Power

I purchased the Jackery Explorer 500 a few weeks ago for a couple of reasons.

1. I occasionally use a CPAP to sleep, so while camping or travelling, it would be nice to have a power supply to power it
2. When travelling and camping, we often use an Alpicool 36L compressor travel fridge.

With those primary needs in mind, we went for the Explorer 500, given it's stated capacity. Also, since it can be used to power a CPAP, it qualifies as a medical expense with a doctor's note, so it's reimbursable by medical flexible spending accounts, at least mine.

The input to charge the battery was connected to a power point in the back of the jeep, so it would be charging while the jeep was on. The output went to the fridge, so the fridge would be powered at all times, whether the jeep was on or not, since it was being powered by the battery.

In my use, the input always exceeded the draw of my dual zone 36L compressor fridge. Granted it was on the cooler side over the weekend, but inside the jeep, while driving, which we did a lot of, it was probably in the 60 - 65 degree range. The fridge maintained a steady 32 degrees the entire weekend (the pic is from when I just plugged it in and turned it on, so the 40's temps were the ambient temperature the morning I took the picture)

When the battery was at 100%, and the fridge compressor cycled on, it had about a 30ish watt power draw. When that happened, the input went to nearly the same wattage to compensate. When the compressor cycled off, the battery charge draw went down as well.

When the battery was below 100%, charge rate went up to about 50 watts to both charge the battery and maintain consistent power to the fridge, until the battery hit 100% and went into that maintenance cycle.

Saturday morning, probably around 11 or so, on some of the bumpy forest roads, the charging plug going into the jeep came loose (my fault for not securing it properly). I didn't notice, as my Bluetooth connection to the fridge and my phone showed the fridge maintaining it's temps perfectly, since it was being powered by the battery. The battery was just not charging. By 7pm that evening, i noticed that the battery was down to 85%, and then noticed the plug popped out. I was set up for that night's camp, so it wouldn't have the opportunity to charge until the next morning. By around 9am the next morning, the battery was down to about 75%. So for about 20 hours, the battery lost about 25% charge running the fridge.

In all, I was super impressed, and think that this will work great for my travels in the future. I had considered going all out with a dual battery set up and an inverter, but I like this route because it satisfies my needs, and is also portable, and can go vehicle to vehicle with me, and be used for other things. And by my rough estimate, it can probably power the fridge for at least 3 days (depending on ambient temps) without getting a charge, which is unlikely that I'll go that long without powering on the vehicle, which would give the battery a charge.

The battery can also get a charge from AC and from a solar setup if available. And as far as build quality, I thought it was really well put together, and seems like a quality product. So a lot of versatility, in a pretty compact and portable package.