best smaller powerpack??

marymary

marymary

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Looking at getting a smaller powerpack to run a small domestic sewing machine, max wattage of it is 100w, looking at jackery, anker, ecoflow?? Anker coming out cheap at £159……any others you’d recommend? I havent got an inverter in van just 80 leisure battery and 120 solar panel victron thingy and obviously not well up on electrical things….I’m self sufficient otherwise and happy with it all its just to run a small sewing machine for a bit if needed so wouldnt warrent a bigger fancier dearer jobbie iykwim…….
 
A suitable extra Battery and then an Inverter is the 'sensible' cost-effective choice, but then you have to factor in the cost of installation of these as well.
Many people are simply not comfortable in doing this work themselves and the likely labour cost of paying someone to do this if not a DIY could well pay for a small power station anyway.

marymary said:
Looking at getting a smaller powerpack to run a small domestic sewing machine, max wattage of it is 100w, looking at jackery, anker, ecoflow?? Anker coming out cheap at £159……any others you’d recommend? I havent got an inverter in van just 80 leisure battery and 120 solar panel victron thingy and obviously not well up on electrical things….I’m self sufficient otherwise and happy with it all its just to run a small sewing machine for a bit if needed so wouldnt warrent a bigger fancier dearer jobbie iykwim…….
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Question is how long do you expect to be using the sewing machine a day? and in each hour, how much is spent actually actively running it?

What I would be inclined to do is first buy one of these ... https://amzn.to/3BSvTpS
If you plug that into socket and then plug the sewing machine into the meter, you will see at the end of the day how much power (in Watt-Hours) you have used. That initial £10 investment should give you a good idea of how large a power station you would need to get and hopefully avoid buying one that is either too small and you have to buy again, and avoid spending too much on one that is much too large.

There are so many Power Stations around nowadays it is hard to suggest one specific one over another. I would look for a few key words like "LiFePO4 Lithium" rather than just "Lithium-Ion" for battery tech for example. If you can wait until the end of November you might find some Black Friday deals. Power Stations have seemed to be favourites for this.
 
My badness, I didn't consider having to have it fitted Mary.
 
If I remember right you are full time in your van aren’t you? If so then the big advantage of a power pack is you aren’t affecting your normal life as you say it works for you now.

You will have to charge the power pack somehow though
 
Bit of a general comment about Power Packs ....

Weight and Size - the bigger they are, the heavier and bulkier they are. An obvious thing to say there but the pictures you see on an internet listing don't really tell you the full picture. It is important to check the measurements of one that interests and see if you can 1) move it around and 2) put it somewhere that is not in the way.
I have a Power Station that has an approx 80Ah battery, so not that much really, but it is fairly heavy (I wouldn't want to carry it down the beach liek some of these listings suggest people do :) ) and while I have a great place to store it in a locker when not in use, it would be in the way inside the van.
I have another much smaller Power Station that is very portable and can tuck out the way, but I don't know how long you could run someling like a sewing machine for? (I can't actually check as the inverter in it is faulty from new, but I still keep it as it will recharge multiple drone batteries).

Noise - This could be something to check if you want to run the power station but want quiet as well? My VTOMAN Station has a fan that runs most of the time when the AC is enabled, even if the load is minimal. Power Station is great but that aspect annoys.


I was not a big fan of Power Stations when they first came out - especially when they were "solar generators" - but they are improved quite a bit ans come down to price pretty significantly and now can be a fairly cost-effective option for a specific need. (I still think a regular inverter install and bigger battery is often the best option if someone wants to just be able to use random mains stuff inside their van).
 
nabsim said:
If I remember right you are full time in your van aren’t you? If so then the big advantage of a power pack is you aren’t affecting your normal life as you say it works for you now.

You will have to charge the power pack somehow though
Click to expand...
no not full time nabsim…..I only have a vw caddy maxi…..
 
wildebus said:
Bit of a general comment about Power Packs ....

Weight and Size - the bigger they are, the heavier and bulkier they are. An obvious thing to say there but the pictures you see on an internet listing don't really tell you the full picture. It is important to check the measurements of one that interests and see if you can 1) move it around and 2) put it somewhere that is not in the way.
I have a Power Station that has an approx 80Ah battery, so not that much really, but it is fairly heavy (I wouldn't want to carry it down the beach liek some of these listings suggest people do :) ) and while I have a great place to store it in a locker when not in use, it would be in the way inside the van.
I have another much smaller Power Station that is very portable and can tuck out the way, but I don't know how long you could run someling like a sewing machine for? (I can't actually check as the inverter in it is faulty from new, but I still keep it as it will recharge multiple drone batteries).

