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Portable Power Systems: The Best Off-grid Batteries for Overlanding · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Oval Angineal Podcast. I am
0:07
Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with my co
0:09
Speaker 1: host for today, Matt Swartz. We're sticking with the Matt
0:12
Speaker 1: theme on co hosts, so I always get the name right.
0:15
Speaker 1: It's always a Matt. Matt Swartz is quite different from
0:18
Speaker 1: Matt Scott in the fact that Matt, you have a
0:20
Speaker 1: long history in the outdoor space and a lot of
0:24
Speaker 1: time living out of vehicles, including a historic Cortes that
0:28
Speaker 1: you had. We did do a podcast with Matt and
0:30
Speaker 1: his partner Amanda last year at some point if you
0:33
Speaker 1: want to hear more about his travels and his experience
0:36
Speaker 1: on the road. But one of the things that you
0:38
Speaker 1: learned about is how do you maintain all of these
0:40
Speaker 1: systems when you're in the middle of nowhere? How do
0:42
Speaker 1: you keep working? How do you be a creative and
0:46
Speaker 1: do the job that you and a man to do
0:48
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of nowhere. And that's what
0:49
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk
0:51
Speaker 1: about portable power systems primarily, but we're going to also
0:54
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about power systems in general for
0:58
Speaker 1: the vehicle. So thanks for being on today, Matt, Thanks
1:01
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Speaker 3: Sign up for their email list. Thanks again, GCI. Yeah,
1:48
Speaker 3: I'm excited. This is a topic that I think so
1:50
Speaker 3: many people have questions around want to know more about.
1:54
Speaker 3: Electricity can be a little intimidating, honestly. You know, it
1:57
Speaker 3: can kill you, yeah, but it can also make your
2:00
Speaker 3: life a lot more comfortable and easy on the road.
2:02
Speaker 3: Like you alluded to, you know, my background is in
2:05
Speaker 3: just general outdoor space backpacking, rock climbing, things like that.
2:09
Speaker 3: And I came to vehicle based travel in twenty sixteen
2:13
Speaker 3: in Cortes. That was our first vehicle we traveled in
2:16
Speaker 3: and we did install a full standalone solar power system
2:20
Speaker 3: so that we could continue working on the road and
2:23
Speaker 3: also have some conveniences. So, yeah, there's a huge amount
2:26
Speaker 3: of value in having an auxiliary or house power system
2:29
Speaker 3: in your truck or RV or camper.
2:31
Speaker 2: There are a lot of options too.
2:33
Speaker 3: There's no one right way to do it, you know,
2:35
Speaker 3: there are a handful of ways to execute that.
2:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that we're going to start off
2:39
Speaker 1: by talking about the three basic systems that we tend
2:42
Speaker 1: to see within vehicles. So there's going to be a
2:44
Speaker 1: dual battery system, which is the most common, it's been
2:46
Speaker 1: around the longest. It's been used by Overlanders for a
2:49
Speaker 1: long time and for purposes beyond powering electronics and house systems.
2:54
Speaker 1: So dual battery systems were used as an additional way
2:58
Speaker 1: to start the vehicle if the prime im starting battery
3:01
Speaker 1: had failed or gone flat. It was also way to
3:04
Speaker 1: augment available power for winching operations. If you were driving
3:09
Speaker 1: at low speeds at night. It used to be that
3:11
Speaker 1: vehicles had much lower outputs in their alternator. In fact,
3:14
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned about that in your Cortes. Was
3:17
Speaker 1: one of the challenges is that your alternator only put
3:19
Speaker 1: out so many amps. From an older vehicle, they just
3:22
Speaker 1: really only at times generate thirty forty to fifty amps
3:26
Speaker 1: when they're at idle, whereas a modern vehicle oftentimes put
3:30
Speaker 1: out many times that Dual battery systems are the more
3:33
Speaker 1: traditional method of adding additional power to your vehicle, and
3:37
Speaker 1: now we have dedicated house systems, so that would be
3:40
Speaker 1: similar to what you did in the Cortes and that
3:42
Speaker 1: we'll find in most camper systems, but they're also still
3:46
Speaker 1: very popular in SUVs where you have a totally separate
3:49
Speaker 1: house battery. It's oftentimes lithium ion. It's rarely, if ever,
3:54
Speaker 1: used for assisting with starting. It's a way to completely
3:57
Speaker 1: isolate the starting and vehicle systems from the camping and
4:02
Speaker 1: house systems, and it's typically supported while underway with some
4:07
Speaker 1: kind of a DC to DC charging system, so that way,
4:10
Speaker 1: when the alternator starts putting out alternator level current at
4:14
Speaker 1: usually thirteen point four thirteen point six volts or higher
4:18
Speaker 1: than the DC to DC converter will kick in and
4:21
Speaker 1: it'll start charging that house battery system. And oftentimes those
4:25
Speaker 1: systems are augmented with solar that's maybe permanently a fixed
4:29
Speaker 1: to the vehicle, or solar blankets or solar panels that
4:33
Speaker 1: are deployed while in camp. And we're also seeing more
4:35
Speaker 1: and more vehicles using other solutions like wind generators and
4:39
Speaker 1: things like that that can help provide additional power when
4:43
Speaker 1: you're even in bad weather with very limited sun. And then,
4:45
Speaker 1: of course, the third one, which is what we're going
4:47
Speaker 1: to focus on a lot more today because it has
4:49
Speaker 1: become such a compelling option, is a portable power system
4:54
Speaker 1: like you see from Dometic and from Goal zero and others.
4:58
Speaker 1: And Matt, you were the the primary research and testing
5:02
Speaker 1: editor for the article that we had in the fall
5:05
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Overland Journal issue where you compared all
5:08
Speaker 1: of the primary or the most notable power systems that
5:12
Speaker 1: were on the market. What did you find out in
5:14
Speaker 1: the beginning that maybe kind of shook some of your
5:17
Speaker 1: understanding of how this works.
5:19
Speaker 3: You know, I think just taking a step back, you know,
5:21
Speaker 3: we installed a standalone hardwired system in our RV because
5:26
Speaker 3: it felt like at the time, some of these standalone
5:30
Speaker 3: you know, one unit does everything. Solutions were a little
5:34
Speaker 3: bit limited in scope and what they could do, and
5:37
Speaker 3: I think that was what I was most pleasantly surprised
5:40
Speaker 3: about when I started doing the research for this article,
5:42
Speaker 3: was that these units are very capable by themselves. You know,
5:46
Speaker 3: they incorporate everything in a standard solar system. There's a
5:50
Speaker 3: charge controller to manage input from solar panels or a
5:54
Speaker 3: DC power source, so that could be you know, coming
5:56
Speaker 3: from your alternator. They have an AC inverter in most
6:00
Speaker 3: of them, so you can get AC current to run
6:02
Speaker 3: household appliances, you know, the typical stuff you would plug
6:04
Speaker 3: in your house to the wall with the.
6:06
Speaker 2: Two prong that's AC power.
6:07
Speaker 3: They also provide twelvelt output in the form of USBA,
6:12
Speaker 3: USBC or sometimes you know more standardized twelve volt interface
6:18
Speaker 3: like the Anderson power pole type plugs. Sure things that
6:22
Speaker 3: can't handle higher ampage like thirty amp output, you could
6:25
Speaker 3: theoretically power a hardwired system from one of these all
6:28
Speaker 3: in one units through a thirty amp plug.
6:31
Speaker 1: And that's actually what I've experienced in the Scout, which
6:35
Speaker 1: is such a great example of an OEM camper manufacturer
6:39
Speaker 1: deciding to a skew the traditional house system with solar
6:43
Speaker 1: panels and everything else with separate batteries, and they use
6:47
Speaker 1: a Goal zero yetty they use the fifteen hundred X
6:51
Speaker 1: that's this unit right, which is the unit right next
6:53
Speaker 1: to Matt there for those of you that are watching
6:55
Speaker 1: on YouTube. It has been totally flawless in the scout.
7:00
Speaker 1: In fact, it's been so reliable. I just leave everything
7:03
Speaker 1: running in the camper with it just stored and off
7:06
Speaker 1: of the vehicle. So the camper has one hundred and
7:09
Speaker 1: eighty watt solar panel installed on the front of it.
7:11
Speaker 1: It allows me to leave the windows cracked ever so
7:14
Speaker 1: slightly so I don't get weather in, but I let
7:16
Speaker 1: the twelve fan run all the time, so it keeps
7:19
Speaker 1: the camper constantly ventilated out for moisture and mildew and
7:23
Speaker 1: anything else.
7:24
Speaker 2: That may happen.
7:25
Speaker 1: And what was really impressive to me, and this again
7:28
Speaker 1: kind of what you experienced. I had no idea they
7:30
Speaker 1: had come so far in the fact that they now
7:32
Speaker 1: have fully integrated solar charge controllers. It used to be
7:36
Speaker 1: that you could only use the YETTI or the Goal
7:39
Speaker 1: zero panel with a specific amount of voltage and a
7:42
Speaker 1: very specific connector that went into the unit. Now they
7:46
Speaker 1: still have that same connector so that they are backwards
7:48
Speaker 1: compatible to their other products, but they also have an
7:51
Speaker 1: Andersen style a charging port for the solar panels. So
7:55
Speaker 1: this is a totally different manufacturer of solar. It has
7:58
Speaker 1: a much broader range of voltage that the system can
8:01
Speaker 1: consume now, and it shows this like reassuring little blue
8:05
Speaker 1: flashing light that the solar panels are constantly providing power.
8:08
Speaker 1: And I look down and I'm getting ninety six watts
8:11
Speaker 1: out of these panels, or I'm getting one hundred and five,
8:13
Speaker 1: or even if it's a cloudy d am seeing thirty
8:15
Speaker 1: or forty watts out of these panels, And that's very cool.
8:19
Speaker 1: And the other thing that was so surprising is that,
8:22
Speaker 1: and I don't know how many of the other Goal
8:24
Speaker 1: zero products offer this, but the fifteen hundred X has
8:27
Speaker 1: an additional module that can be installed under where the
8:30
Speaker 1: lid is that allows for a DC to DC charger.
8:33
Speaker 1: So you install this additional auxiliary module and it can
8:37
Speaker 1: take up to fifty amps of twelve volt current from
8:40
Speaker 1: the alternator to rapidly charge the battery system within the
8:45
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred X, so it's literally everything that I need
8:48
Speaker 1: for an expedition camper like that for the kind of
8:50
Speaker 1: power consumption that I do. I obviously don't run a
8:53
Speaker 1: hair dryer or a microwave or anything like that. So
8:55
Speaker 1: if you need just regular power consumption, it does that
9:00
Speaker 1: because it has an Anderson style twelve volte outlet. You
9:04
Speaker 1: take the entire wiring harness from the camper and you
9:06
Speaker 1: plug it into one port on the fifteen hundred acts.
9:09
Speaker 1: It runs all the lights, the fans, the twelve volt
9:12
Speaker 1: outlet for the we boost, it runs all of it
9:15
Speaker 1: off of that one box.
9:16
Speaker 2: So that's pretty impressive.
9:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it gives you the flexibility to pull the brain,
9:20
Speaker 3: so to speak, out of the out of the camper
9:23
Speaker 3: if you have issues, right like, if there's ever there's
9:25
Speaker 3: ever an issue with the battery, with the charge controller,
9:28
Speaker 3: with the ACM verter, which are all contained within the YETTI,
9:31
Speaker 3: you just pull it out, send it to Goal zero
9:33
Speaker 3: for service, and you know your wiring remains intact and
9:36
Speaker 3: the camper you don't have to mess with any of that.
9:38
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it's it's really cool, Like you mentioned,
9:41
Speaker 3: with that module for fifty amp input They also have
9:44
Speaker 3: a module you can connect that allows you to daisy
9:46
Speaker 3: chain external batteries for extra storage, and they sell basically
9:50
Speaker 3: these systems that are designed to run your home in
9:52
Speaker 3: an emergency. Wow power added. So and a bunch of
9:56
Speaker 3: manufacturers do offer that. You know, we're mentioning the YETI
9:59
Speaker 3: fifteen under it and Goal zero specifically, I think because
10:02
Speaker 3: you know that in the article was my editor's choice,
10:05
Speaker 3: you know, cost aside it it is the most expensive
10:08
Speaker 3: unit that we tested for that particular article, but it's
10:11
Speaker 3: just so rich with features and functionality that you know,
10:15
Speaker 3: it's just it was, hands down for me, the best
10:17
Speaker 3: one energy ecoflow. A lot of these other kind of
10:21
Speaker 3: up and coming or established companies in the space are
10:24
Speaker 3: making external units that you can get or i should
10:28
Speaker 3: say external battery storage that can be plugged into the
10:31
Speaker 3: base unit so to speak, so you can just get
10:34
Speaker 3: crazy amounts of power storage. You know, maybe not quite
10:36
Speaker 3: equivalent to like a Tesla power wall, but kind of
10:39
Speaker 3: aiming at that market. You know, people who want to
10:41
Speaker 3: be prepared for power outage at home, you know.
10:44
Speaker 1: Or for a week in the backcountry with bad or
10:46
Speaker 1: weather where you're not getting solar and you're not really
10:48
Speaker 1: running the vehicle. Sure, it's pretty impressive what you can
10:51
Speaker 1: get out of those, and I've not had any any
10:54
Speaker 1: issues with mine. The only thing that I found with
10:57
Speaker 1: long term use with the YETTI is that they have
11:00
Speaker 1: got some kind of alarm on it that has nothing
11:03
Speaker 1: to do with the unit vaulting or failing. Like all
11:05
Speaker 1: the numbers are good, the battery levels. I think it's
11:08
Speaker 1: something to do with a Bluetooth or some kind of
11:10
Speaker 1: Wi Fi connection or something.
11:12
Speaker 2: And it does have both.
11:13
Speaker 1: And every once in a while it'll start beeping and
11:16
Speaker 1: I've tried everything that I mean, I probably need to
11:19
Speaker 1: just give them a call because there's no information about
11:22
Speaker 1: how to make it stop interesting beeping. So yeah, yeah,
11:25
Speaker 1: I think it's funny how those things come up like
11:27
Speaker 1: this is just like as an information to the manufacturers.
11:30
Speaker 1: If you're listening, there's never a reason for something to
11:34
Speaker 1: just start beeping unless it's really bad. Show it on
11:38
Speaker 1: the display. You have this very rich display. Show the
11:41
Speaker 1: information that you're trying to communicate on a display, not
11:44
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the morning.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:46
Speaker 3: One thing you also mentioned rich, which I think bears repeating,
11:49
Speaker 3: is the flexibility of these units you know, you talked
11:52
Speaker 3: about kind of the cross compatibility, and I realized that recently.
11:56
Speaker 3: Amanda and I were just down in southern California with
11:58
Speaker 3: the airstream. We're staying at Suboba Flight Park. The hat
12:01
Speaker 3: that I'm wearing a nice paragliding spot. But it was
12:04
Speaker 3: funny because long story short, we don't have an AC
12:08
Speaker 3: inverter in our airstream. One of the great questions that remains.
12:14
Speaker 3: It's not a question. Airstreams are not generally designed for
12:17
Speaker 3: people who are spending large amounts of time off grid,
12:19
Speaker 3: so it's an option, but they don't come with it.
12:22
Speaker 3: So anyway, we're carrying around a YETTI with us for
12:24
Speaker 3: AC power when we don't have short power hookup. And
12:27
Speaker 3: I actually didn't bring the goal zero panels with me.
12:30
Speaker 3: I had two Jackery panels with me, gotcha, And they
12:33
Speaker 3: worked with the YETI system.
12:34
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool, no problem. And ten years ago that
12:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been the case. They wouldn't have been compatible
12:39
Speaker 1: or they would have required some modification to work.
12:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what I've found is most of these units
12:44
Speaker 3: now are smart enough. If you plug an input in,
12:47
Speaker 3: it has internal circuitry to identify the input to know
12:51
Speaker 3: whether it's acceptable to manage the power from that, you know,
12:54
Speaker 3: and either it will not allow the input or it
12:57
Speaker 3: will give you some sort of a warning or an error.
13:00
Speaker 3: So you don't get that with hardwired systems. Necessarily, you
13:03
Speaker 3: have to know, you have to know what plug goes where,
13:06
Speaker 3: what kind of voltages and averages you can put into
13:10
Speaker 3: the system there. So these I think that's one of
13:12
Speaker 3: the other big advantages. You know, they take a lot
13:14
Speaker 3: of the guesswork out of it. And coming back to safety,
13:17
Speaker 3: you know, electricity is kind of a can be a
13:19
Speaker 3: dangerous thing if you don't know how to work with
13:21
Speaker 3: it safely.
13:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, particularly at one hundred and twenty volts.
13:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, these just make it so much safer, you know,
13:27
Speaker 3: at least that's my experience too.
13:29
Speaker 1: No, totally, you don't even you don't end up opening
13:31
Speaker 1: them up at all. They do have some limitations. One
13:34
Speaker 1: of the downsides is the fact that you've put all
13:36
Speaker 1: of your eggs in one basket. So when you have
13:39
Speaker 1: your own system, like you built in your RV, if
13:43
Speaker 1: it starts to behave differently because you installed all of it,
13:45
Speaker 1: you're like, ah, I know what that is, right? Or
13:48
Speaker 1: I can go to the local RV store and I
13:51
Speaker 1: can buy this one solar charge controller and replace it,
13:54
Speaker 1: and now the whole system is back up and running.
13:57
Speaker 2: Sure.
13:57
Speaker 1: Whereas with these all in one units, that is something
14:00
Speaker 1: that's worth noting is if they do have a problem,
14:03
Speaker 1: typically it brings down the whole system.
14:06
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, if this stops working, you're not going
14:09
Speaker 3: to open the case up yourself to deal with it,
14:11
Speaker 3: you know, unless maybe you're an electrical engineer, but then
14:13
Speaker 3: you're also probably avoiding your warranty, you know. So you know,
14:17
Speaker 3: a perfect example is in a hardwired system like the
14:20
Speaker 3: one we had in our quartes, we got two one
14:22
Speaker 3: hundred amp hour lead acid batteries and or a GM batteries.
14:26
Speaker 3: They were one hundred bucks apiece because we got them
14:28
Speaker 3: used and they lasted us three years. That's the same
14:32
Speaker 3: amp hour capacity as this. Yea, this is two thousand dollars. Now,
14:36
Speaker 3: this is a lot more than just batteries, so it's
14:38
Speaker 3: not fair to compare the two. But the point being,
14:41
Speaker 3: you know, batteries have a finite lifetime, and in our
14:44
Speaker 3: system that was all put together piece by piece, we
14:48
Speaker 3: could easily replace just one thing. And with this, yes,
14:52
Speaker 3: if it goes down, you're going to ship it away
14:54
Speaker 3: and you're going to need to wait. With everything, you're
14:56
Speaker 3: going to run into those limitations, right, there's compromises, there's
14:59
Speaker 3: trade offs, you know. I mean we were kind of
15:01
Speaker 3: talking about that before. Even introducing electricity and an auxiliary
15:05
Speaker 3: electrical system into a vehicle is inherently putting more complexity
15:09
Speaker 3: into it, you know, and that's something you may have
15:11
Speaker 3: to deal with on the road if it doesn't function
15:13
Speaker 3: as expected.
15:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember.
15:15
Speaker 1: I was for those that are listening that would kind
15:17
Speaker 1: of like to know a little bit about maybe one
15:19
Speaker 1: of the ogogs of overlanding. There's a gentleman by the
15:23
Speaker 1: name of Tom Shepherd. He lives in the UK, and
15:25
Speaker 1: he is certainly a mentor of mine and someone that
15:29
Speaker 1: I have looked up to for decades because of his
15:32
Speaker 1: significant expeditions across the Sahara, Northern Africa and other places
15:37
Speaker 1: around the world. But I was visiting with him in
15:39
Speaker 1: the UK and he had built up this g wagon
15:42
Speaker 1: for travel in Algeria and he was saying, and I
15:44
Speaker 1: have a second battery, And I said, well, what do
15:46
Speaker 1: you use for a dual battery system? And he kind
15:48
Speaker 1: of gets this twinkle in his eye and he brings
15:51
Speaker 1: the back seat of the passenger seat forward, and there's
15:53
Speaker 1: just one of those mechanical switches that is off battery
15:59
Speaker 1: number one, battery number two, and combine or all. Like
16:03
Speaker 1: he was the dual battery system. It was a mechanical
16:07
Speaker 1: switch that managed all of his battery systems. Now, if
16:11
Speaker 1: you think about it, that's the easiest, most inexpensive, but
16:15
Speaker 1: it's also the most failure prone because I probably don't
16:18
Speaker 1: have the memory of things like that like Tom does,
16:21
Speaker 1: where he probably has a checklist at the end of
16:24
Speaker 1: every day and he makes sure to shut this off
16:26
Speaker 1: or to turn that to where he needs it to be.
16:28
Speaker 1: If you leave those two combined and you go out
16:30
Speaker 1: for a hike and you left the lights on, now
16:32
Speaker 1: the car doesn't start. That's the nice thing about some
16:34
Speaker 1: of these automated systems. But it is certainly possible to
16:38
Speaker 1: build an auxiliary battery system into your vehicle very inexpensively.
16:42
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that you brought up the point that
16:44
Speaker 1: you did about the Cortes and those used batteries. Lithium
16:48
Speaker 1: ion batteries are the hot new thing for a lot
16:51
Speaker 1: of reasons. They're super great, especially on the weight reduction
16:54
Speaker 1: and the size of the packaging reduction size.
16:56
Speaker 3: I'm going to say power density is good, the weight
16:59
Speaker 3: savings is huge, and the cycles they get a lot
17:02
Speaker 3: more so much in their lifetime than an AGM.
17:05
Speaker 2: I mean there may have a lot of built in
17:07
Speaker 2: protection too.
17:07
Speaker 3: They do, yeah, they a lot of them now have
17:10
Speaker 3: these battery management systems built in that control the charging
17:14
Speaker 3: voltage and you know, they monitor temperature for ideal conditions.
17:18
Speaker 3: They're obviously a bigger investment up front. You know, there
17:21
Speaker 3: are many times the cost of a GM batteries or
17:23
Speaker 3: lead acid, but in the long run they are a
17:26
Speaker 3: better investment, at least as far as I've been led
17:29
Speaker 3: to believe now I have.
17:30
Speaker 2: I think I think you're right now.
17:31
Speaker 1: But to your point too, is like that's the opportunity
17:34
Speaker 1: because when we talk about a principle of overlanding like
17:38
Speaker 1: we are today around portable battery systems, we also want
17:42
Speaker 1: to always make sure that we present what's the lowest
17:45
Speaker 1: cost option or the listener because there are many times
17:48
Speaker 1: when a system like Tom Shepherd uses and he's one
17:51
Speaker 1: of the most accomplished overlanders on the planet, is literally
17:54
Speaker 1: belts in suspenders it is a switch that he turns
17:57
Speaker 1: mechanically with his hand. He has two batteries and a
18:00
Speaker 1: small length of wire and that does everything that he
18:03
Speaker 1: needs it to do when he's traveling for months in
18:05
Speaker 1: the back country. You found some used agms. How likely
18:09
Speaker 1: is it that somewhere on expedition Portal or some other
18:12
Speaker 1: forum that there is a bunch of people who want
18:13
Speaker 1: to put in lithium batteries and they're selling their used
18:17
Speaker 1: Odyssey agms. And these are great batteries, and you can
18:20
Speaker 1: buy them for a fraction of the cost of what
18:22
Speaker 1: they were new, and then you either put in a
18:24
Speaker 1: mechanical system or you put in a simple isolator or
18:28
Speaker 1: DC to DC controller and for a couple hundred dollars
18:31
Speaker 1: you've solved a problem that can also cost thousands in
18:36
Speaker 1: different fashions. So there are other ways to skin this cat.
18:39
Speaker 1: And we don't want anyone listening to think that these
18:41
Speaker 1: portable systems that are very complex and have a lot
18:44
Speaker 1: of features and are very robust is the only way
18:47
Speaker 1: to go about this. There are less expensive.
18:48
Speaker 3: Ways, Yeah, absolutely, and there are some great options kind
18:52
Speaker 3: of in the middle too, you know, like National Luna
18:54
Speaker 3: has this It's like a portable.
18:57
Speaker 2: Unit power pack they call it or something it.
18:59
Speaker 3: Was actually, Yeah, if you look at the back, it's
19:02
Speaker 3: the final page of the article. But you know, I
19:04
Speaker 3: put it in there, you know, I thought it was
19:06
Speaker 3: important to give it a NOD because it's under four
19:09
Speaker 3: hundred dollars and it basically lets you take any twelve
19:11
Speaker 3: volt battery and hook up a positive and a negative lead,
19:14
Speaker 3: and then it gives you a couple twelve volt outlets.
19:17
Speaker 2: And I think there's some USB's in there. I believe
19:20
Speaker 2: it does.
19:21
Speaker 3: I don't think that one had an AC output built
19:24
Speaker 3: into it.
19:24
Speaker 1: It does not, but it does have a built in
19:26
Speaker 1: dual battery system.
19:27
Speaker 3: Right, And you can easily go to you know, an
19:30
Speaker 3: ACE Hardware or a PEP Boys and buy yourself, you know,
19:34
Speaker 3: like a three hundred watt AC inverter that plugs into
19:36
Speaker 3: a twelve volt outlet and then for under five hundred dollars,
19:40
Speaker 3: you have a twelve volt system that you don't have
19:42
Speaker 3: to have almost any electrical knowledge to put together. Yeah,
19:45
Speaker 3: and you get AC and DC power and you could
19:48
Speaker 3: do it with a used battery like you just mentioned.
19:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, a great example. And the National Luna stuff is
19:53
Speaker 1: known for its long term durability. They build extremely robust,
19:58
Speaker 1: long lasting systems because of the environment that they're designed for,
20:01
Speaker 1: being in southern Africa. So yeah, so that's a great example.
20:05
Speaker 3: One thing I'm kind of curious about, and I feel
20:07
Speaker 3: like with your knowledge of you know, off road and
20:09
Speaker 3: overland travel, you probably have a better understanding of this.
20:12
Speaker 3: How is a dual battery system different than a house
20:15
Speaker 3: battery system or are they not different?
20:17
Speaker 2: They can be the same.
20:19
Speaker 1: Traditionally, a dual battery system was used, and they kind
20:22
Speaker 1: of first showed up around larger displacement engines.
20:26
Speaker 2: And that was particularly diesels.
20:27
Speaker 3: I was going to say, because in like, for instance,
20:29
Speaker 3: in the RAM that I've got, it has two batteries,
20:32
Speaker 3: Like that's that standard, that's the way it works.
20:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:35
Speaker 1: So the reason, the primary reason why they showed up
20:38
Speaker 1: was that in cold climates, you have your engine is
20:42
Speaker 1: six point six liters something like that, six point six
20:45
Speaker 1: point seven leaders okay, and it's a diesel which has
20:48
Speaker 1: high compression, high compression, a minimum of twenty twenty two
20:51
Speaker 1: to one compression. Some of them are a little higher
20:53
Speaker 1: than that. So you have a large displacement engine with
20:56
Speaker 1: a lot of compression that you have to turn at
20:59
Speaker 1: a enough rate to get that diesel cycle to begin.
21:02
Speaker 1: So that's the reason why many diesel vehicles, and particularly
21:06
Speaker 1: ones with larger displacement engines, will have dual battery systems.
21:09
Speaker 1: Got it, and that is to increase the total available
21:12
Speaker 1: cold cranking amps for primarily cold climates. And that's where
21:16
Speaker 1: it kind of started from. However, there was recreational and
21:20
Speaker 1: there was backcountry applications. There was like farm applications and
21:24
Speaker 1: other things where they needed to be able to operate winches,
21:28
Speaker 1: or they needed to be able to operate other powered
21:31
Speaker 1: devices out in the field where they wanted to be
21:34
Speaker 1: able to isolate the starting of the engine from the
21:38
Speaker 1: function of those other systems. In the full drive space,
21:41
Speaker 1: A dual battery system on something like a jeep Wrangler
21:45
Speaker 1: would have been installed primarily to I've killed my main
21:49
Speaker 1: starting battery because I've been winching, so you can do that.
21:52
Speaker 2: You can.
21:53
Speaker 1: A winch will pull one hundred hundreds of amps a minute,
21:58
Speaker 1: so you know they can. If you're not getting any
22:01
Speaker 1: power in, you can flatten. Depending on the size of
22:04
Speaker 1: the winch, you can flatten a battery in a matter
22:07
Speaker 1: of just a few minutes, and now you can't restart
22:09
Speaker 1: your engine, so they would install a second battery, so
22:12
Speaker 1: then they could flip a switch, combine the two, restart
22:15
Speaker 1: the engine, let the battery charge back up again. Or
22:19
Speaker 1: if you were at the end of a very complex
22:21
Speaker 1: winching operation and the winch was getting drawn down because
22:25
Speaker 1: the voltage of the system was getting dropped down, you
22:27
Speaker 1: could also combine them to give the winch that last
22:30
Speaker 1: little bit of extra energy to get through the obstacle.
22:33
Speaker 1: So that was typically why you would see a dual
22:36
Speaker 1: battery system in a recreational vehicle or an early overland vehicle.
22:39
Speaker 1: Was redundancy for starting and to support heavy winching operations.
22:43
Speaker 3: And it could help with other things like driving lights.
22:45
Speaker 3: I imagine you know, some of these high wattage driving
22:47
Speaker 3: lights probably pull a decent amount of power.
22:49
Speaker 1: And fifteen twenty years ago, vehicles just didn't have that
22:53
Speaker 1: high of an output from their alternators. So a lot
22:55
Speaker 1: of dual battery systems were for just that kind of scenario.
22:58
Speaker 1: It is, it's raining, it's cold, so you have your
23:01
Speaker 1: heater lower running, you have your windshel wipers running, you
23:05
Speaker 1: have your headlights and your auxiliary lights on. You're driving
23:08
Speaker 1: at low speed, so low rpm, low output from the alternator,
23:12
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, all the lights start getting
23:14
Speaker 1: very very yellow and very dim because the vehicles just
23:17
Speaker 1: didn't generate that much power. I remember my first land
23:20
Speaker 1: cruiser in FJ forty that I had. I think it
23:22
Speaker 1: had a thirty five amp alternator that was very very
23:25
Speaker 1: low power got it. So a dual battery system on
23:28
Speaker 1: a vehicle like that was pretty popular, whereas today dual
23:31
Speaker 1: battery systems are most often used to support all of
23:35
Speaker 1: these complex electronics that we bring along fridges and everything
23:38
Speaker 1: else like that. And that's when you start to make
23:40
Speaker 1: the transition from thinking it as a way of supporting
23:43
Speaker 1: well drive mechanical support like in Winching to I'm going
23:47
Speaker 1: to now run my house systems right separately from the
23:50
Speaker 1: vehicle electronics. And that's one of the mistakes that people
23:53
Speaker 1: make the most often in my mind, is that they
23:55
Speaker 1: too heavily integrate the two. You want to make sure
23:58
Speaker 1: that your house systems are if very close to fully
24:01
Speaker 1: isolated from your vehicle systems. You want to minimize the
24:04
Speaker 1: number of electronics that run out of the factory twelve
24:08
Speaker 1: volt sockets. You want to minimize the amount of battery
24:11
Speaker 1: power that you're pulling from the starting battery. You want
24:14
Speaker 1: to have a separate house system, which could be a
24:16
Speaker 1: battery or one of these boxes like we're talking about today,
24:19
Speaker 1: and you want to have some kind of an isolation
24:21
Speaker 1: between the two. That way, if you're watching Netflix for
24:24
Speaker 1: too long or whatever, you ran the blender too many
24:27
Speaker 1: times at night and you've flattened the house battery, you
24:30
Speaker 1: haven't killed your starting battery.
24:31
Speaker 2: You don't even touch it, and that is you keep
24:34
Speaker 2: them totally isolating.
24:35
Speaker 3: I was going to say the isolator. You know, if
24:36
Speaker 3: for people that are interested in setting up a system
24:39
Speaker 3: like this, I mean, that's a pretty inexpensive thing, and
24:42
Speaker 3: even to pay to have someone install that, I imagine it's
24:44
Speaker 3: not that expensive in theme of things, So.
24:47
Speaker 1: Whether or not, and something like a National Luna dual
24:50
Speaker 1: battery system, or there's some other great ones from red
24:53
Speaker 1: Art that are also mechanical or their solid state from
24:58
Speaker 1: other manufacturers. There's some even some mos Fat solid state
25:01
Speaker 1: battery isolators. There's a a bunch of different options out there.
25:04
Speaker 1: There's another one called IBS that is a great quality
25:08
Speaker 1: unit and those are all very easy to install.
25:10
Speaker 3: That's good to know. Yeah, in our RV and the Cortes.
25:13
Speaker 3: We didn't even use an isolator. The two systems, the
25:17
Speaker 3: vehicle starter battery and our off grid power were completely
25:21
Speaker 3: isolated from one another. Smart and you know, there were advantages
25:25
Speaker 3: and disadvantages, Like I remember spending an extended time in
25:29
Speaker 3: northern California where we had very little light. It was
25:31
Speaker 3: in the winter, you know, there was tree cover, and
25:34
Speaker 3: we just weren't getting the charging from the panels even
25:36
Speaker 3: on a good day. If we had them integrated, we
25:38
Speaker 3: could have just started the vehicle and run it for
25:40
Speaker 3: you know, twenty minutes and topped off the batteries.
25:42
Speaker 2: We didn't have that option.
25:43
Speaker 3: So there are advantages to having them connected to a
25:46
Speaker 3: certain degree, but as you pointed out, you want to
25:48
Speaker 3: make sure they're separated so you don't risk drying down
25:51
Speaker 3: your starter correct as well as the house.
25:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, our goal is to get remote. And it's so
25:55
Speaker 1: interesting these you know, even a fridge. There's so many
25:58
Speaker 1: of these systems that take so much power. You can
26:00
Speaker 1: lose track of time. The hike takes a little longer
26:03
Speaker 1: than you think, and you forgot some lights were on
26:05
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's very easy to flatten a battery.
26:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, We've had a couple times where we did
26:11
Speaker 3: we drew our batteries down too low and when they
26:13
Speaker 3: get low, and I've noticed it with these battery boxes,
26:17
Speaker 3: the all in one units as well as you know
26:19
Speaker 3: standalone systems, the low end recharging feels like it takes forever.
26:23
Speaker 3: You know, if you get down to the fifteen to
26:25
Speaker 3: twenty percent range, it's like exponentially longer to get charge
26:30
Speaker 3: into the battery than if you keep them towards the
26:33
Speaker 3: top end of power storage.
26:34
Speaker 2: And that makes sense.
26:36
Speaker 1: Electrical current is more efficient the higher the voltage, so
26:39
Speaker 1: if you're starting with a very low voltage battery, it's
26:41
Speaker 1: going to recharge more slowly at the lowest voltage than
26:44
Speaker 1: it will at the highest end of the voltage. So
26:46
Speaker 1: the first twenty five percent is going to take a
26:48
Speaker 1: lot longer than the last twenty five percent. It's also
26:51
Speaker 1: important for those that are listening to understand what is
26:55
Speaker 1: the limits of your batteries. Each manufacturer should have a
26:58
Speaker 1: way of expressing what they can to be depth an
27:01
Speaker 1: appropriate level of depth of draw. So a traditional AGM
27:04
Speaker 1: like you had in your RV, those are going to
27:07
Speaker 1: normally be around fifty percent depth of draw it's going
27:10
Speaker 1: to depend on the manufacturer of the battery, but it
27:12
Speaker 1: normally is right at twelve volts. So people will think like, oh,
27:15
Speaker 1: I'm only at fifty percent. Well, no, Like if you're
27:18
Speaker 1: a down at thirty percent and you're at eleven point
27:20
Speaker 1: six volts or eleven point four volts, you're already starting
27:23
Speaker 1: to do damage to the batteries. That's where these lithiums
27:26
Speaker 1: are very clever and they're very smart and something like
27:29
Speaker 1: on the YETI from goal zero, it's very intelligent in
27:33
Speaker 1: how it communicates its current state of charge.
27:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, from my research that I did for the article,
27:39
Speaker 3: using this as an example, again, when it says zero
27:42
Speaker 3: on the display, it's not actually zero. They build in
27:46
Speaker 3: that buffer to help you prevent damage to the batteries,
27:50
Speaker 3: although lithium can be drawn down fairly low without damaging
27:54
Speaker 3: the batteries. And the cool thing with this is you
27:56
Speaker 3: can go into a smartphone app and you can adjust that.
27:59
Speaker 3: You know, if you yeah threshold you can, Yeah, you
28:02
Speaker 3: can adjust that this one. You can also update charging profile.
28:06
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff you can do that kind
28:09
Speaker 3: of future proofs this to a certain degree, which is cool.
28:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, the agms I mean very sensitive to that. They are.
28:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we drew ours down too far, and you
28:16
Speaker 3: notice it affects the overall life of them, like you
28:18
Speaker 3: said fifty percent. So really, you know, our two hundred
28:21
Speaker 3: amp hour AGM setup is really the same power as
28:24
Speaker 3: a one hundred ampower lithium battery like give or take.
28:27
Speaker 3: You know, they're so similar in that way.
28:29
Speaker 1: So it's really important when you install like the Victron
28:32
Speaker 1: battery monitoring gauge in your vehicle, or when you buy
28:36
Speaker 1: a camp or that you ask the camper manufacturer what
28:39
Speaker 1: is this set to? Is it set to is zero
28:42
Speaker 1: percent at the manufacturer's limit for depth of draw? Or
28:45
Speaker 1: is zero percent means the batteries now at ten ten
28:48
Speaker 1: volts and I've done a bunch of damage to it.
28:50
Speaker 1: So I actually like to put most of those gauges
28:53
Speaker 1: reflect them in voltage. These are twelve volt systems. If
28:56
Speaker 1: you go below twelve volts on a battery, with some exceptions,
28:59
Speaker 1: like you're starting to do damage to the battery itself.
29:03
Speaker 3: Sure, I actually found some interesting results around that too,
29:07
Speaker 3: because when you get into twelve volt applications, a lot
29:10
Speaker 3: of appliances rely on that voltage needs to be twelve
29:14
Speaker 3: or higher for them to function properly correct. And one
29:17
Speaker 3: example of that is, for instance, we were running an
29:20
Speaker 3: ARB fridge in our camper and our system is an
29:22
Speaker 3: AGM system, and so all of our twelve outputs were
29:26
Speaker 3: coming directly from the battery. They weren't regulated. So what
29:28
Speaker 3: happens with that is when the voltage of the batteries
29:31
Speaker 3: gets too low, if you're running the ARB fridge with
29:34
Speaker 3: the twelve volt power source, it actually will just turn off,
29:37
Speaker 3: even though the battery is not dead, so to speak. Sure,
29:40
Speaker 3: and that was a surprise to me. Once I learned that,
29:43
Speaker 3: I realized the value of running that off AC power occasionally,
29:47
Speaker 3: because the AC inverter can pull power from the batteries
29:51
Speaker 3: when they're below twelve percent and still output that.
29:53
Speaker 2: One hundred and twenty.
29:55
Speaker 3: It's sure yep now on clever now on all of
29:58
Speaker 3: the units that I tested for the article. That was
30:00
Speaker 3: one of the things that I was really interested in.
30:02
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, if the voltage drops below twelve volts,
30:06
Speaker 3: will they still put out?
30:07
Speaker 2: Will they still power a twelve volt appliance?
30:09
Speaker 3: And so I plugged twelve volt fridges with the twelve
30:12
Speaker 3: volt connectors into all of these, and I also used
30:15
Speaker 3: a multimeter and I tested and all of the twelve
30:17
Speaker 3: outputs on these units are regulated. So what happens is,
30:21
Speaker 3: even if the battery drops below twelve volts, it still
30:23
Speaker 3: puts out a standardized voltage somewhere in the neighborhood of
30:28
Speaker 3: let's say twelve point four. I don't understand electrical engineering
30:31
Speaker 3: enough to explain to you how that works.
30:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's up voltaging it, which costs additional power. Right,
30:36
Speaker 1: So if you're trying it's like you would do from
30:38
Speaker 1: going from twel volts to one hundred and twenty volts.
30:40
Speaker 1: You're consuming power to up voltage it to that next level.
30:43
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. So it even accelerates the rate that
30:46
Speaker 1: the battery is running out of power.
30:47
Speaker 3: But it is it is an advantage because you know,
30:49
Speaker 3: if you have a twelve volt appliance that you need
30:52
Speaker 3: to run and the battery drops below twelve volts, sure
30:55
Speaker 3: you can do that. I mean, I've seen the voltage
30:58
Speaker 3: on the battery on the YETTI drop like down into
31:01
Speaker 3: the ten point whatever range and it will still put
31:04
Speaker 3: out power. And that's like maybe when it gets down
31:06
Speaker 3: to twenty percent. And with this as far as I understand,
31:09
Speaker 3: you're not doing any damage. You know, the system will
31:12
Speaker 3: stop working basically at the point where you would you
31:15
Speaker 3: would do damage to it. I think you can affect
31:18
Speaker 3: long term function of the batteries, you know, so I
31:20
Speaker 3: shouldn't say you're not doing any damage, but it will
31:22
Speaker 3: still function.
31:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that play it does. Yeah, it tries to
31:28
Speaker 2: keep you from destroying it.
31:29
Speaker 1: Well, And so what did you think of We've talked
31:32
Speaker 1: a lot about the goal zero Sure, what were some
31:35
Speaker 1: of the other units. It looks like you also evaluated
31:39
Speaker 1: the energy. How did that one work? That one's like
31:42
Speaker 1: a on wheels with a cart kind of a thing.
31:45
Speaker 1: It's a much bigger unit.
31:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so the energy's cool.
31:48
Speaker 3: The energy it feels a little dated, if I'm being honest,
31:51
Speaker 3: compared to some of the units that are available now.
31:54
Speaker 3: And I think that's just because they have put a
31:57
Speaker 3: little bit more effort into their commercial and standalone units
32:02
Speaker 3: in the twelve volt and solar space. You know, they're
32:04
Speaker 3: super well known for solar panels. They make a really affordable,
32:07
Speaker 3: decent quality solar panel. I think you can get them
32:09
Speaker 3: for like under one hundred bucks on Amazon. You know,
32:12
Speaker 3: a rigid solar panel, and they make a lot of
32:14
Speaker 3: solar components that are good quality and affordable. So I
32:18
Speaker 3: think that's where the majority of the company's effort is
32:20
Speaker 3: not in units like this. Now, I still think that
32:23
Speaker 3: they're all in one power solution. This like in power
32:26
Speaker 3: box that we tried was great, it worked well. It's
32:28
Speaker 3: got a lot of usba's, it's got a lot of
32:31
Speaker 3: twelve volt barrel inputs, which feels like, again a little dated.
32:35
Speaker 3: You know, USBC is kind of becoming a standard in
32:37
Speaker 3: the twelve volt space for USB charging. The twelve volt
32:41
Speaker 3: barrel adapters. They're not that many things out there that
32:45
Speaker 3: you would utilize for that. They have some there's some like.
32:47
Speaker 2: A fridge I guess would be one that you'd plug in.
32:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, in my experience even I think
32:53
Speaker 3: it's called like a Hella adapter.
32:56
Speaker 2: These are smaller.
32:57
Speaker 3: They're really small diameter like for running like led string
33:00
Speaker 3: lights and stuff. Oh I got you. Yeah, yeah, they're
33:04
Speaker 3: they're kind of like the round one on the Yeah. Yeah,
33:07
Speaker 3: you can see them. They're they're right above the USBs there,
33:09
Speaker 3: you know. So it's more like if you think about
33:11
Speaker 3: like you know, let's say like a little I see
33:15
Speaker 3: that USB speaker that has a twelve adapter with a
33:19
Speaker 3: barrel plug, barrel style plug. It's those round ones, so
33:22
Speaker 3: got it. They have limited use. I think in general.
33:25
Speaker 3: The cool thing about the energy though, is it will
33:27
Speaker 3: charge lead acid batteries like so you can have auxiliary
33:30
Speaker 3: twelvevolt batteries and it will manage charging of them. So
33:33
Speaker 3: that's neat uh. And definitely the handle and the wheels
33:35
Speaker 3: are great. These things are all pretty heavy, you know.
33:37
Speaker 3: I mean I think they're like anywhere from thirty to
33:40
Speaker 3: fifty pounds, So wheels are smart.
33:42
Speaker 2: Is the is the energy lithium?
33:45
Speaker 3: The energy is lithium, I believe, Yeah, I think they were.
33:48
Speaker 3: I think they're all Everything we tested is lithium as
33:51
Speaker 3: far as I know, as far as I remember. Yeah,
33:54
Speaker 3: I think everything everything I tested was lithium. But yeah,
33:57
Speaker 3: so the energy was good a lot of outlets. It
34:01
Speaker 3: was somewhat limited in terms of the information that it
34:03
Speaker 3: provides on the display. That's where coming back to the
34:06
Speaker 3: YEI again. It got the editor's choice for a lot
34:09
Speaker 3: of reasons, and that was one of the other reasons.
34:10
Speaker 3: You get so much information on the display. The energy
34:13
Speaker 3: gives you some information. It doesn't if I'm remembering right.
34:16
Speaker 3: It doesn't estimate time till empty. It doesn't tell you
34:19
Speaker 3: how much power you're drawing. It just tells you in
34:22
Speaker 3: a percentage what the batteries are at. Yeah so, and
34:24
Speaker 3: I like that.
34:25
Speaker 1: About the goal zero A lot to know how many
34:28
Speaker 1: watts is coming in yep, and how many wats are
34:30
Speaker 1: being consumed. That's a great way to plan for how
34:33
Speaker 1: your day is going to go.
34:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean you can extrapolate that. You know,
34:36
Speaker 3: plug in a device, turn it on, see what it draws.
34:40
Speaker 3: It will estimate how much time is left. But you know,
34:42
Speaker 3: you also know the power density. You can do some
34:44
Speaker 3: math and figure out how many hours it should run
34:46
Speaker 3: for if you want to figure that out.
34:48
Speaker 1: And what I did on the Goal zero is since
34:51
Speaker 1: it has the small Anderson connection, I put one of
34:54
Speaker 1: those power works meters between that and the wiring loom
34:57
Speaker 1: for the camper. That way I can see what exactly
35:01
Speaker 1: is the camper drawing as opposed to laptops that are
35:04
Speaker 1: plugged in or other accessories that are plugged into the
35:07
Speaker 1: goal zero. I can see exactly what the camper is consuming,
35:10
Speaker 1: which was pretty interesting insights.
35:12
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
35:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's also it's fun to validate any number
35:16
Speaker 3: that you see on the display with an external device.
35:18
Speaker 3: I mean, we did that for the test, you know,
35:20
Speaker 3: I used it's not fancy, but one of those kilowatt
35:23
Speaker 3: meters for our AC load testing, and there is a
35:27
Speaker 3: variation between what that tells you and what the display
35:30
Speaker 3: tells you on the units. I mean, it would be
35:32
Speaker 3: super fun to do this again and to actually pull
35:34
Speaker 3: an electrical engineer in, have them open up the units
35:37
Speaker 3: and do whatever testing needs to be done to validate
35:40
Speaker 3: a lot of these numbers, because again, as someone who
35:42
Speaker 3: doesn't have an education around electronics, there's only so much
35:47
Speaker 3: I'm really comfortable doing with.
35:49
Speaker 2: Sure reenergy was cool.
35:51
Speaker 3: I think the Demetic was an interesting one and a
35:54
Speaker 3: lot different than most of the units in that it
35:57
Speaker 3: doesn't do AC output. It is just a twelve oll
35:59
Speaker 3: out put and because of that it is much smaller.
36:03
Speaker 2: It is.
36:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very compact unit, super robust handle. I mean,
36:08
Speaker 1: I like the fact that it's as compact of a
36:10
Speaker 1: footprint as it is. It's got kind of an interesting
36:14
Speaker 1: handle on the top and like you have to hold it,
36:16
Speaker 1: you have to.
36:16
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I have to be you don't know.
36:18
Speaker 1: If you don't know, right, you got to hold the
36:20
Speaker 1: power button for quite some time before it starts doing
36:23
Speaker 1: its things.
36:24
Speaker 2: Yep.
36:24
Speaker 3: It's a capacitative touch screen, so there's no tactile feedback,
36:29
Speaker 3: which is you know it's again there's limitations with all
36:33
Speaker 3: of these. That was probably the thing I liked least
36:35
Speaker 3: about that unit. But the size is very compelling. You know,
36:38
Speaker 3: everyone's got space for one of those in their rig.
36:40
Speaker 3: Quick get quick access to the fuses.
36:42
Speaker 2: Yep.
36:42
Speaker 1: Do you remember on this Anderson plug on the back
36:46
Speaker 1: it says that it's an input, but can you also
36:48
Speaker 1: use it as an output as well? Is it a
36:50
Speaker 1: way to tie it in with a dual battery system.
36:52
Speaker 1: I don't only I don't believe so.
36:54
Speaker 2: Ok, so it only the energy only goes one way.
36:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, as far as I remember on that one the
37:00
Speaker 3: best use case for that. I think it's made by Dometic.
37:02
Speaker 3: Pair it with a fridge, you know, it will run
37:04
Speaker 3: a fridge for a couple days. It just makes it simple.
37:08
Speaker 2: And it has USB on there. Yea.
37:10
Speaker 1: It didn't have any USBC, which I think would be
37:14
Speaker 1: an advantage whenever they come out with their next version
37:17
Speaker 1: of the model. But the thing that I did really
37:19
Speaker 1: like about it was the handle. How easy it would
37:22
Speaker 1: be to create some brackets to securely mount it in
37:25
Speaker 1: the back of a vehicle. It would work well in
37:27
Speaker 1: a small vehicle, So pretty clever in that way.
37:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, for someone who just needs twelve volt for maybe
37:32
Speaker 3: a phone, a camera, battery, and a fridge. Yeah, you know,
37:35
Speaker 3: it's it does all of that, and it's small and
37:38
Speaker 3: it's easy to carry around.
37:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that one a lot.
37:40
Speaker 3: One of the other ones that's that's really worth considering,
37:43
Speaker 3: and you know, for a couple of interesting reasons, is
37:46
Speaker 3: the ecoflow products. The Delta is the unit that I tested.
37:50
Speaker 3: The Delta kind of crushed all of the others in
37:53
Speaker 3: its recharge time. Most of these take anywhere from five
37:56
Speaker 3: to twelve hours to recharge. The Delta recharges from twenty
37:59
Speaker 3: percent one under two hours, Yeah, which is really cool
38:03
Speaker 3: and it's very simple how it does that. It has
38:07
Speaker 3: an integrated charger that accepts like seventeen hundred watts of
38:11
Speaker 3: AC power. In most of these other ones, the AC
38:14
Speaker 3: chargers that are standard that come with them, except the
38:16
Speaker 3: maximum of maybe four hundred wats AC, So it's it's
38:19
Speaker 3: not like a mystery how they do it. It's the
38:22
Speaker 3: fact that it can accept seventeen hundred watts, and that's
38:24
Speaker 3: really cool because maybe, you know, maybe you want the
38:26
Speaker 3: standalone system and you don't want to figure out a
38:29
Speaker 3: way to recharge from panels. With this, I mean, you
38:32
Speaker 3: can go and find an AC outlet somewhere and plug
38:35
Speaker 3: in for under two hours where you're having lunch, you're
38:37
Speaker 3: topped off. Yeah, you can do that at a coffee shop.
38:39
Speaker 3: You know, you can do it at a cafe pretty easily.
38:42
Speaker 3: I'll give you a good example of the use case
38:44
Speaker 3: for that unit. I with recently purchasing a sailboat, which,
38:49
Speaker 3: as they say, it's like the best day of your
38:51
Speaker 3: life is when you buy a boat and the second
38:53
Speaker 3: best day is when you sell it. So I'm like,
38:55
Speaker 3: I'm in the middle of all of.
38:57
Speaker 1: These projects on this sailboat and there's no one twenty volt.
39:02
Speaker 1: There's very limited twelve volt on the boat. So I'm like,
39:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to take one of these test units and
39:07
Speaker 1: just like I've never used this product, I'm going to
39:09
Speaker 1: go use it while I'm working on the boat. And
39:12
Speaker 1: this thing is fantastic. I mean, it has multiple one
39:16
Speaker 1: twenty out h I think you get six one twenty outlets.
39:19
Speaker 1: It effortlessly runs mine espresso, so I get, I get,
39:23
Speaker 1: that's all you need.
39:24
Speaker 2: It had.
39:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it had my heart at a properly functioning espresso machine.
39:29
Speaker 1: So I mean this thing effortlessly does that. It has
39:32
Speaker 1: a bunch of USB c outlets, so that runs like
39:35
Speaker 1: when I need to charge the nav systems for the boat,
39:38
Speaker 1: or when I need to charge a phone, a camera,
39:41
Speaker 1: a drone, if I need to run my iPad pro
39:44
Speaker 1: if I'm doing work on the boat. It does all
39:46
Speaker 1: of those things just absolutely effortless. And it's a surprisingly
39:50
Speaker 1: compact package.
39:51
Speaker 2: It is.
39:52
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I think the form factor
39:54
Speaker 3: of that one is really smart too. It's narrow, you know,
39:57
Speaker 3: it can fit on a shelf that can fit into
39:59
Speaker 3: some areas that maybe these bigger units can't easily fit,
40:02
Speaker 3: no doubt. And it's also flat on top, which that
40:05
Speaker 3: seems like a silly thing, but being able to securely
40:08
Speaker 3: rest your phone or a USB device on top of
40:10
Speaker 3: the battery that's charging that is hugely valuable, you know.
40:13
Speaker 3: And some of these have flat tops, some don't. Some
40:17
Speaker 3: have fixed handles, like you know, the Jacker is great
40:20
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, but it doesn't easily lend
40:22
Speaker 3: itself to stacking things on top of it. Sure not
40:24
Speaker 3: that a manufacturer would necessarily recommend stacking things on top
40:28
Speaker 3: of these, but you know, the reality is little things
40:30
Speaker 3: like that in the field go.
40:31
Speaker 1: A long way when you have limited space. Yeah, it
40:33
Speaker 1: can be an additional surface. The only thing I noticed
40:36
Speaker 1: that I didn't care for that much about the Ecoflow
40:39
Speaker 1: was the fact that all of the USBs are on
40:42
Speaker 1: one side and all the one twenty is on the
40:44
Speaker 1: other side. So if you do want to use it
40:46
Speaker 1: like slid back into a cabinet or whatever, you're now
40:49
Speaker 1: covering all of those ports on the other side or
40:52
Speaker 1: vice versa. Share the way that I've got it set
40:54
Speaker 1: up on the boat, which is just basically under the
40:57
Speaker 1: companion way step, it's not a problem, but I could
41:00
Speaker 1: see how that could very easily become a concern of like, oh,
41:03
Speaker 1: the one that I need is now.
41:04
Speaker 3: Hidden by all it's on the either side or whatever. Yeah,
41:07
Speaker 3: and I believe I pointed that out in the article.
41:10
Speaker 3: That was one of the limitations. But they have since
41:13
Speaker 3: released some new products, I think like the Delta Max
41:18
Speaker 3: Oh Sweet, which may have addressed some of those issues
41:20
Speaker 3: of bringing you know, AC and USB ports to one side.
41:25
Speaker 3: They also just released it might have been that Max
41:28
Speaker 3: or even an additional unit that you can now take
41:30
Speaker 3: to an EV charging station and charge with saw that
41:33
Speaker 3: car charger. Same concept as as this unit. This one
41:37
Speaker 3: can take in seventeen hundred watt see the one that
41:39
Speaker 3: goes to the EV charging station. It can take in
41:42
Speaker 3: a huge amount of power in a short period of time. Wow,
41:45
Speaker 3: which is really smart. And I've seen I've since seen
41:48
Speaker 3: a couple of the other manufacturers start to integrate that
41:51
Speaker 3: charging technology jackri, which I think is a great kind
41:54
Speaker 3: of bargain option. You know, it's not two grand, it's
41:57
Speaker 3: about one thousand dollars for the one we tested for
41:59
Speaker 3: this article. Now have units that have integrated AC charging
42:02
Speaker 3: that let in a lot of power, so they charge
42:04
Speaker 3: much quicker, and that you know again that is it's
42:08
Speaker 3: a really great thing, especially for folks who are like
42:11
Speaker 3: not full timing, you know, weekend warriors, people who just
42:13
Speaker 3: want to charge up their battery quick and have it
42:15
Speaker 3: last for a weekend.
42:16
Speaker 2: That's such a valuable feature to have.
42:18
Speaker 1: And it seems like the Jackery is really popular I
42:21
Speaker 1: see a lot of people using them. You think it
42:23
Speaker 1: is because the price point is so accessible. I think
42:26
Speaker 1: that's part of it, for sure. You know, one of
42:27
Speaker 1: the most popular ones I see out there.
42:29
Speaker 3: It is it is I think, to be fair, I
42:31
Speaker 3: think they did a great job of marketing it too.
42:33
Speaker 3: You know, they got it in the hands of a
42:34
Speaker 3: lot of full time travelers right off the bat.
42:37
Speaker 2: They said, here, take this out. We know it's going
42:38
Speaker 2: to work well in the field.
42:40
Speaker 3: And so a lot of people have been using them,
42:42
Speaker 3: and I'm sure giving good feedback because we've seen them
42:44
Speaker 3: adopt some of these features, like that quick charging. You
42:47
Speaker 3: know they've they've done that faster than some of the
42:49
Speaker 3: other manufacturers. But yeah, the price point, I mean it's hard.
42:51
Speaker 3: You know, when you look at all of these as
42:53
Speaker 3: a whole, most of them are over one thousand dollars.
42:55
Speaker 3: So to find one right around one thousand dollars price
42:57
Speaker 3: point is it's a little more accessible. Well I'm not
43:00
Speaker 3: going to call that cheap, but for what you get,
43:02
Speaker 3: it feels like a good one with.
43:04
Speaker 1: A forty six am power bought battery. It looks like
43:06
Speaker 1: it has regulated solar input as well. It's got USB
43:11
Speaker 1: three point zero.
43:11
Speaker 2: It's got USBC.
43:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's got all of the features that
43:16
Speaker 3: you would really want in one of these. The one
43:18
Speaker 3: we tested didn't have an output for integrating it with
43:22
Speaker 3: a hardwired system, but I believe some of their newer
43:24
Speaker 3: ones and some of their higher levels of units. This
43:28
Speaker 3: was the one thousand. They have a fifteen hundred, they
43:30
Speaker 3: have a two thousand. I think some of those do
43:32
Speaker 3: like a thirty amp output if you wanted to integrate
43:34
Speaker 3: them into a hardwired system like your Scout camper.
43:36
Speaker 1: Oh nice, yeah, yep, yeah, that's a I mean, and
43:39
Speaker 1: they're just super popular.
43:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're great. They offer a lot of different ones too.
43:43
Speaker 3: They have some really tiny ones, you know, for people
43:45
Speaker 3: that just want to be able to maybe keep a
43:47
Speaker 3: laptop and a bat and a camera battery charge. They
43:49
Speaker 3: have ones that are that small. And their solar panels
43:52
Speaker 3: are great too. That it's a folding design. It's got
43:55
Speaker 3: a built in kickstand to keep it at a forty
43:57
Speaker 3: five degree angle so it's pointed right at the sun.
43:58
Speaker 3: I mean, They're whole ecosystem of products is pretty well
44:02
Speaker 3: thought out.
44:03
Speaker 2: We're going to take a brief break and we will
44:06
Speaker 2: be right back.
44:07
Speaker 1: This week's episode is supported in part by Icamper to
44:11
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44:15
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44:37
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44:52
Speaker 1: quality tents at icamper dot com. Well, let's talk about
44:57
Speaker 1: some of the other ones that you've seen on the
45:00
Speaker 1: market recently. You've got some additional considerations in the article.
45:04
Speaker 1: I guess the one that I'd like to bring up
45:06
Speaker 1: is that red Arc is starting to pay attention to
45:08
Speaker 1: the success of these things, so they've developed some battery
45:11
Speaker 1: boxes as well that are going to be coming. They're
45:14
Speaker 1: available currently in Australia. They've developed some solar panels as well,
45:18
Speaker 1: and of course they have their own DC to d
45:20
Speaker 1: C chargers. They have a DC to DC and an
45:23
Speaker 1: AC to d C charging system with integrated solar panel
45:27
Speaker 1: management as well, so red Arc has got more solutions
45:30
Speaker 1: than before. They have a traditional solenoid operated dual battery
45:34
Speaker 1: system as well, so it'll be interesting to see what
45:37
Speaker 1: red Arc comes up with in the next couple of
45:40
Speaker 1: years around these integrated systems like this, definitely because they've
45:44
Speaker 1: done such a good job with the other overland components,
45:46
Speaker 1: so that'll be interesting to see. What were some of
45:48
Speaker 1: the other ones that you didn't test or that weren't
45:51
Speaker 1: included in the review that you liked.
