Portable Power Stations

Park@82 said:
One way to check the amount of watt hours is to use a kill a watt wattage meter to see how much you get out of it form 100% to 0%.

I'm currently testing with my Delta Max and so far it isn't looking good (if the persentage indicator is close to accurate). But I still need to get it to 0 before I can confirm.
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might be worth grabbing one of those to get proper numbers, will see how it goes in this 4 hr loadshedding slot coming up
 
Park@82 said:
I've seen a Delta pro for 65k- 70k before. Even at 65k I can't justify it to myself.
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A PPS is a stop gap solution, not the end all for everything. So yeah, realistically 20-30K is the absolute max I would say - above that is a different territory with different solutions available.

Personally I wouldn't spend more than R15000 on a PPS - 1000Wh for a stop gap solution.
 
Park@82 said:
I've seen a Delta pro for 65k- 70k before. Even at 65k I can't justify it to myself.
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They're entry level price is now about 75k, at least for the places that have stock.

As someone who can't just do an inverter/battery combo, I would happily throw money at a high volume solution that's going to last. Only reason I haven't quite gone for it just yet is because if the unit fails then you have all your eggs in one basket.
 
joshuatree said:
A PPS is a stop gap solution, not the end all for everything. So yeah, realistically 20-30K is the absolute max I would say - above that is a different territory with different solutions available.
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The moment you go over 50k you're heading into inverter and battery territory, but if you don't own the property... well, no inverter and battery for you then.

And how "stop-gap" do you think load shedding is? My money is on stage 6 through most of the rest of this year. If we're lucky we might see a drop to stage 4 once they get Kusile back online. Next year I expect load shedding to be all over the place because of political bullshit.

joshuatree said:
Personally I wouldn't spend more than R15000 on a PPS - 1000Wh for a stop gap solution.
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Good luck finding a decent 1kw solution at that price now. Most units that were about 15k for 1kw are now 1.5k-3k more due to demand (there are still a few places that have old stock of 1kw units at the old price if you shop around). Also, again, plenty of 1kw solutions in the 16.5k-18k price range, but they take half a day to recharge. If you want 1kw and a reasonable charge time, you're looking at 22k-ish.
 
zolly said:
The moment you go over 50k you're heading into inverter and battery territory, but if you don't own the property... well, no inverter and battery for you then.

And how "stop-gap" do you think load shedding is? My money is on stage 6 through most of the rest of this year. If we're lucky we might see a drop to stage 4 once they get Kusile back online. Next year I expect load shedding to be all over the place because of political bullshit.



Good luck finding a decent 1kw solution at that price now. Most units that were about 15k for 1kw are now 1.5k-3k more due to demand (there are still a few places that have old stock of 1kw units at the old price if you shop around). Also, again, plenty of 1kw solutions in the 16.5k-18k price range, but they take half a day to recharge. If you want 1kw and a reasonable charge time, you're looking at 22k-ish.
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Inverter trollies with LifePo4 batteries, less weight than the usual suspects with lead acids they came with initially.

EG: https://powerforum-store.co.za/products/halo-solar-trolley-1kw

Upgradeable.

Stop Gap meaning charging a laptop/watching TV for 2 hours, not everyday 3 times a day religiously, only occasionally. Like for occasional outages/camping, not stage 6 or whatever stage every single day. But with the new cycles with LifePo4 available one can obviously go through all the schlep.
 
joshuatree said:
Inverter trollies with LifePo4 batteries, less weight than the usual suspects with lead acids they came with initially.

EG: https://powerforum-store.co.za/products/halo-solar-trolley-1kw

Upgradeable.

Stop Gap meaning charging a laptop/watching TV for 2 hours, not everyday 3 times a day religiously, only occasionally. Like for occasional outages/camping, not stage 6 or whatever stage every single day. But with the new cycles with LifePo4 available one can obviously go through all the schlep.
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Here the Halo trolley optionsView attachment Halo Solar Trolley - 1kW Spec Sheet (1).pdf
 
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joshuatree said:
Inverter trollies with LifePo4 batteries, less weight than the usual suspects with lead acids they came with initially.

EG: https://powerforum-store.co.za/products/halo-solar-trolley-1kw

Upgradeable.
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So again I ask, what's the catch? This looks like the generic Kool Energy/Mecer/insert other brand here where they are basically paying a Chinese OEM manufacturer to produce these units. And like with all those other units, 10-12.5 hour recharge time. Also don't see where it says it's upgradeable? I think you can buy units with bigger batteries, but you can't just buy an extra battery to add to it? Also not great support in terms of basic issues with these units in SA. Pretty much if it has a problem, you have to send it back. Ecoflow has a solid support team on Facebook and Bluetti is expanding here according to their team on Facebook.

joshuatree said:
Stop Gap meaning charging a laptop/watching TV for 2 hours, not everyday 3 times a day religiously, only occasionally. Like for occasional outages/camping, not stage 6 or whatever stage every single day. But with the new cycles with LifePo4 available one can obviously go through all the schlep.
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Do you guys not have jobs? I'm a remote worker so I am topping up my Bluetti at least twice a day to make sure I have max capacity in case I need it (depending on the load shedding schedule) with my Delta sitting as an emergency backup (it's NMC so saving it's lifespan for dire emergencies and the odd cup of tea since it recharges so fast). If you're only getting something for entertainment purposes, just buy a tablet and save yourself a whole lot of money.
 
