continuously. Can we tell where these inefficiencies are coming from based on this data? Is it solely from the inverter? Is this simple Kill-a-watt meter up to the task? I assume so, since the data is so consistent and clear. Am I missing something here? I have not yet tried doing the math to see how much power the inverter is using at baseline and how much it might be losing as a percentage of the power going through it, and not sure if I need to know that, but any observations would be appreciated.
Attachments
Last edited: