Portable power

[zoidberg]

Above and beyond our 'wrangles' about LFP installations - which I've followed with interest - I now notice a crop of online ads for 'more-or-less' portable lithium battery packs from the likes of Jackery and Ecoflow.

These seem aimed at the van-camping and home 'prepping' market.

I'm wondering if and how such products might find a place in our boaty range of 'must have' goodies.

 

[Tranona]

Been around for some time - and discussed here more than once. Useful if you have other uses such as camping powering tools off grid or running a market stall etc but an expensive way of getting power plus limited ways of recharging. So useful for powering tools on the boat if no 240v available and maybe for short term 240v on the boat but small ones not enough to power a kettle for example.

The major chandlers stock them but the makers never seem to feature boat usage in their marketing puff so maybe they don't see a big market.

 

[Sea Change]

Zero installation, unlikely to have any insurance worries.
But they're a hideously expensive way of adding battery capacity and really only start to make sense if you also want the other stuff like the inverter etc.

They're also very bulky and will take up a big chunk of space, whereas a proper installation will occupy whatever nooks and crannies you can fit the individual components in to.

 

[zoidberg]

I ask here as I've been notified by Scottish & Southern Electricity that one of the above suppliers will shortly gift one of their units, as a consequence of the household being on a 'Priority List' due to a family member's needs. This is intended, I think, as a means of meeting a statutory obligation in event of a 'lecky supply failure.

I'm simply wondering what use I/we might make of it.

 

[Momac]

I bought one of these about a year ago.


So far I have only used it on the boat . Certainly not a cheap purchase .
It has effectively doubled the on board lead acid domestic battery bank and taken away any battery capacity anxiety. It charges from shore power relatively quickly and I find this meets my needs as we are only very rarely away from shore power about 4 days maximum. The capacity remaining is on the screen but can be monitored via bluetooth and a phone app.
It can charge from solar by simply plugging in a cable direct from solar panels although I don't have solar panels yet .
Another option is to charge from the engine via a separate battery to battery charger which I also don't have.

I find this a great alternative to a petrol generator . But it will not suit everyone.
The absolutely silent operation rather than using a petrol generator is great.

 

[Otter]

We have a 3kw unit; it’s brilliant but has one significant limit, the issue is charging - if it’s a high output then by default it has high input demands and that means mains power. The unit we have though can be charged by 12v when the engine is running so not impossible to charge.
It removes the need to charge using a generator which has been an irritant and can also heat the calorifier but only for a few hours.