hey everybody sam here welcome back to our channel in today's video i want to share with you guys a
little bit of electronic tool thing a little piece of gear that has actually been used here for about
a month and a half on our off-grid tennessee property now for those following along on our
channel you'll know that we are building a homestead out here on our new property
from scratch from the ground up and we do not have any electrical supply from any
kind of major utilities at this point in time we will eventually once our house is here but
for the time being we've had to run absolutely everything off the grid today's video is going to
be a little show and tell with a new product it is the big blue cell power 500 portable battery pack
we use a ton of cordless tools here on the property actually i think all of our tools
are cordless at least the ones we've been using so far with the build and honestly my batteries are
dead i think every single one that i have right now out here is dead so why not or how not or
what better way to show you guys a real life applicable use of such a device as this than to
charge my batteries so let's go grab our stuff out of the shop set it up here on our pitting
table in the sun which is so bright and we will go ahead and start juicing these things up
all right we'll go ahead and set up the solar panels here this is a 100 watt
solar panel array nice little portable thing easy to carry around fully self-contained i'm folding
out the kickstands in the back and laying it out pointing it as close to the sun as i can
all right we've got our wire this guy will reach way over there
bring it on over and now i'll bring you guys over all right what i want to do first is
go ahead and see how much juice i've got this guy's been sitting for over a week we
haven't used it it wasn't dead when we left it but it has been sitting out here not in
a climate controlled environment for over a week so i'll hold down the power button
and it shows that 60 battery so cool for the solar connection we plug it up right here and the
battery automatically senses the solar input and begins to charge the batteries right now
it's showing 95 watt input out of a rated 100 watt solar panel that is really really good now
i don't know if it's true 95 watts we really don't have a way of testing that well okay i don't have
a way of testing that but to see that this is 100 watt panel pointed in the sun on a pivoting table
showing 95 watts that is really really good so at this point we can get our battery charger out
pop the battery in there and plug it up right good to go turn on our inverter
well here's the problem this little guy will not do this this is called pass through charging it
will not charge the batteries from the solar panel and discharge the batteries to a device
at the same time i need my batteries charged so i'm going to go ahead and unplug the solar panels
set it there and now i can press this one time now i have the ac inverter on
and it is running my battery charger so 61 batteries from the big blue it's showing
that it's currently using about 50 watts and will run this setup for six and a half hours
this is not going to drain this battery which is cool now is the point where i need to see if
i have a second charger out here so i can double up on my battery charge situation
i only thought i had one charger with me but it just so happens i brought over some stuff from
our workshop today as we're working on moving out of it and this happens to be the box with
all of my battery chargers all the extra ones so we have got plenty to juice this thing up
well now i hear you i hear you i hear you sam that's cool and all you've got a a horde
of battery chargers there but that little guy only has two plugs for your 110 volt outlets so
what's your point what i mean didn't you realize that or you're not thinking has
the heat gotten to you well i have here in my hands and yes standing on the ground so
just about the world's biggest multi-outlet strip this mega beast uh let's see two four six eight
10 12 outlets this will allow me to juice it up to to the point of blowing up the little guy i don't
hope i do that i don't intend to do that but this allows me to overcome my lack of outlets let's
plug this thing up and seriously seriously start charging some batteries guys i mean hey come on
outlet strip maximus go here at the back
we'll go ahead and plug this up
and let's get this organized a little bit charger one plugged up and
charging charger two juiced up ready to go charger three juiced up ready
to go charger four plugging up number five slash six because this is a double charger
all right big blue time to do your thing
it is incredibly hard to see in the sunlight on the camera at least
but it is pulling 260 watts says that the battery will last oh about an hour because it's at 57
but most importantly it is running six battery chargers all at once i have it plugged from the
big blue into this monster outlet strip and then five craftsman 20 volt battery chargers charging
six batteries all at once very cool now that's not a practical application i don't know what is
okay so this might not really be what you would consider a practical relatable use
of a little battery pack but for me out here that is 100 the kind of stuff that i put this
through i mean come on we have cordless tools out here we're building workshops greenhouses
a homestead in general so yeah sun's out juice those batteries up if i had more battery chargers
i could absolutely plug more in thanks to the six foot tall outlet strip that i have but if nothing
else i mean hey five battery chargers is more than what most people are going to throw at it once
even with all these chargers cranking at their highest point that's only 350 watts that leaves
another 150 watts of usability within the rated power supply of this little unit
that means honestly 150 watts in the world of solar goes a long way unless you're trying to eat
or heat if you don't eat or heat you're doing good most everything else modern electronics
are very energy conscious again not the eating and heating while we're waiting for this guy to finish
charging the batteries we'll go ahead and show you guys a little accessory pouch that comes with the
cell power 500 it is powwa p-o-w-a-500 um sam hasn't all of a sudden developed some kind of
cool and interesting talking linguist style he's he's trying to remain true to the name of the
product cell power 500 so you get a an ac adapter charging brick this allows you to plug this
battery pack into your home's electrical supply and charge everything up from there you also get
a couple of different accessory cables you get a micro usb and usb a for charging mobile devices
not apple because well apple's apple and you also get a charging port to use in a vehicle so this
plugs into your vehicle's 12 volt port and you can then charge the batteries with it we also got
the solar power powa again 100 watt solar panel setup and that's what you see us using here these
work great they are water resistant but i don't know that i would leave them out in the elements
all the time i would be worried about rain snow ice prolonged exposure to the elements causing
it to prematurely die on you however it is very portable it is very lightweight and easy to bring