45:53
Speaker 3: One of the ones that I think is really compelling
45:56
Speaker 3: comes from this company called Energy, which is based out
45:58
Speaker 3: of Idaho, and I had one of the one of
46:01
Speaker 3: their earlier models called the Kodiak. It was similar power
46:05
Speaker 3: density to these, like I believe it was around one
46:07
Speaker 3: hundred amp hours lithium AC output twelve old output and
46:11
Speaker 3: their newer one is called the Flex and it's cool
46:15
Speaker 3: because it separates the charge controller AC and all of
46:19
Speaker 3: the plug interfaces from the battery. So basically the batteries
46:22
Speaker 3: a base and the top you just sit it on
46:25
Speaker 3: the battery it plugs in. Oh interesting, and so you
46:27
Speaker 3: can have multiple batteries and you can daisy chain them easily.
46:30
Speaker 2: Got it. I would have loved to test that one.
46:32
Speaker 3: Those guys, their production model is more of like a
46:35
Speaker 3: kickstarter kind of thing, so they don't necessarily have the
46:37
Speaker 3: inventory on hand to be able to send them out.
46:39
Speaker 3: But I had a good experience with that Kodiak, so
46:41
Speaker 3: I think they make a good quality product and from
46:44
Speaker 3: what I understand, their customer service is great. They're not
46:46
Speaker 3: as well known in like the overland and vehicle based
46:49
Speaker 3: travel space. They're more of like a home unit, or
46:52
Speaker 3: at least that's how they market themselves. But again, being
46:55
Speaker 3: able to have multiple batteries is pretty compelling for people
46:57
Speaker 3: that are maybe spending lots of time off grid or
46:59
Speaker 3: who want more power in one of these all in
47:02
Speaker 3: one systems. That's one that's definitely worth looking at, especially
47:04
Speaker 3: if you go and search on Amazon. There are so
47:07
Speaker 3: many companies, mostly based in China that are producing these
47:11
Speaker 3: these kind of all in one units. So beyond the energy,
47:14
Speaker 3: you know, it's really hard to say I mentioned a
47:16
Speaker 3: few others. There's this omniof Grid, Blue Eddy, Sunbox Labs
47:20
Speaker 3: I think is a US based one, but there are
47:22
Speaker 3: a lot of other options out there.
47:24
Speaker 2: You know.
47:24
Speaker 3: The one thing I would just tell people to consider.
47:27
Speaker 3: You know, if you're looking at these alternatives that are
47:29
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit more affordable because they're newer in
47:31
Speaker 3: the space, customer service and support could be very valuable
47:35
Speaker 3: to you if you have an issue, because again, you're
47:37
Speaker 3: not going to disassemble this to fix it if something
47:39
Speaker 3: goes wrong with it. And that's one of the advantages
47:41
Speaker 3: with these established brands is a lot of the true
47:44
Speaker 3: a lot of them have US based customer support. There's
47:47
Speaker 3: probably going to be a person on the other end
47:48
Speaker 3: of the phone that you can get in touch with
47:50
Speaker 3: or via email, whereas some of these more affordable options
47:53
Speaker 3: that just kind of come from overseas that don't really have,
47:56
Speaker 3: you know, the customer support system in place here, they
47:59
Speaker 3: may be difficult to work with if you have issues.
48:01
Speaker 1: So yeah, and on such an investment like a product
48:04
Speaker 1: like this, you want to make sure they're going to
48:06
Speaker 1: stand by it. And I do remember a few years
48:08
Speaker 1: ago we had a small issue with one of the
48:12
Speaker 1: goal zeros, and I didn't go through the PR channels
48:15
Speaker 1: or anything. I just called up customer service. I like
48:17
Speaker 1: to do that when I have an issue with a product,
48:19
Speaker 1: just to see what typical consumer would experience. And they're like, oh, yeah,
48:22
Speaker 1: no problem, we've actually seen that issue happen. It was
48:25
Speaker 1: the battery was olging a little bit in the case.
48:28
Speaker 1: They're like, we've seen that happen on a couple of
48:30
Speaker 1: these things. No problem, We'll send you out in RMA
48:33
Speaker 1: and like done, send a new unit. So they were
48:36
Speaker 1: really great, and I know that companies like Dometic and
48:39
Speaker 1: that will also be that way as well.
48:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, what an interesting development that we've seen over the
48:45
Speaker 1: last couple of years. I mean, this has really come
48:47
Speaker 1: in like barnstormed this whole segment, because ten years ago
48:51
Speaker 1: you didn't really see stuff like this. Goal zero was
48:53
Speaker 1: just coming into the space about ten years ago, and
48:56
Speaker 1: now these things are everywhere, and they're also typically the
48:59
Speaker 1: solution that people are picking, so I think it's important
49:02
Speaker 1: to talk about it. What do you think are some
49:03
Speaker 1: other considerations about how to reduce the cost of this
49:06
Speaker 1: kind of investment. Do you think that people will oftentimes
49:09
Speaker 1: buy too much capacity or how do you best determine
49:12
Speaker 1: the capacity that you need for your vehicle?
49:15
Speaker 3: That really is the starting point, right, That's what you
49:18
Speaker 3: do when you're going to install or design and install
49:20
Speaker 3: a hardwired system. You really start by looking at what
49:23
Speaker 3: you need to power, you know, on a daily basis.
49:25
Speaker 3: And the math is not too difficult. I was able
49:27
Speaker 3: to do it. I used to do terrible at math.
49:30
Speaker 3: So if I can do it, anyone can do it.
49:32
Speaker 3: But you know, you look at the devices, you look
49:34
Speaker 3: at the power consumption, you multiply that by the number
49:36
Speaker 3: of hours you plan to run them, and before long, yeah,
49:40
Speaker 3: before long, you know how many empowers you need, and
49:42
Speaker 3: then and then you can go from there. Obviously it's
49:44
Speaker 3: easier to go overboard and have that buffer if power
49:48
Speaker 3: is really important to you.
49:49
Speaker 2: You know, unless sure adds a lot of expense, it.
49:51
Speaker 3: Does, it does, And unless you're going way off the grid,
49:54
Speaker 3: you know, power is usually within reach. So you can
49:57
Speaker 3: also go back to something as simple as like a
49:59
Speaker 3: three hund watt AC inverter that plugs into your auxiliary
50:03
Speaker 3: power outlet on your vehicle. You just run your vehicle
50:05
Speaker 3: when you need power, so you don't kill your battery.
50:07
Speaker 3: That makes it really simple, and you know, and then
50:09
Speaker 3: it's just on demand, you know, you just get it
50:11
Speaker 3: when you need it, and then you don't need battery,
50:13
Speaker 3: you don't need power storage, which is really the advantage
50:16
Speaker 3: of these, right, It's like the powers there. You don't
50:19
Speaker 3: have to be burning running a gasoline engine or a
50:21
Speaker 3: diesel engine to generate more power, and there are advantages
50:24
Speaker 3: to that too.
50:24
Speaker 2: It's nice and quiet fumes. Yeah, no question.
50:27
Speaker 1: So, yeah, definitely replaced these, and then more so these
50:31
Speaker 1: with a solar panel have almost completely replaced the need
50:34
Speaker 1: for a generator.
50:35
Speaker 2: Yeah in the back country.
50:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would say, just do the math,
50:38
Speaker 3: you know, do some googling, look for some resources, do
50:42
Speaker 3: the math, figure out what you're going to need.
50:43
Speaker 2: Go from there.
50:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then by the unit that's appropriate to your requirements,
50:48
Speaker 1: maybe upsizing it slightly to allow for some redundancy or
50:52
Speaker 1: some additional capacity should the requirements around your chip, your
50:56
Speaker 1: trip change, or the weather conditions change. But for the
50:59
Speaker 1: most you don't want to overbuy because these can consume
51:03
Speaker 1: a lot of money, which can be used for fuel
51:05
Speaker 1: and border crossings and other interesting things.
51:08
Speaker 3: Says a traveler. When you can save the money for
51:10
Speaker 3: the trip, Yeah for sure. Well thanks Matt, you did
51:13
Speaker 3: such a great job on this article. Again, for those
51:16
Speaker 3: that are listening, you can find the article in the
51:19
Speaker 3: Fall twenty twenty one edition of Overland Journal. It's the
51:23
Speaker 3: magazine that in many ways supports the podcast that you're
51:27
Speaker 3: listening to. Becoming a subscriber or picking up a back
51:30
Speaker 3: issue and enjoying this content that the team works so
51:33
Speaker 3: hard to put together makes goes a long way towards
51:36
Speaker 3: helping the podcast as well. So we thank you all
51:38
Speaker 3: for listening and we will talk to you all next time.