- Should you get a battery pack,
like one of these
or a dual battery
set up in your vehicle?
I actually don't think there is
a right or wrong answer,
and I actually run both of them
in mine.
So, let me give you some things to consider
before you make your decision.
Batteries like these
are marketed and sold
using amp powers
as a unit of capacity.
But battery packs are sold
using watt hours
as their unit.
And it can be a little confusing
trying to compare them both,
but thankfully with a little bit of math,
you can do the conversion.
To go from amp hours
to watt hours
all you need to do is multiply
by the voltage of the battery.
So for this one,
it's 12.8 volts
and it's 200 amp hours.
So I'd multiply 200 by 12.8,
which gives me
2,560.
Had to think about that one for a second.
To do things the other way around.
So to go from
watt hours to amp hours,
you just divide
by the voltage.
But for this,
throughout this whole video,
I'm going to talk about everything
in watt hours.
Because I think it's actually
the better unit.
Another thing to consider
when comparing two
is the depth of discharge .
And that's how far
you can run that battery down.
So with things
like these battery packs,
usually they've got a depth of discharge
around 90 to a 100%.
One example, is this Blue Eddie.
It's 2000 watt hours,
but the depth of discharge is 90%.
Which means you're actually
going to have to use 1,800
of those watt hours.
For high capacity dual battery set up
people often go with
something like this.
This is a lithium iron phosphate battery.
And these usually have around
a 98 to a 100%
depth of discharge.
Another one that you see
a lot of people using
is AGM batteries.
And those are a lot older technology
and actually only have
a 50% depth of discharge.
Before even considering
whether to go with
dual battery or battery pack.
Or even which battery pack to go with,
or which dual battery to go with.
You need to consider
how much power you need.
Generally speaking, the more power you need,
the more cost-effective it is
to go with a dual battery setup.
If you're just charging some devices,
you're running some fans in your tent,
maybe have some LEDs
powered in your tent.
Then something like this,
somewhere around 200 to 300 watt hours
will suit you just fine.
So something like
the Jackery 240,
Jackery 300,
Bluetti AC 30,
all of those will do great.
And 301 watt hours
will power a fridge for several days,
in mild conditions.
However, if you're going to be out
in hot conditions.
Lets say you're out in the desert,
then it's only just enough
to power overnight.
I'd actually recommend
going a little further
and getting closer
to 500 watt hours
for a fridge. Especially if you are going to be
in and out
and you're somewhere that's hot.
And you're putting drinks
in that fridge
to cool down,
because that really sucks the power.
500 watt hours is also enough
to run a diesel heater
or a propane heater overnight.
And you can plug the fridge
into it too,
because it's cold enough
to run the heater. Your fridge is not going be
drawing much power.
All the numbers I've given you are extremes.
So I was at the high ends
of what I have found I've needed
to run various things,
but based on those numbers,
you can figure out
how much capacity you need.
Obviously, if you're going to be
running multiple things
that I've mentioned,
you need to add them together.
And if you're going to be running things
for extended periods of time
without turning on the vehicle
or charging the battery,
then you're going to need
more capacity for that. And to give you an idea
of what I use.
In my 4runner,
I have a 100 amp power
lithium iron phosphate battery.
Which is actually
exactly half the capacity
of this one.
So when you round it,
it's about 1300 watt hours.
And in terms of running the fridge,
I can run it for about five days nonstop
in the hottest weather.
But that's parked outside my house
without me getting into the fridge,
and putting drinks into it
all the time. When I'm out on my trips,
I usually move every single night, so it's charging up
The lowest I've ever got the battery
overnight was 25%
and that was after
charging several drone batteries,
charged several camera batteries.
I was running the fridge all night.
I had my heated blankets all night. And then when I got up
in the morning,
I charged some batteries again.
Some more drone batteries.
For my next vehicle,
I will be switching to this.
This is the Lion Core
200 amp power
lithium iron phosphate battery
that was given to me
by electro vault.
And this is a about 2,500 watt hours.
So it's a lot of power.
It gives me, you know, I use a lot of power when I'm out,
mainly it's the drone batteries.
But it just gives me
a little bit more leeway.
You can get started
with a battery pack like this
from Jackery or the equivalent
from Rock Pals,
Blue Eddy, Gold Zero, EcoFlow.
