- Ben from Snowys here folks.
This is the Companion Rover Lithium 70 Amp Hour Power Station.
♪ Hit it ♪ - This is a lightweight
and ultimately portable power station
with multiple U.S.B outputs. Multiple 12 volt output.
A built-in M.P.P.T controller
to charge the internal lithium battery.
Now the unit weighs about 6.8 kilos.
It's about 31 centimetres in height.
It's 12 point or 19, sorry, centimetres in width
and about 12.8 centimetres in depth here .
It feels like a really solid unit.
This is a metal material
on the bottom here this grey section
and there's plastic components around the top here.
And there's this lift-up handle
which is quite sturdy on the top there.
Now inside is a 70 amp hour
lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery.
That's a tongue twister for you.
So you can use most of the capacity of this battery
unlike say a sealed lead acid battery
where you've only got half the actual rated capacity.
This has got a 70 amp hours of use in it
so you get most of that use out of it
when you're charging or when you're powering devices.
Now I'll do a bit of a tour on the outside for you
and we'll start on the sides, nothing on each side here.
There is just a blank side just a channel there
and obviously the handle at the top.
We'll start at the back 'cause the front's got
a bit more detail that we'll go into shortly.
And this is the charging port here.
Now that's compatible with multiple cables
that you get with the unit.
You can charge it from 240 volt with this guy here.
So this little black and red plug goes into here.
And then obviously you plugged this one
into your 240 volt power.
And that goes into the end of the transformer.
You can also charge directly from dc.
So this will go to your cigarette port
in your vehicle or wherever you can charge it from.
And then you've got the same little black and red mini
is it Anderson plug? That will go into there.
And you've also got an adapter here to charge via solar.
So this will go into here and then your Anderson plug
from your solar panel can go into here.
Now, this is where it's really cool.
It has a built-in M.P.P.T controller
or maximum power point tracking controller
which means you don't need to use
the included solar controller
that came with your solar panel.
You don't need to use a dc to dc charging.
You can plug your solar panel
directly into this cable here
and then directly into the unit.
And the built in M.P.P.T controller
will control the charge going into the battery.
Now that's limited to 12 amps.
It won't charge more than 12 amps
but that does mean you getting the maximum
out of say, a 200 Watt solar panel.
You're potentially getting the maximum charge you can
or the maximum amperage out of that 200 Watt solar panel.
If you're charging via these units here
the charge is limited a little bit to
I believe it's five amps from 240 volt
and nine amps from the 12 volt charger.
And it will charge within say about nine to 14 hours
depending on what sort of charge device you're using it.
You can charge and power something at the same time.
So you can have your solar plugged into one side
your fridge running out the other, you'll be topping it up
at the same time you're using the power.
Continuing on our tour on the outside here
we've got two 12 volt, 10 amp outputs here.
So just your standard cigarette port, this one here.
So this one is a standard cigarette port.
This one has got the two-pin plugin
that you find in a lot of traditionally angled fridges
but a lot of other fridges are coming out now
that you can screw in and secure that in.
So that's a more secure plug, that one their.
Standard cigarette port you've got a light on the side here.
We'll go into a little bit more
on how that powers up shortly 'cause you need
to first press some buttons on the front here
but before we do that. So in this side
you've got U.S.B.C output here
and then you've got four standard Type-A U.S.B ports here.
This is 2.4 amps, five volts, 2.4 amps shared amongst those
but you can get 2.4 amps maximum out of it.
And then over this side
the power button and some little lights here.
Now, when we turn it on, we hold down on this button here
and we will see the screen will power up on the front
and this little light in the middle here we'll go on to show
that the power is on. Above that there's an input light.
So when we're actually charging it that will light up
and on the bottom is what's an alarm light
that will flash if there's been an internal error
but it also shows or lights up
when an actual X output port is turned on.
And what I mean by that is if we come back across
to the U.S.B ports here we need to turn these on.
So if a hold down on this button here
we'll press this button here.
That lights up as does this light here
to show that these ports here are now active.
We can get power out of those ports there.
If I press that again, turn it off and flick it around
to the other side here, to turn these ones here on
I press the button underneath here. That's lit up.
If I turn that one on both of those are now on.
There's now power to these ports here.
So we can specifically turn on from the device
which ports we want power to.