Park@82 said:
This guy sells on Carbonite : https://ekdonline.com/product/ecoflow-delta-pro-portable-power-station-3600w-output-3600wh-battery/

(under 70k)

Also saw one on loot for just over 70k.
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No offence to whoever runs EDKonline, but they don't appear on the first page of Google for Ecoflow Delta Pro, so no-one is going to find them even if they are offering a great price. They need to up their SEO if they're hoping to grow.

A couple of others offering it for sub-70k on Google's first couple of pages, but considering the amount of scam sites, I'd probably not trust them with my cash.

Loot. Fair enough.

Everyone else that is vaguely recognisable? R72k-R74k. Just a few clicks and all of them "Limited Stock". I expect the supplier is selling them out pretty fast thanks to stage 6.
 
zolly said:
The moment you go over 50k you're heading into inverter and battery territory, but if you don't own the property... well, no inverter and battery for you then.

And how "stop-gap" do you think load shedding is? My money is on stage 6 through most of the rest of this year. If we're lucky we might see a drop to stage 4 once they get Kusile back online. Next year I expect load shedding to be all over the place because of political bullshit.



Good luck finding a decent 1kw solution at that price now. Most units that were about 15k for 1kw are now 1.5k-3k more due to demand (there are still a few places that have old stock of 1kw units at the old price if you shop around). Also, again, plenty of 1kw solutions in the 16.5k-18k price range, but they take half a day to recharge. If you want 1kw and a reasonable charge time, you're looking at 22k-ish.
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Yea not owning the property does throw you in this category

So suicide lead and main breaker off is only way you use existing lights

Otherwise lead all over the house
I don't know which is worse
 
zolly said:
So again I ask, what's the catch? This looks like the generic Kool Energy/Mecer/insert other brand here where they are basically paying a Chinese OEM manufacturer to produce these units. And like with all those other units, 10-12.5 hour recharge time. Also don't see where it says it's upgradeable? I think you can buy units with bigger batteries, but you can't just buy an extra battery to add to it? Also not great support in terms of basic issues with these units in SA. Pretty much if it has a problem, you have to send it back. Ecoflow has a solid support team on Facebook and Bluetti is expanding here according to their team on Facebook.



Do you guys not have jobs? I'm a remote worker so I am topping up my Bluetti at least twice a day to make sure I have max capacity in case I need it (depending on the load shedding schedule) with my Delta sitting as an emergency backup (it's NMC so saving it's lifespan for dire emergencies and the odd cup of tea since it recharges so fast). If you're only getting something for entertainment purposes, just buy a tablet and save yourself a whole lot of money.
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Yea the bigger units solves the charging time

Though zero upgrade is a problem

Some work from home so productivity suffers or the wallet
 
zolly said:
Offers an additional 1.4kw of power and is only about R5k more than the Ecoflow Delta Pro.
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If you're gonna spend R80K on a portable device like that, you may as well get proper batteries, inverter and solar panels. Go all the way and spend that R250K+. That R80K device won't give you anything of value. Maybe you can run a hairdryer for a few minutes or boil a kettle of water or make a Nespresso. But you can also get a portable gas stove to do these things for much less. If you need air con, or oven, cooker, etc you'll need a proper setup. Otherwise at best a 1KW device with approx 1000Kwh reserve is optimal.
 
zolly said:
Do you guys not have jobs? I'm a remote worker so I am topping up my Bluetti at least twice a day to make sure I have max capacity in case I need it (depending on the load shedding schedule) with my Delta sitting as an emergency backup (it's NMC so saving it's lifespan for dire emergencies and the odd cup of tea since it recharges so fast). If you're only getting something for entertainment purposes, just buy a tablet and save yourself a whole lot of money.
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You do know that you can boil water and put it in a thermos flask. No need to strain that expensive Delta. Or get a small gas stove, even a portable one.
 
Mirai said:
You do know that you can boil water and put it in a thermos flask. No need to strain that expensive Delta. Or get a small gas stove, even a portable one.
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We use a flask at home and we boil water in the kettle before the power goes out. It's still nice to be able to run our microwave or airfryer for a couple of minutes when we want to...
 
do any of you have a low wattage kettle or element that you use on these units to heat water for coffee?
 
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