You know, there's tons of these brands.
They will basically do the same thing
and they all cost a few hundred dollars
to get started.
And for that price,
you can charge your accessories.
You can run lights, run fans,
maybe even have our fridge overnight.
But in terms of cost per watt hour,
you usually get more
for your money
when you go with
a dual battery set up.
Yeah, it's going to cost you a lot more upfront,
but you do get a lot more power.
It's going to last a lot longer. What that means is
if you don't need a ton of power than something like
the Jackery 240,
or that Jackery 500,
is going to be a great option.
If however, you do need a lot of power
and you are charging things
or you're running things
for extended periods of time.
Then a dual battery setup
is usually the better choice.
In my opinion,
if your budget's less than
around $700 to $800,
then going with a battery pack
is a great option.
However, if you're spending more
than around a $1000.
I think you're better off
going with the dual battery setup.
If you're somewhere in the middle,
between like $700 and $1000,
then you could go either way
Just consider some of the other
pros and cons
and what you need.
This is where a dual battery pack really wins.
You pay your money,
you get everything you need
all in one case
ready to go.
You just plug stuff in.
The dual battery, on the other hand,
it can appear very intimidating.
You are definitely going to have to
put some work into it.
It's going to take some time
and some effort.
That being said,
it is a little simpler
than people realize.
I have this,
this is used to charge it.
This is Redarc BCDC 1225 D.
This'll charge this
from the vehicle's alternator
and from solar.
And all it really involves
is just hooking up four wires.
If you want to learn
a little bit more about this,
I'll put a link to a video
in the description
that shows some of the involved
in hooking this up.
And I'll put a link
to their instruction manual as well.
That way you can see what's involved.
If you really don't know
where to get started
on the whole dual battery set up,
you've got plenty of people
that can help.
I'll put a link to my website,
where I've got some suggestions
of batteries and chargers
you can go with.
Red arc, has a calculator
on their website.
You can actually call them too.
And they'll tell you kind of the charging side of things.
Or if you just don't want to
deal with any of that stuff,
you can talk to my friends
at Overland Power Solutions.
They actually sell a kit
that has everything you need.
From the chargers, the batteries,
all the way down to the wires,
the connectors, the shrink wrap.
And they actually,
if you're close to east Tennessee,
they do the installs
like they did on mine.
With a battery pack,
you obviously have a bunch of
outputs on the front,
but you are limited
to what you see.
The great thing about
a dual battery setup
is it's completely customizable.
And you can add as much
or as little
as you need.
So for example, with mine,
I think I have six USB outputs,
because I've got all those camera batteries
that I'm constantly charging.
I got two 12 volt outputs.
And if that's ever not enough,
I can just wire up another one.
Whereas, with something like the Jackery
with any of these,
what you see is what you get.
I can't add any more USB outputs.
And with this one, you know,
I'm only limited to two.
That's not enough.
One of the best things
about a battery pack
is its portability.
I can pick it up
and I can take it anywhere I need.
That's great.
And that's why I still carry these.
Why I still take them with me.
I actually use them
with the cameras.
I plug them in,
if I'm doing a time-lapse overnight,
I can leave the camera plugged in.
so it's not going to die.
Or if I've got friends
coming camping with me,
I will just hand them one of these. And they can use it to
charge their phones
or whatever else they need
in their tent.
If you have something like this,
which is the Bluetti AC 200 P,
you can actually use this
in the house
to run appliances.
So let's say your power goes out.
Earlier this year,
we had a bunch of ice storms.
Lately, we've had some hurricanes
in the south.
If your power goes out,
you can run stuff
like your kitchen fridge off this.
I can still do that
with the dual battery setup.
I just need a really long extension cord.
The downside to the large battery packs
for the big capacity
is that they are enormous.
Let's just look at the size
of this AEC 200 P.
This thing weighs 60 pounds.
I also had the Jackery 1000,
which had half the capacity of this.
And it was also enormous.
And I found that
putting them in my vehicle
just took up
entirely too much space.
And when you compare
these two batteries here,
this one's got a greater capacity.
So this one's more than 2,501 hours,
compared to about 2000
on this one.
Yet, this is the smaller battery.
Now, I'm not going to pretend it's small,
because it's not.
But it could still go down
the back of my drawer system
or down the side
of my drawer system.
I could put it under a seat in the back.
I could put it in front of
the seats in the back.
I've got lots of options
to tuck it away, hide it away,
and then run power
to and from it
as I need.
And that's what the setup
I have at the moment is.
It's got a 100 amp power battery
in the back
of the 4runner.
And it's tucked down the side of
my drawer system
in some unusable space.
And then have the wives come up
and I've got plugs
along the top
of the drawers.
This is the biggest weakness
with battery packs.
They can take a long time to charge.
Even from the wall
or from solar.
They can be pretty slow,
but charging from 12 volt
can take forever.
Especially with something like this.
You might as well forget about charging
from 12 volt
for the larger battery packs.
Depending on the pack you get,
the solar isn't
a whole lot better.
So the Jackery 500,
and the Jackery 1000,
both take about 8 hours of sunlight
to fully charge.
The Jackery 500 takes 65
watts of solar.
The Jackery 1000
takes 125 Watts or solar.
But when you compare it to something like this,
which is Redarc's smallest charger.
This takes 375 Watts of solar
to charge your second battery.
So there's a huge difference between the two.
And my 4runner,
I have Redarc manager 30,
and that can fully charge
my 1,301 hour battery.
From the wall, from up to 520 Watts of solar,
or from the vehicle's alternator
in just over three hours.
To put that into perspective,
on my last trip,
I fully charged that
1,300 watt hour battery,
from 25% to 100% percent
in less than three hours.
And while it was charging,
I had this plugged into it on an inverter.
And it was still
this Jackery 240
with 240 watt hours.
It was still not charged
when I got to camp five hours later.
Now that being said,
not all battery packs
do have terrible charge times.
Bluetti in particular,
have come out with several,
including this one
that charged really quickly.
From the wall
and from solar.
This one, my buddy uses extensively.
He charges out really quickly from solar
while he's out on trips.
But it still falls behind
in 12 volt charging.
when picking a battery,
take a look at the chemistry of it.
Now these days,
in my opinion,
lithium really is the way to go.
There's so many advantages over AGM.
But not all lithium batteries
are created equally.
The best is lithium iron phosphate,
which has...
this abbreviation as the best,
because it has such a good life.
You're looking at around 10 years,
thousands of cycles out of it.
And actually these ones, from electroVolt.
These have a 12 year warranty.
On the other hand,
with a few exceptions,
the battery packs usually have
lithium NMC batteries in them.
And that's great,
because it's more energy dense.
Which means you get a smaller battery that's lighter,
but it also has some downsides.
One of those being,
that the life is a lot shorter.
You're looking at around 500 cycles
versus the thousands
with lithium iron phosphate.
Of course, after 500 cycles,
they don't become useless
and you just throw them away.
But they have a significantly reduced capacity.
And that's one of the reasons
why I would never spend
thousands of dollars
on one of these.
When you look at Jackerys 1500,
or Gold Zeros 1500 X,
or any of the more expensive models.
They're really expensive
and you get something
that's going to have
a significantly reduced capacity
after just 500 uses.
So, you know, for that kind of money,
you probably want something
that's going to last
a little longer.
And if you do decide that a battery pack
is right for you.
And you want something with a high capacity.
Make sure you get one with
lithium iron phosphate battery.
Bluetti make a couple.
One of them is this one,
the AC 200 P.
And I'll put links
to both of them
in the description.
So which one should you get?
Well, obviously I've given you a lot
of things to consider.
But in my opinion,
you could simplify it down to
if you don't need
a ton of power. And you want to spend less
than about $800.
Then there's nothing wrong with
getting a battery pack like these.
However, if you need a large amount of power.
You're running things
for extended periods of time.
Or you're looking to spend
more than a thousand dollars.
Dual batteries, probably the way to go.
If you want to see my setup,
or some suggested setups.
Then go to my website@revereoverland.com
forward slash power. Or you can watch the video
that I did with
Overland Power Solutions.
And I'll put links to both of those in the description.
Also put contact information
for Overland Power Solutions.
That way, if you want to contact them,
get a kit from them,
you can easily do that.
And I'll put some links
to some suggested battery packs
in the description as well.
Thanks for watching.