Recently the power went out for a short while at my house. This was on a Sunday, and I was getting ready to make breakfast. Fortunately, the coffee was already made. 🙂
I have several small SoGens, so I started setting them up around the house to run different things, like my toaster, my internet router and wi-fi, and so forth.
SoGens, or Solar Generators, are basically battery packs with power inverters that can run both D.C. items, like phone chargers, or A.C. appliances with a typical two or three pronged wall plug, like a toaster.
Greatly over simplified… D.C., Direct Current, is essentially battery power; while A.C., Alternating Current, is what comes out of the wall. More info here… The War of the Currents: AC vs. DC Power!
While having my little Sunday morning adventure, I texted a good friend about my ongoing saga of no power, SoGens and soForth. Obviously, I thought to myself, “This would make a good blog post!” So here we are…
First things first… fire up the bidet! I got the bidet when I was about to have rotator cuff surgery a few years ago, as one of my flippers was going to be inop for a while. Once you get a bidet… you’ll never go back! 😉
Next important thing… keep the internet running. This SoGen is a Bluetti AC70, which is a little bigger SoGen.
Time for some breakfast. Some appliances, like toasters require a lot of power to run. This SoGen is the Bluetti EB3. Its nominal output is 600 watts, while the toaster draws 750+. It immediately shut down when I tried to make toast.
Fortunately the Bluetti has a “power lifting” mode accessible via their app. This increases the watt output, though drops the voltage some. This is useful for “dumb” devices like toasters, but would likely damage anything more complex. Toasting accomplished.
Things were starting to get a little bit warm. Fortunately, I have a lot of Greenworks electric yard and power tools that run on lithium batteries.
The Greenworks ecosystem is pretty neat. They have a lot of other things that can run off their batteries, if it is of the same voltage. This is a 24volt fan that takes the same batteries as my cordless driver/drill.
I actually think I might get another one of these fans. Pretty handy in this hot climate.
I have a couple of old school lead acid battery UPS (uninterruptible power supply) hooked up to my computers and wi-fi hub. Modern electronics require continuous flow of electricity or they will shut down or reboot. A UPS typically keeps the power coming when the juice from the wall drops off for any amount of time. Most UPS will switch to battery power within 20 milliseconds.
Lead acid UPS’ are relatively primitive when compared to modern lithium power supplies (SoGens). Many (but not all) SoGens can function as a UPS.
By the way… SoGens are called SoGens because they are designed to easily hook up to portable solar panels. I have three 200 watt fold up solar panels for this purpose.
The power came back after about an hour. I recently bought the small EcoFlow Wave2 heat pump for emergency use, so this was as good a time to practice setting that up. I just got it a few weeks ago, and had not read the manual or done much else besides unbox it.
It was really easy to set up, and I still didn’t read the manual. Ha!
Left: Wave2 ready to start up! Middle: intake hose (outside) temp (81F). Right: exhaust hose temp (116F).
The difference in temperature is basically energy being tranferred from inside the room, out the window.
The Ecoflow Wave2 worked amazingly well as an air conditioner! It only drew about 700 watts under continuous load/use, on the coldest setting (60F). Ideally, in an emergency situation, the widow gaps would be tightened up, and I’d wrap/insulate the outlet hose to keep it from shedding heat back into the room. I should also probably cut out a piece of plywood to fit perfectly in the window.
In total, there was 5,255 Watt/hours (Wh) of power represented in the system shown here, including… 1159 Wh from the Wave2’s battery, 2048 Wh from the AC200Max, and 2048 Wh from the B230 add on battery. This means I could run the Wave2 for 7.5 hours continuous (5,255 watt hours / 700 watt draw = 7.5 hours, at full blast).
There is some inefficiency or power lost in converting from D.C. to A.C., so the run time is likely a bit less than the optimal numbers above. However, I should be able to run the Wave2 off of a D.C. power connector to the SoGen, which would be a bit more efficient.
Of course, if I set it to 74F, properly sealed the window, insulated the exhaust hose — the Wave2 would not be running continuously, because the unit would stop cooling when the room temperature reached the thermostat set temperature. From watching online videos, with this set-up I could probably run the Wave2 for a good 12 hours or more, before having to recharge.
If I set up my 3 solar panels outside and ran the line back through the window (also part of the plan), then I’d have 600 watts of power to run the unit or charge the battery during the day. Solar panels only put out fully rated watts in a lab setting. Real world, they put out something like 80-90% of stated watts, which can still be a lot of power.
The main reason to have a portable heat pump, like the Ecoflow Wave2, and a big SoGen battery to run it, like the Bluetti AC200max, is because it is quite literally emergency life support equipment in this climate. If the grid were to go down in the summer, many people will be in serious trouble due to the heat.
