hey youtube this is cd prepping in this video we're going to take a look at the new ecoflow
delta max this is a very ambitious unit that packs a massive punch in a small package
but does it deliver and even more importantly is it a good fit for the emergency preparedness
community i'll try to answer this question and more here's what we'll cover in the video
what makes it unique compared to the other models on the market technical specifications of this
unit testing the output capabilities can it handle a heavy load charging it with solar to simulate
what you can expect if the grid were down use cases in an actual disaster situation will it
power your needs after a disaster advantages of solar generators over gas generators should you
build your own portable battery solar setup and final thoughts if at any time in this video you
want to skip around i'll put time stamps in the description and i'll add chapters to the progress
bar below also i'll put a link in the description section below if you'd like to check this unit out
as they are having a cell on these units at the time of the release of this video so let's jump in
what makes this unit unique i've reviewed a lot of various solar generators over the years and
they each have their own unique features but this model has very notable features worth discussing
up front first it's expandable you can add two two thousand watt hour batteries to this unit
bringing it to a total of six thousand forty eight watt hours these extra batteries connect to the
side and charge and discharge in unison with the delta max next the delta max has what's called
extreme fast charge which allows for rapid charging from 0 to 80 percent in just 65 minutes
if you prefer it not to charge so quickly when plugging it in a wall socket if you're concerned
you may flip your breaker you can flip the switch on the back to reduce the charging speed
this brings me to my next point the xboos feature with this technology you can control the discharge
rate while it's ready for 2 400 watts continuous discharge if you want to increase systems you can
this allows you to power devices that require 3 400 watt max in total while the rated output power
remains 2400 watts just be careful not to use sensitive electrical devices if exceeding the 2400
watt limit it also contains eps or emergency power supply capabilities this means you can plug in the
delta max and the delta mini into a wall socket and plug the devices you need to power into these
units it will provide power directly from the wall plug-in but if the power goes out the battery will
kick in and provide power within 30 milliseconds a ups on the other hand will typically provide
power within about eight milliseconds so this may not be an option for more sensitive devices
like a data server or a workstation for those on oxygen machines or other critical devices
that need uptime if the power were to go down they could benefit from this feature another
nice but not critical feature is the ability to connect to and control the device via an app
it does come in handy when you want to monitor adjust settings and update firmware via the app
obviously these devices charge from solar panels which provide you an infinite source of power
if there were disaster as long as the sun is shining we'll talk more about that momentarily
technical specifications this unit can output 2400 continuous watts with a pure sine wave
3 400 watts with x boost and it can handle a whopping 5000 watts of surge the battery capacity
is 2 000 watt hours if you're not sure what any of this means please see my video entitled how
much power will i need to survive as it explains running surge in capacity and layman terms i'll
post a link to it in the cards above weight comes in at 48 pounds the battery chemistry is lithium
magnesium cobalt oxide or mcm while some solar generators use lithium-ion phosphate batteries
such as the ecoflow delta pro this unit uses ncm battery chemistry which supports 800 charge
cycles to 80 capacity i'll explain this more in a moment on the back we have solar charging input
at 800 watts max via mc4 connector connected to an internal mppt charger it has a voltage range of 11
to 100 volts you can also plug in a car charger here as well ac charging speed option for fast
or slow charging this allows up to a whopping 1800 watt max at 15 amps ac charging input port
overload protection switch six ac outlets two dc 5521 ports 12 volt charging
and on the front you've got four usab ports two usb c ports a wi-fi connection and lcd display
on the side you have a ventilation fan and extra battery ports putting it through the paces so
now that we've run through the specs does this unit perform as advertised the first test i'll
show is running the delta max powering 2 400 watts continuously for this test i hooked up a
few devices that collectively pull roughly 2 400 watts while powering them the output on the front
of the delta max shows a discharge rate during testing the discharge rate fluctuated between
and 2500 with an average discharge of roughly 2 400 watts for this test we get a fair depiction
of how it will perform under load with various items as advertised on their website the delta
max ran at 2400 watts continuously until the battery was depleted one important thing to point
out here drawing power from lithium batteries at the max capacity that the manufacturer advertises
does have an impact on the battery if you were to buy a car and the engine redlines at 7000 rpm
running the engine at this rpm all the time would shorten the life of the engine regardless of the
manufacture of these solar generators it's not advised to run them at 100 percent all the time
typically it's recommended you run at about 60 to 70 percent of the possible output to
keep from shorting the life of the battery plus they give you the option for the x boost so you
can bump that number up if you need more power as shown here i added another device to really
up the output they leave it up to the individual to decide how to use their device just something
for you to consider when determining your power needs an issue we'll address in a moment
charging it with solar next after depleting the batteries i ran various tests charging both the
main unit itself and the additional batteries with solar the delta max can charge with 800 watts of
panels if you have the optional battery packs plugged in while the delta max charges they will
charge in unison meaning they all go up together in charge it's also worth noting that the eco
flow is engineered to allow you to use other solar panels if you still choose to as long as the solar
panels use an mc4 connector and its voltage is between 11 to 100 volts and under 10 amps you'll
be fine shown here i tested with three off-grid trek 200-watt solar blankets tied together in
series these can easily be rolled up and stored away making them very portable and compact
i've done a standalone video for this product if you want to check it out i'll post a link in the
cards and in the description section below having an option that is lightweight and compact that
you can grab in an emergency and easily deploy it to charge a power station is an option if
you're interested in checking these out i'll post a link in the description section to their website
as shown i also tested the delta mini it's a pint-sized powerhouse that packs a punch this
unit can accept 300 watts of solar panels and also works with other solar panels on
the market if you're looking for something with a little less output and capacity and want to save
some money is definitely worth looking at use cases for this unit after disaster having the
ability to charge a device like this to provide power for critical devices would be beneficial
as texas recently experienced during a snowstorm and knocked power offline having the ability to
run a small portable electric heater power dc electric blanket boil water or cook food
on a hot plate would come in handy when there's no electricity or gas for your stoves or heater
what would you practically use this for an emergency preparedness if there were an emergency
in the power or cut to your house here are a few commonly used devices and how long it would power
each off one charge smartphones 125 charges laptop 20 charges base camp led 178 hours cpap
machine 20 hours 7.1 cubic feet freezer 32 hours 20 foot cubic refrigerator freezer about 19 hours
ask yourself this question if the power were to be shut off from my house for three days
maybe one week maybe even a month what would i need to power this leads us to our next point
will it power your needs after disaster if you're not sure if this device will power your specific
needs again i would refer you to my previous video which i'll link to in the cards above and in the
description section below that goes into more detail to help you determine your exact power
needs after disaster and whether a device like this would work if you want a summary an easy way
to make that decision is to first define what you would want to power at the power over to go out
put the items in a spreadsheet and in one column put the running watts and in another column write
down their surge watts if you're not sure what the values are i'll provide a link to a wattage
worksheet which will help by defining this information in advance and adding it all up
it will help you understand what your power needs will be and whether this device will be a good fit
for you remember the delta max battery holds about 2 000 watt hours so that means that if all the
devices you need to power combined use 1 000 watts per hour you'll deplete the battery in two hours
unless you've got it hooked up to an external power source like solar panels it's also worth
noting that you can power devices from the delta max while charging it in an emergency situation i
would charge this during the day with solar panels and power what i need during the day
time while i charge it i would try to top this off before the end of the day to then power critical
devices overnight if you realize that the power this unit can provide is more than what you need
you can check out their delta mini it can power bigger electronics with an output of 1400 watts
like the delta max so it has many of the same features such as xboos eps and connects to an
app from monitoring if your budget is tight but you still want a solar generator it is
a powerful option that packs a considerable punch advantage of solar generators over gas generators
anytime i discuss these devices the question always comes up why not just buy a gas generator
here are a few main considerations number one opsec opsec stands for operational security if the
power were to go down for a considerable amount of time there is a good chance that by running a gas
generator you'll gain unwanted attention between the noise and fumes others will know that you have
power and that you're prepared desperation causes people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise
number two unlimited supply of power when riding carbon-based generators such as gas or propane
you're limited to how much fuel you can store once that fuel supply runs out then the power goes out
with the solar generator on the other hand as long as you've got sun you can charge these devices
in addition you can still power your devices while it's charging from the solar panels or of course
you can connect a small motor to a hamster wheel that may be able to harvest the power through this
option but i digress number three no maintenance while solar generators technically don't require
maintenance i do charge them and discharge them on a monthly basis letting a lithium battery
discharge to a lower percentage and then sit in storage will damage the battery and that's