Noise - This could be something to check if you want to run the power station but want quiet as well? My VTOMAN Station has a fan that runs most of the time when the AC is enabled, even if the load is minimal. Power Station is great but that aspect annoys.


I was not a big fan of Power Stations when they first came out - especially when they were "solar generators" - but they are improved quite a bit ans come down to price pretty significantly and now can be a fairly cost-effective option for a specific need. (I still think a regular inverter install and bigger battery is often the best option if someone wants to just be able to use random mains stuff inside their van).
Click to expand...
thanks Wildebus…yes would need to get it all done for me, only have a Caddy and battery is behind passenger seat sort of under floor, tucked in, hence smaller one, the next size wouldn’t fit in. Apparently a basic sewing machine only sips off the battery. I have a 15L Opicool fridge that slides under the bed and diesel heating….
 
Ecoflow powerpacks seem to get the best reviews. I'm considering getting one when I decide which one best suits me and if there's some good Black Friday deals
 
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All new to me so excuse the question.

I'd like to take a small microwave with us in the van, but as wild campers we never have EHU, so have always removed them.

What would be a good way to allow us to use one, at minimum cost would we need to get?
 
barneynblu said:
Ecoflow powerpacks seem to get the best reviews. I'm considering getting one when I decide which one best suits me and if there's some good Black Friday deals
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Not from me the service is none existent and that is being kind
 
Pudsey Bear said:
All new to me so excuse the question.

I'd like to take a small microwave with us in the van, but as wild campers we never have EHU, so have always removed them.

What would be a good way to allow us to use one, at minimum cost would we need to get?
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There are two aspects to take account of ...
1) Size of Battery
2) Size of Inverter

The Inverter bit is simple ... Needs to be big enough to power the Microwave. A 1000W Inverter would be too small unless you got a 600W Microwave (these are fairly uncommon). next step up from a 1000W Inverter for Power Stations would be a 1500W Inverter. (and we are talking continuous power, not peak. Watch out for that when checking specs).

Battery size is self-explanitory. The more you want to use something off-grid, the bigger the battery needs to be. My '800W' Microwave draws 1050W in use. If I was to run that for 6 minutes, I would draw 100Wh. So say you got a Power Station with an 80Ah (1024Wh) Battery, you could get 10 x 6 minute blasts of a microwave. Enough? more than enough? too little?
 
I was thinking more along the lines of the Topic David and getting one of those assuming it would perhaps be easier and cheaper for me, I need to consider charging too with no EHU.

A microwave would be pretty much the only use it would need and not for very long so more towards power than capacity if that the right way to put it.
 
So this is a question either you know or don’t I don’t ..

3000W (6000W Peak) 3000 watt 12V AC 240V PURE SINE WAVE POWER INVERTER

Is this a 3000 watt or 6000 watt inverter.
 
Sonar said:
So this is a question either you know or don’t I don’t ..

3000W (6000W Peak) 3000 watt 12V AC 240V PURE SINE WAVE POWER INVERTER

Is this a 3000 watt or 6000 watt inverter.
Click to expand...
3000W BUT…

A lot of labelling on inverters was done by Hans Christian Andersen unless you are looking at decent brands. Also, make sure you are reading watts and not watt hours when comparing 👍
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I was thinking more along the lines of the Topic David and getting one of those assuming it would perhaps be easier and cheaper for me, I need to consider charging too with no EHU.
Click to expand...

Pudsey Bear said:
A microwave would be pretty much the only use it would need and not for very long so more towards power than capacity if that the right way to put it.
Click to expand...
More Power than Capacity is a reasonable way to put it :)
In fact, that is precisely the approach I took for the Power Station I bought. I bought a VTOMAN Jump1500X which has a fairly small 826Wh Battery (65Ah LiFePO4 Battery). I wanted the ability to run pretty high-power tools but didn't need to run them for very long. You could replace "high-power tools" with "Microwave" for exactly the same purpose and reason.
Wanted a power station for portability - and I used it last week when doing some work on a camper and wanted to use a heat-gun for some heat-shrink tubing on new connections. Needed the high power, but for a total of only maybe 10-15 minutes?
 
Yes that would do the job easily, I'll need to consult account for that though David :D :D
 
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