BEAUDENS 384Wh/120000mAh Portable Power Station, LiFePO4 Backup Battery, 300W Pure Sine Wave AC Outlet, Solar Generator for CPAP Camping Emergency Outdoor (380Wh-2)

<< INTRO >>I've been looking for a decently priced, well specified, Lithium Iron Phosphate battery power station for a while now. I ended up settling on this 380Watt-hour power station from Beaudens for the following reasons:* LiFePo4 is a newer battery technology that offers multiple advantages over other Lithium based battery types, including - greater lifespan (more charge cycles), less weight, greater safety (than Lithium Polymer and others). The most important of those, for me, would be the charge cycles, and also the ability to be able to deep-cycle the batteries with far less of an issue than Lithium Ion. Google "battery university lithium types" for more in-depth info.* It has three mains outlets on the rear, which have an physical on/off switch.* Has three "regular" USB-A ports and one newer, USB-C port (only outputs power, will not accept incoming power to charge the power station).* Can be charged from a solar panel, something I hope to test later.* Price is about $1 per watt hour - I didn't want to go above this.* Outputs a proper sinusoidal waveform for the AC outlets on the back (have not been able to test this yet. I WILL update this review if I find this not to be true). The choice of battery type alone narrowed my choices by 95%, but with good connectivity options this unit pretty much chose itself.After placing my order, I did have to wait a little over a week for it to arrive. It was shipped from the USA, but Beaudens are Shanghai based, and this was at the height of the covid virus in China, which probably affected order processing times.<< FIRST IMPRESSIONS >>Once it finally arrived, I noted the following upon unboxing: - nice thick, well made shipping box which protected the inner, retail box well during shipping. - carrying handle on top of the power station is well made, feels secure, and doesn't rattle. - aluminum side panels are well cut, and panel fit is excellent. This really adds to the feeling of quality this unit exudes. - front display is bright, and easy to read. Different icons illuminate or disappear depending on which ports are powered up - the LED on the front of the unit has a couple of different brightness levels, but also has an SOS sequence which isn't just an on/off strobe like some cheap flashlights I've purchased.After pulling everything out of the box, I left it for about six hours to come to room temperature before plugging it in to charge. First charge ran to 100%, but after sitting overnight showed 92%, so I topped it up again to 100% before testing the capacity.As a side note, the initial unit had a weird problem where the power button died after a couple of days of use, and I was unable to charge the unit. Beaudens customer support was very responsive, and after confirming that I knew how to operate the unit, they shipped a replacement which arrived in about three days. Some people would see this a major flaw, but every product has failures off the production line, and in my opinion it's more important to see how the manufacturer (or reseller) responds to such situations, and I am very pleased with the way Beaudens handled the issue.<< TESTING >>I own a cheap power meter with backup battery which I plugged into the back of the power station on a throughput basis. This unit is reset to zero at the top of each charge, and allows me to measure the approximate cumulative power draw. I tested it with three or four devices for which I knew the rated power draw, and was able to confirm that the power meter is accurate to within a couple of percentage points (good enough for these tests).One note about testing (for those who may not know) is that this is a battery powered device. That means that it stores DC current, so to charge it from the mains, there is an inverter which changes AC to DC, filling the battery bank with charge. Plug in a cellphone to charge it, and the battery will do a (usually very efficient) conversion from one DC voltage (probably 12V in this case) down to 5V for the USB ports. However, plug in an AC device, and you have to go through another inverter to go from the DC battery back to the AC voltage which the mains device needs. There is an efficiency "conversion multiplier" which needs to be taken into account for this process, and for this unit, the inverter is about 85% efficient, which means that if you're testing AC devices, you will need to multiply the 380Watt-hour rated capacity by 0.85 to end up with about 320Watt hours of AC power. You also need to consider that any device you plug into also has a power factor, which is a measure of its electrical efficiency... not something I understand very well, but research it if you're finding that your unit doesn't appear to be living up to the rated capacity (there are plenty of good videos you-know-where that explain this!The first device I tested was a crappy little pest repeller, and I ran the unit for a couple of days, getting about 140 Watt hours from it before it shut off. This was much less than I expected (this was before I researched the stuff above). I charged the unit for a second time and plugged in a PC with a good quality (80Gold) power supply, and this averaged about a 140Watt power draw, which ran for a little over two hours. The power meter read 310 this time, which was close enough to the above calculation for me to be happy that it was working properly. With a few more charge-discharge cycles this value will probably rise a little further (LiFePo4 batteries improve with a few charge cycles). *** Update - I've since found that there is a parasitic drain factor for the AC outlets which needs to be factored in. If you leave the device with the AC outlets powered up, but nothing plugged in, the battery level will gradually run down. I've not had time to test the rate of decay, but be aware that it's not going to run a low power device for very long (as evidenced by my early testing with the bug repeller). ***I've not used this unit enough to get a good long term impression, but initial impressions are very good. I'm happy with the product itself, the level of support I have received, and look forward to being able to put it to better use later this year. *** Update - no problems after 3 months with deep-cycling the unit to 0% each time. I have probably put a dozen cycles on it with no noticeable change ***<< FINAL THOUGHTS >>I was provided a discount on this unit in return for writing an in-depth review. The company did not dictate what I should write, and I have attempted to be as objective as possible. I will update this review as more information comes to light in the long term. I will also look to test this with a solar panel to see how that side ties in. If you have any questions, post a comment! If you found this review helpful, please click the button! Thanks for reading :)