about the extent of maintenance gas generators on the other hand are machines with moving parts and
require oil changes spark plug replacements and monitoring the gas to make sure it doesn't get old
between the two options you've got less work to consider with the solar generator
should you build your own when doing these types of videos a question inevitably comes
up why not just build one of my own why spend money on something like this when i could build
it for cheaper the short answer is yeah go for it i plan on doing a video in the future showing
how to make your own battery backup system but let's make a few things clear if you're
planning on building something this small and portable with the internal electronics capable
of something like this unless you're a full-time engineer with a team that can manufacture this
good luck i had this exact conversation on a prepper subreddit a few years ago
where an individual came across a video detailing making a solar generator comparable to the energy
kodiak he learned the hard way how difficult it was and the cost and time he incurred was
well not cheap now the counter argument could be made that he learned a lot through the process
and i would agree while i research the next year on building a battery system that can charge from
solar or wind i have no illusion that i could build something this compact and well engineered
i could probably build something as powerful but not as quite as intelligent or portable as this
having said that if you want something like this to ensure you have power after disaster
and you have neither the time nor the skills to build it yourself well that should answer
your question again i plan on releasing a video sometime early next year building a more permanent
home-based backup battery system that charges off wind or solar hopefully this video gave you enough
information regarding technical specifications actual use cases and gives you an example
of how it performs under certain loads as i ran through the different tests and i show that in
the video now let's get down to brass tacks what do i really think about this who is this for who
would i not recommend this for so let's start off with what my thoughts are on this unit i've tested
a lot of these units over the years i've had a lot sent to me recently i'm going to be doing
quite a lot of videos on these over the next two months and i'm going to do one large video
in january showing pretty much the five main manufacturers that have comparable units and
what i think about each which one stands out i will say that this unit for the size and the range
you know the 1500 2 000 watt hour range and output capability which are several models on the market
like this i would have to say it's probably at this moment one of my top go-to units that i would
recommend to subscribers it's built like a tank it's expandable i like that ecoflow is doing a lot
of innovation they've got a lot of other products they have on the market that they're rolling out
they seem to be really uh getting out there and doing innovation where some of the companies i've
been working with are getting a little behind but some i've talked to they're going to be catching
up next year all that to say it's something i'm comfortable recommending to people and quite
honestly i do keep it next to my bug out gear if there's a disaster it's probably the unit
i'm going to grab to take along with either some solar blankets or the solar panel depending on
how much space i have that the company sent me now who's it uh who is it not for i would say anybody
that's kind of getting into a permanent situation where they're going to be going through a lot of
charges and they want this unit to last for a long time maybe like an off-grid homestead or a
cabin you're going to probably want to look for something with lithium iron phosphate batteries
now ecoflow they do have the delta pro and i'll be reviewing that one next month it's much larger
and that one is lithium iron phosphate but there are other options on the market in the
comparable size that are lithium iron phosphate the downside of course with that battery is
it's way heavier the charge cycles though it's about four to five times as many charges that
you'll get before the battery starts losing its ability to hold or its capacity starts dropping
all that to say if you want something that you can move with quickly that is small it's i love
the fact that they were able to put so much in a compact unit and it's portable i would highly
recommend this unit i have no qualms recommending it to anybody again through my testing playing
around with it it performed just the way uh the specs online suggested or say they do so there
was no surprises all that to say again if you're in the market and you're kind of on the fence and
not sure should you buy should you wait till you see all the options again i'll be doing a review
next month and i don't fault you but overall it's something i'm comfortable recommending
now if you need something that can expand way past the capacity because that one can go up to
six kilowatt hours in total again there are other options on the market one in particular that can
go past that so if you have any questions any concerns any feedback feel free to post that
below or even shoot me an email and i'll try to do my best to answer those questions but again if
you're interested in you're in the market i'll post a link in the description section below
again i feel comfortable recommending it i would to my friends or family and it's something again
i keep next to my bug out gear for the purpose of having an option that we can quickly charge again
that's one of the other features i love that it can quickly charge up that it has that what was it
the extreme capability that you can charge it very fast a lot of unique features about this model so
again please let me know if you have any questions or concerns and as always stay safe out there
you