Now while it's turned on the main panel
to the front here this little light here also operates.
So we press the button underneath there.
That light goes on, gives us a little bit of light
to operate while we're setting things up in the dark
if need be. Turn that off again.
If we flick it back around the other way
we can still see it's on, hold down on this button here
is gonna turn everything off.
That power light goes out.
Now none of these buttons are gonna work.
We can't get any power to that.
We can't turn the light on at the back here
and we can't turn those there's no accidental switching on
of the unit while it's saying storage or something
we've got that turned off.
And the only exception I've found today
and I haven't tested it for long enough to work out
whether it actually works or not is that this input light.
Now I've just got some power here
and I'm gonna plug the 240 volt charge in
to show you how this works.
I've got power to the 240 volt charger here.
And what I'm gonna do is plug this into the input port here
and we'll have a look at the front.
Now I don't have this turned on at the moment
but the input light does show up here.
Now I haven't tested it for long enough to find out
whether that actually means the batteries charging.
But if you don't actually turn unit on
you don't have the display features on the front here.
So if I now hold down on this button here,
the screen on the front will turn on, shows Companion
and then it's now showing the batteries charging.
We can see the battery indicator here.
It's a 68% and the top one is showing
there's 77 Watts going into the unit.
If you wanna work that in an amps, just divide 77 by 12.
That's how many amps are going in.
So that's showing that there's power
going into the unit there.
Now this shows both power going in and power going out.
So the light bulbs power going out, sun is power going in.
And I'm going to grab a 12 volt appliance
and plug it in the back here.
So I've got a little fan here.
It's not gonna draw much current or much power.
I've gotta turn this port on.
So the green light at the bottom there.
I'll plug this in and we'll also know
if I flick it back around the front here
this alarm button is on which indicates
that there is power going to one of the outputs.
So we're all set up ready to go.
We still got the power going in.
And when I turn this on,
theoretically we should see power coming out.
Now there is a bit of a difference between power.
Our Watts are showing with the power coming out
when it's plugged in
and when it's not plugged into the charge.
So if I turn this onto the first setting now
for the fan that's just low.
We're not getting anything registered coming out.
I guess the units trying to balance input and output
but it's not really showing anything.
So I need to wind this right up to the highest setting
for it to then show required about eight Watts.
So it's showing it's drawing about eight Watts,
76 or 75 Watts going in.
Now, what I found is there is a difference in these writings
between when the charge is plugged in and when it's not.
So what I'm gonna do now is turn the fan off.
I'm gonna flick it around this way
and unplug the charge port.
So we're now no longer charging the device.
If we flip it back around this way have a look at the front
we can see , click the light back on
the input light on this side here has gone off
to show there's no charge going in.
There's no Wattage shown on the charge side
of the display here but we still got power to that
12 volt port on the back and that's shown
by this alarm light here.
So now if I turn the fan onto the first setting
we should see about three Watts being drawn out.
There we go. That's come up at three Watts
this on the lowest setting.
Let's turn it up to the second setting.
It should go up to about six Watts, I think, yep.
And then the third setting goes right up
to about 14 Watts or 16 Watts
there we go that's on full setting.
So that's showing nothing going into the battery
but 14 Watts being drawn out.
Obviously, if we then go and plug more U.S.B ports in here
or if we go on the plug something else in this unit
this port on the back here
we're gonna be drawing more power out of the unit.
So you can monitor how much you're charging in
and how much you're pulling out.
If you've got the same amount going in that's going out
the battery is neither charging nor discharging
it's just staying flat but ideally you wanna have
more going in the coming out
so that your battery is charged at the end of the day
and you get through the night to charge your fridge
if that's what you're running off this guy.
That, is all the features of
the Companion Lithium Rover 70 Amp Hour Power Station.
This is a really neat looking little unit.
Ultimately portable. Easy to cut in and out of the campsite.
You can plug it into your vehicle
and charge it while you're driving.
Take it out of the car put it in you campsite
to run your fridge, your fancy lights whatever you like
and put it back in the car afterwards
A little bit more portable than having
a dual battery system set up in your car.
You can check these out online at snowys.com.au
where you'll find them at our lowest prices every day.
If you've got any questions let us know
down in the comments below. Subscribe to our channel
for all the latest information or check out some other
cool companion products like these ones down here.
(keyboard clutter) (upbeat music)