AND because it’s a heat pump and the heat pump circuit can run in reverse, it can also be used as a heater in the winter if the power goes down, like it did in the winter of 2022 here in Texas.
I bought this system one piece at a time, and it cost me about $3,800 all in. Sounds like a lot, but deadly heat is no joke, especially in a world that’s just going to get hotter, and with wilder swings in temperature. Also, the whole system is portable, just in case.
There’s a concept I learned of recently, and that I hope to write about here in the future — the idea of a “climate safe room”. Instead of backing up power to your whole house, insulating your whole house, putting new energy efficient windows on your whole house, and so forth, which is obviously very expensive — instead you make one room of your house a climate safe room. One room that is well insulated, maybe has it’s own cooling, and so forth. This is a concept that started in Australia I believe, but obviously people have been doing this forever without giving it a name.
Thanks for reading, and I would love to answer any questions or hear your thoughts, so please comment below.
Last, here is a list of all the items mentioned in this post. These are affiliate links, so if you buy something this site will make a small commission at no cost to you, which might encourage me to write more. LOL! Thanks! 🙂
- Bluetti EB3 – a nice small SoGen that also has a wireless charging pad on top for phones, which is a neat feature. Can also function as a UPS
- Bluetti AC70 – one of their newer, mid spec SoGen power stations. Good for internet backup, computers, etc. Can function as a UPS.
- Greenworks 10 inch, AC/DC, 24 volt fan – goes from stout breeze to hurricane force wind. Lasts nearly all day if you run it on a lower setting. About $100 with battery for the 24volt version. You can also get the 40 volt version without battery on Amazon. I may get one, as I have a lot of the Greenworks 40 volt batteries for my lawn tools. (Hope to do a post on all my electric yard tools someday soon! They are excellent for many reasons… less noise, no nasty gas or oil to fool with, easy to maintain, and work as well as gas powered tools.)
- CyberPower CP1000 UPS – works fine. Doesn’t last too long. ideally you’d plug it into a lithium ion SoGen when the power goes down. I tried keeping it continuously plugged into one, but didn’t like the fact that the SoGen was continuously running 24/7. I’m still a bit cautious with lithium batteries, even though most of today’s SoGens use the safer LiFePo chemistry.
- Ecoflow Wave2 – this thing is AMAZING! It’s been on sale for 40% off for over a month now. You can get it with or without battery, though I’d recommend getting it with the battery, especially if you can get it on sale. Also, get the Ecoflow alternator charger, which allows you to do some pretty amazing charging configurations. If you get all three, it’s a pretty huge discount currently. Not sure how long that will last.
- Here is the TCA’s Ecoflow referral link, if you want to buy direct from Ecoflow instead.
- Infrared Thermometer gun – have had this sucker for a long time. Very useful anytime you want to know the temp of something without having or being able to touch that thing directly. The model I have is no longer made, but I think they’re probably pretty much all made in the same factory somewhere in China, with different labels put on them when they go out the door.
- Bluetti AC200Max — got this beast a while ago. It has a really annoying external A.C. charger that is quite loud. Other than that, it’s great! Newer similar versions of this power station have a quieter internal charger/power supply. Obviously, like all the other SoGens here, it has inputs for solar panels. This unit has been out for about 2 years, and the price keeps dropping. I got it for around $1500, then it dropped to $1400, now you can usually get it for around $1200.
- Bluetti B230 – extra battery for the AC200Max. You could get the B300 instead, but the B230 is the sweet spot from a cost per watt perspective, especially if you can get it on sale, like I did (~$1,000).
- Bluetti 200 watt solar panel – very heavy duty, brand name panel. Expensive. Around $500, often on sale for $400.
- Allpowers SP033, 200 watt solar panel – very nice inexpensive panel that often goes on sale for around $200, sometimes less. It actually seems to make more juice than my fancy Bluetti panel in some situations, though the Bluetti panel will definitely last longer as it is better built/more sturdy.
Which company is better, Ecoflow or Bluetti?
Both companies are top tier and make excellent products, primarily made in China and sold around the world. I generally like the Bluetti feature set, but I also enjoy Ecoflow products, and Ecoflow is the only major SoGen company so far, that makes a portable heat pump like the Wave2.
If you read various forums, both rapidly expanding companies have customer service issues, but Ecoflow seems to be a bit more responsive. There are other excellent companies out there, such as Jackery or BougeRV, and many, many other knockoffs, that are also very good, like Allpowers.
If you want to learn more, check out the many reviews of different SoGens, solar panels and other gear on YouTube. I like these guys… Professor Hobo and Jasonoid.