Jackery Explorer 500 Portable Power Station - First Impressions

[PopUpSteve]

A little note about the Jackery and cold weather use.

I had left my Jackery in my TV since my last camping trip, 3 weeks ago. The past few days, morning temps have dropped down to the mid 30s. I brought the Jackery in last night to charge it up for this weekend's trip. Power levels were at 49%, which is where it had been after its last use. When I plugged it into AC, the light on the power brick started blinking blue. I looked in the manual and on Jackery's support website but found no reference to the blinking blue LED. Doing a Google search resulted in a comment on Reddit which suggested doing a reset (holding down the "Display" button for 10 seconds), and another which suggested leaving the AC plugged in overnight. The reset did not solve the issue so I left the AC plugged in and went to bed. Early this morning, it started charging. It was at 70% when I left for work.

My guess is that the Jackery needed to get back to room temperature before accepting a charge or more likely, the power brick needed to do the same. Maybe a little testing on my part is called for this Winter. If under simalar conditions the Jackery will charge form a DC power-port or from a solar panel, then it was the power brick which needed to warm-up.

Bottom line, bring your Jackery inside between trips when it temps start dropping.

Jackery Website: Please make sure you charge and store your power station within an ambient temperature of 0-40℃ (32-104°F), and charge the unit within an ambient temperature of -10-40℃ (14-104°F).

And I had emailed Jackery support very late last night about the issue. I recieved a response about 3:30am with a few suggestions. So great job Jackery on the really quick response. Thanks

 

[Karey]

I shied away from lithium batteries because we live in the mountains of Colorado. I'd read they are only for warmer climates. I do bring our Jackery inside all the time when not camping. We often need it inside- like last night, again, the power went out. I have a lamp that the Jackery can operate for hours. So we fired up the wood stove (our temps are in the teens for now, then back up - yay) I drank wine while knitting with the light on and us sitting by the stove.

And Y'all, Jackery is having it's annual Black Friday sale. It only has sales a couple times a year. When camping we use it to charge phones, computers, run 12 volt things, run an Instant Pot, a low wattage water pot for my French Press coffee . . .

 

[Patrick w]

Good timing for the followup posts... regardless of the lithium type (sans LTO) none like to be frozen. I was playing around with my seedling warmer (a 20w pad) and stuck it in an old omaha steak box and put it in the shade it was toasty hot in there. It took a while for the pad to heat up (it wasn't immediately warm to the touch) but by the next day it was way too hot.

Given this result, I will probably get a thermostatic plug which will keep the box between 35 and 45C. Though I did find some folks on amazon buying 12V heaters to keep their lithhium in their RV's warm.

 

[Cowboycurtis]

Just picked up the Duracell 500 powerblock from Costco for $399. I’m looking forward to trying it next year, after the pop up comes out of storage. Picked up a solar blanket too for recharging.

 

[Camping Party of 2]

We recently purchased the VTOMAN Jump 1000



It was $999, but they have a $300 discount and a $50 laser level promotion going on.

 

[Patrick w]

The charge rate looks pretty slow-? 7 hrs to full on AC power....

 

[Anthony Hitchings]

Any of those portable power stations should have a built-in BMS that shuts effectively it down when the unit is too cold, in order to protect the Li cells.