Another important consideration (for me at least) is that not all of these power packs have the smartpass/pass through functionality.
If memory serves, the newer Ecoflows now have this.
You must never have owned a Samsung then. Iām convinced they remove power optimizations after the first update.
But seriously, I wonāt recommend paying ecoflow pricing for NMC batteries that canāt be replaced when there are cheaper, better options like the KAPA lithium.
They have ābasic UPS functionalityā according to their advertising. Which has a really slow changeover time of 30ms (in the River 2 Pro Max, which is comparable to the Red-E 512).
I note that the Red-E has this feature too, and advertises a 0.2 second changeover, which is on par with most UPSes.
Iāve only owned Samsungs. And one Huawei, until it stopped coming with Google Apps. Interestingly, the only phone we had a battery swelling incident with was a Huawei. After 4 years.
Iāve never seen a ups with that sort of changeover timeā¦ That in my opinion is very much interrupted power 
Oh waitā¦ you are right! Manā¦ I need more coffee.
0.02 seconds is what UPSes do.
0.03 is what the Ecoflow does.
0.2 (an order worse) is what the Red-E does.
Yeah sorry, seems like the Ecoflow wins that one. But you do pay for it. And you lose out on the better battery.
What I am referring to is the functionality to charge whilst also running loads. Very important in an offgrid camping setup.
From what I understand, most cannot do that or at least charging time is severely reduced as the battery still powers the loads (provided off course that you have ample AC / DC available)
I understand that input charge is also capped depending on the model, limited to X amounts of watts.
I am more referring to the ability to leave it permanently plugged in (like a UPS, in-line), when the power fails it automatically switches over, and when the power returns, it automatically recharges.
The Flexopower Lithium 555, for example, doesnāt work like that. When the power returns, you unplug your loads, and plug them back into the grid connection, and then you plug the lithium pack into the grid to recharge it. When the power fails again, you have to reverse the plugs again.
In an off-grid camping setup, the UPS functionality isnāt really an issue. As long as you can plug a solar panel into it while also running your loads. Are you saying that isnāt a given?
Yes I hear you, and this is what I would also want when using the unit at home, makes absolute sense.
But in a camping setup (even at home) I would want to be able to charge the batteries whilst powering the loads. I understand that some of these units cannot do this. You can either charge, or power loads, not both.
So at home power is out and my unit jumps to life. I would like to plug in a solar panel to at least keep the battery from draining too fast, preferably (provided DC input is high enough) to divert current past the battery directly to the load thus saving the battery.
Or be able to do this even with the grid present. Leaving it permanently connected to those selected critical few loads.
I believe not all units can do this.
An example would be my dc/dc charger in the vehicle. I drive in Botswana to my next destination and the fridge battery is quite depleted from the previous nightās camping. The alternator will supply the current my charger requires and only that and charges only the battery.
Its a C-Tek. But you get an additional Smartpass that you connect with the charger that diverts current directly to your load from the alternator, and the DC charger goes ahead and charges your battery.
What I learned ā¦
Camping is one scenario
LS a 2nd
Car charging a 3rd
Solar can be a 4th
If you want all of it, get Victron. They have all the options and parts, off the shelf too, and build your own and never look back, nor wonder.
Seems like we also need more coffee!! The Change over is 0.02 seconds or 20ms.
eyes!!
Thanks for picking that up. Will ask the marketing guys to fix it.
Yes, that unit is super-fast when it comes to change over, same speed as the victron. Lights have a slight dip, but tv, pc ext have no dip.
Maby someone have a device that can measure the change over time to be exact?!!
@neliuszeeman , when do we see more of these, your section has been approved, should I create it on you behalveā¦ SA needs this product.
A scope with a good trigger setup should do it? Iām thinking a double-pole breaker, where one interrupts the power to the unit, and the other is wired to the trigger input of the scope, so the exact moment that the power is lost can trigger the scope, and then with some pre-trigger data you can see roughly how it switched over.
Then youād have to do a number of runs and work out an average.
Glad to hear the changeover time is 0.02 seconds.