At least at the time of writing, this is the largest portable "solar generator" (battery) that Beaudens sells. At 384 watt hours, it kind of sits in between the very small, entry level battery packs that are really not much more than a big USB power bank and the much larger and heavier units that will (at least briefly) run almost anything a small gas generator will run but cost well over a thousand dollars. It also uses a slightly different (and safer) lithium battery chemistry, which should mean it lasts about 2,000 cycles instead of a traditional Li-Ion's 500, and is usable in a slightly broader set of temperatures as well.The unit arrived nicely packaged and generally seems quite well built. Although this company is unfamiliar to most Americans it is a fairly large company in China and that kind of shows in the attention to detail in the design and packaging of the unit. The main body is aluminum with a heavy, sturdy plastic at both ends and a good quality handle. It isn't light but it is nicely compact and pretty portable. It has little feet to protect the metal on the bottom, the air vents are on the sides so they won't get blocked with dirt and grass etc. It is all very nicely done, and nothing feels cheap. You get a very basic display showing state of charge and that the unit is on, but no readout showing either rate of charge or discharge. At least there is an indicator showing it is receiving a charge.You get a USB-C PD port meaning that you can directly run most modern laptops right from the unit with no need to run the inverter. It also has traditional USB ports and a 300 watt pure sine inverter, meaning it can run smaller AC loads like a fan, computer monitor and such, but nothing power hungry like an electric kettle or hair dryer. And pure sine is important, modified sine inverters often won't run motors or electronics properly (it may often work but you are beating on the equipment). This makes the same power that comes out of your wall socket, so it is perfectly safe to plug anything with modest power requirements into it.The 12v cigarette port is unregulated, meaning the voltage drops as the battery is depleted, so this is maybe not the best unit for 12v appliances like a fridge that require a constant, minimum DC voltage. That said, I ran my small compressor fridge using the AC inverter and it lasted about 18 hours in undemanding conditions (inside at normal room temp). Doing that means you are taking DC voltage, converting it to AC, then converting it back to DC, with some losses each time. So not exactly ideal, but it will work in a pinch for a little while anyway.You can charge it with solar panels and it comes with the connectors to connect directly to a solar panel, and there is an MPPT charge controller built right into it. So most any small solar panel can plug directly into it, you don't need anything else. But this is a small unit and it can't handle the power coming from a larger solar panel, it is capped at 30v and 5A. 30v maximum is too low for the open circuit voltage of a 24v system, and using an 12v solar panel, about the biggest one you want to connect to this unit is 90watts before you could theoretically exceed the amp limit in full sun. I have a 60 watt panel and that will not fully charge this unit from zero in a day, but a 90 watt panel in full sun all day should theoretically manage it. So if you are thinking about buying a panel to use with this, avoid a 100w panel and get something just a little smaller.The charger it comes with charges the unit from wall power, but slowly, as it is only a 3amp, 15 volt charger. Takes about 9 hours to fill this big battery from zero. It also comes with a 12v charger plug for the car, but I've not tried that yet. I assume it will charge from your car just about as quickly as it charges from the wall socket.Anything I don't like about it? Sure. I don't like that the ends of the unit, with the display and so on are very exposed with little protection. The fragile stuff is recessed slightly, but it is not protected nearly enough. This is a pretty sturdy unit, but it is very much not something you want to toss into the back of your truck, it is not designed to take that kind of abuse. Similarly, for something that is supposed to be used in the outdoors there is absolutely no water proofing, no gaskets or covers over the outlets etc. So this is much more of a power outage, emergency, small off-grid cabin or van-life type of thing, where it is largely going to live in one spot out of the elements and isn't going to get the crap beaten out of it. What they really need to do is make removable rubber covers on both ends to better protect it in transit, and that would make it a lot more outdoor friendly at almost no additional cost.I also don't like the fact that there is a USB-C-PD port, but you cannot charge the battery through that port, even though USB-C supports that. And yes I tested it, it doesn't work. Not sure why that wasn't included here.Overall, I like it a lot. This much power in such a small form factor is pretty incredible. It can be the heart of a modest but also pretty capable solar system, able to run a few lights, charge your phones, run your laptop and the like, and with a good charge controller already built into it, you literally just need to go buy a single, fairly cheap solar panel and you are all set. And for a little off-grid cabin or van, it is probably all you'd need.