Is a Bluetti portable power station better than my 4WD dual-battery setup?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I have just purchased the 150 model and it was your recommendation that helped overcome my usual maddening procrastination's with these kinds of decisions.
That said, I blame you for the fact that I have only recently spent a whole day fitting a second lead acid in the battery box of the camper. The combined approximately 200 amp hours and perhaps 70 kilograms, was to have lasted till people like me (pension) could afford lithium.
The wiring was a tortuous, but tamed improvisation that will have now to be substantially rethought.
Since I’ve already paid, it probably doesn’t matter, but I am hoping the 30-amp DC-to-DC charger I bought a little less than a year ago will be able to charge this thing with less driving than advertised. I assume their estimates are just hooking up straight to the car battery.
Bluetti EB150 portable power station has a large battery capacity of 1500Wh/405Ah.
Am I reading this correctly? Is this equal roughly to four of my 100 amp/hr lead-acids? That sounds a bit miraculous even for lithium.
If this is the case, is that because they can be drawn down lower than the lead acids?
The weight is promised to be 17 kg so take that from the 60 to 70 I am now carrying and I have a lot to thank you and them for.
Saw your Subaru gearbox report and talked of it with the next car dealership I visited just to keep them fearing you.
Thanks again for all your work,
Michael
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ANSWER
Hey Michael,
‘Improvisation’ with large amounts of stored energy is always a bad idea, unless you really know what you are doing. Burning the camper down is a real possibility, otherwise.
To answer your implied questions:
Volts x Amps = Watts
Therefore:
Volts x Amp-hours = Watt-hours (Watt-hours are a unit of ENERGY. One Watt-hour = 3.6kJ.)
A 2000 Watt-hour battery = 12 Volts x 167 Amp-hours. (This is the calculus for the AC200P. It’s a 167Ah battery at 12V.)
A 1500 Watt-hour battery = 12 Volts x 125 Amp-hours. (Ditto - EB150.)
Therefore, an EB150 is about 60 per cent of the energy in your lead-acid setup.
If you have a 12V 200 Amp-hour batter and it’s flat, and you intend recharging at 30 Amps, it’s going to take about 7 hours to recharge because 200/30 = 7 (approx.) 30 amps x 7 hours is (approx.) 200 Amp-hours.
There’s nothing magical about lithium-ion chemistry. It’s just lighter for the same stored energy, compared with lead-acid.
Hope this helps mate.
JC
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