out whenever the sun is out to charge up your device and then pack it up put it away whenever
you're not charging so outside of charging our cordless tool batteries like you see us doing
today i have used this also to run the electric paint sprayer that my brother let me use whenever
we paint my workshop this is the little battery box if you can look closely in some of those clips
you'll see this little box on the ground that the drop cord or extension cord is plugged into
that was this guy i used it for the entire purpose and time that i used it and it did great had
no problems and honestly it was really nice to have a pretty lightweight little battery pack to
kind of turn around like a lunch box sit it on the ground and then get up on a ladder
and paint stuff with so that is a cool real world scenario in application use another instance that
i've used this a lot is inside my workshop since it is all off grid there's no power in there and
you know no windows either as you can see um in the evenings or at nights whenever we're
here staying i will have a light plugged up to it and i have a work light that i can then do
stuff inside my workshop with that is a great use for it as well as far as features of this device
you've got 220 volt us style outlets then you have a 12 volt 10 amp automotive accessory style
outlet two 12 volt barrel style connector outlets think of these as like ac adapter
plugs without the ac adapter and then down here at the bottom you've got your various usb a usbc
power delivery kind of more technological cell phone tablet style power outlets
as mentioned in the opening of this video i've had the battery pack for about a month and a half at
this point i've not had any problems no issues and no complaints about it with the exception again
of the pass through charging not working for your ac electrical supply this battery pack has worked
great for me however i think it is also very much worth saying that i realize the limitations of the
battery pack's abilities 500 watts is plenty for the uses that i do with it but i'm not also trying
to really stress it out and throw stuff at it i'm not plugging up any kind of major power tools to
it i'm not plugging up our camper to it i'm not really trying to do anything other than charge
devices with it and use it to run led work lights while it's not within the scope of how i've been
using the device inherently this kind of thing is also very appealing to homeowners and people
who think the event of a power outage it would be nice to have something to run something with say
any kind of charger devices obviously how about any kind of medical equipment that you might need
this could probably work as long as within the 500 watt range another question that gets asked
a lot on these kind of videos is will this run xyz and will it run xyz for how long
that's not something i can cover for you guys you just need to do the math of the wattage output
is your device below 500 watts and then as far as how long will it run look at the battery capacity
divide it by your wattage use and that will get you an estimated run time that's not going
to be a concrete runtime your real life use case scenario is going to vary temperature fluctuations
battery compositions who knows lunar alignments and whether or not the mailman shut the mailbox
all of that stuff is going to dictate on real life usages for something like this if
you are looking for critical loads something that is very important that you want to run
if there's any question go larger get something larger get something bigger but at the same time
if budget is a factor and money is a concern which honestly money should be a concern and
budget should be a factor for anyone everywhere then taking consideration maybe this little guy is
the one for you as always there are links to this product down below there's more information down
below in the video description give it a look through click on the links and if you want to
learn more deep dive and go for it have at it my batteries are done charging out there so i'm gonna
bring it here into our workshop give you guys a quick run through the device itself you really
saw most of it on the front but i will point those out really quickly show you some features
and then we'll wrap this thing up so let me go grab it and i'll be right back
all right i'm just going to put it on my shoulder boom box style yep so this little
guy if i had to guess it's probably 15 pounds maybe 25 at the most then again i'm a really
bad guess of actual dimensions or weights so i'll put those somewhere here on the screen as well
it is portable it is lightweight and this big carry handle on the top is really good over here
on the back there is a built-in led flashlight so you the little button here you can press it turn
on the light that's cool on the front this is the business end you've got your dc usb ports and your
ac section on the front you have a display screen that shows you the wattage input wattage output
and your time to charge or discharge depending on what function you're doing there also shows you
your battery percentage and depending on what area you have turned on whether it be the usb ports
the dc side or the ac there's a little icon that tells you what's on or off as well earlier i did
say that it does not do pass-through charging and that is true for ac electrical it will do
dc pass-through charging so if you have the solar panels connected you plug up your cell
phone you're good you do the same thing with the accessory port you're good it just will not do
pass-through charging for ac so in my example of solar panels charging big blue and then big
blue charging craftsman batteries no go all right guys that's going to be it for this video if you
have any questions or comments leave them for me down below remember there are product links
and links to the manufacturer and everything for you to deep dive and really get into the
nitty-gritty stuff on this product um i am by no means an expert i'm not a big blue ologist
i just did a video review after using this for a month and a half for you guys and sharing my
personal experiences about the big blue cell power 500 and solar power 100 solar panel kit
appreciate you guys watching as always take care and i'll see you guys next time on the homestead
for the shop set it up here on our pitting table in the sun which is so bright and we
will go ahead and start juicing these things up the sunglasses aren't up here where they put them
so this is interesting for you go ahead and come on along so if you're interested let's
go so let's go ahead and drag it let's see if i can do this without without sunglasses on
i'm going to be squinty i think squinty might be better than sunglassy e sunglasses two two two
bright guys i'm sorry it's just too bright that still leaves 150 watts of uses uses good english
modern electronics are very energy conscious again not the eating and heating those those are some
some somethings yeah any non-heating non-cooking appliance there you go in the worlds of solar
the freak fly miss maximus don't stink that bad what is it it sounds like a bee
here's the proof that sam still has hair although he wears hats all the time
wow all right let's cover that dome