So this is one of those newfangled devices that you have to stop and explain as it didn’t exist just a year or two ago.
It’s a Lithium “generator”, meaning it works like a portable generator only it uses a battery instead of gas. They haven’t made huge inroads yet, because for a homeowner a typical honda or even a cheap clone gas generator will run circles around it in terms of output. You can pour gas into a regular generator all day. With these once your battery is exhausted thats it.
But this one breaks new ground though. Specifically, its 1260Wh. At around 13 volts that about 100 amp hours, or about as much as one Battleborn lithium battery. Its can output 1800 watts, i.e., just about anything you can gang up on a 15 amps circuit.
The other amazing thing is you can recharge it in like an hour and a half.
So think of it as a lithium battery, strapped to a handle and an inverter and a charger, and you get this picture. So what can you do with it? Plenty!
- As a home backup generator, it has some use. You can power a refrigerator for 10-20 hours for example.
- To be able to take power tools places you normally can’t. From time to time I want to operate a table saw or similar someplace without electric.
Its real value for me though, lies in its RV utility. I have two main things in mind:
My RV is stored in a storage facility and lacks power. Even with the battery switched off it has a parasitic load. And even if I could trace that down, I am always there tinkering with it and using up power. I used to have to run the generator frequently to top off the batteries.
Don’t believe the Onan line that the more you run your generator the better; that’s a load a crap. Exercise it twice a month and use it just when you need it and it will last almost forever. Once you get a lot of hours on these they are finicky and expensive to repair, so I prefer to use mine mainly as needed on the road.
So now I just pull out my shore power cord and plug it into the Ecoflow to recharge the RV. (Note: If you try this be sure you don’t have or bypass a built in EMS protector. They don’t like to run off this kind of a generator!)
The other main use is, when traveling as a backup battery. Particularly in my case, now that I have a compressor refrigerator, there is a constant demand for power.
With only 2 coach batteries, even with lithium, there is not a large margin for error. I’ll carry this with me and if I run low I can top off the RV anywhere, even if I’m in an area where generators or banned or restricted.
So far its working fine. I do have a couple complaints.
First off, this is a young company just coming up to speed. Its universally said that their customer service is a disaster. They don’t answer the phone and open emails days later, if at all. While I appreciate its a couple young guys whose kickstarter campaign just went viral, it really is time to hire some help guys and stop trying to do everything yourselves.
Fortunately I haven’t had any issues yet.
Second, like many portable generators it lacks any ground-neutral bonding. This means it completely lacks the ground plug. (Some “contractor” generators bond the neutral to ground and I wish they all did this.) It seems safer and more convenient to me.
Why don’t the rest? Well, if you have a big generator and you are running your whole house with it, your main panel already has neutral bonded to ground, and you only want one bonding, hence most portable generators have a floating ground.
But realistically, nobody is going to use this as a whole house generator. They should have just bonded it at the generator.
So far I am really thrilled with this thing. It will be a great way to carry a huge amount of power. At 30 pounds its easy to carry even with one hand.
About the only negatives I can say about it is sometimes under load its inverter has a bit of a whine. Not terrible.
The other thing is, its Lithium Ion, not LifePo4. The claimed lifetime is 800 cycles but by then its been reduced to 60%. So just taking a wild guess I’m thinking maybe 400 cycles would leave you at 80%. I doubt I will charge it more than once a week (if that) so it seems an acceptably long life of almost 8 years even with weekly use.
Somebody on the internet pointed out that for many RVs sold with a couple of lead acid batteries this doubles the useful capacity.
June 1 2021 Update:
Still love this thing! When we had an extended power failure I offered it to a neighbor. (We have a natural gas backup generator).
Also its available on Amazon now:
(Links are paid)
Could this be used to power an entire RV instead of using battleborn batteries for example? I’m new to RVing and am looking for affordable solutions for boondocking and saw they sell this with a 400W solar kit for less than $2000. I’m curious if that would be enough to power a boondocking rig or if there are downsides. I noticed the point of the grounding issue, are there any other things I should be aware of?
Hello
The downsides are that a LifePo4 battery like battleborn has a 10 year warranty. These are going to degrade faster.
Also, when I discharge mine heavily it warms up and will not fast charge for hours.
So I see these as more of occasional use and backup, not daily usage.
Could I use this with an induction cook top? Thanks for taking the time to do a review. Very helpful.
Jackie
You possibly could. Check the info on the one you are looking at – this device will work up to 1800 watts. But that said, at 1300 watts you’d get just an hours use, so I’m not sure that would meet your needs.
“In the picture above you can see the Ecoflow Delta 1300 is still pumping an impressive 1034 watts in and the battery has only 15% capacity left.”
The 1034 watt is input, so charging the Delta’s battery so it is gonna charge it up to 100% rom 15%, problably in an hour.
Sorry this isn’t really RV related but I don’t know who else to ask and you’re specifically talking about the ecoflow delta 1300 :). So for quite a while I’ve wanted some kind of home power backup, nothing fancy, more of a rudimentary “enough to get you by comfortably” kind of setup. I had liked what I saw from several battery bank/inverters on the market, or “solar generators” as they like to call themselves. It got me thinking that I could use one of these battery banks hooked up to a small transfer switch all whilst having the battery bank itself plugged into the wall. Sort of an entry level UPS. Not that I’d use it all the time, just in inclement weather during the winter.
Now what I chose to do was to purchase a 4-circuit manual transfer switch and I settled on this power bank because it has an extremely fast charge rate and it actually has a UPS function built right into it. I got these products and wired in the transfer switch correctly following the instructions. I plugged the transfer switch to the ecoflow delta and transferred the load of those 4 circuits over to the delta and it worked perfectly! Then I decided that I would plug in the delta power bank to simultaneously charge as it powers those 4 circuits (it has the capability to charge whilst it is powering devices, I’ve tested this). I made sure that the plug on the wall that I plugged the delta into was NOT one of the 4 circuits that was backed up. Anyway immediately I head a big POP come from the delta and it would no longer generate power at all. I have contacted the company and it is going to be repaired but I’m still wondering, why did that happen?! The 4 circuits on the transfer switch that the delta was powering were isolated from the rest of the system, and the circuit that I plugged the delta into to simultaneously charge it was definitely not one of those 4 circuits. Was there some sort of feedback because the transfer switches white wires, or “neutral wires”, were not necessarily isolated from the rest of the system and tied to the same neutral/ground bussbar in the main breaker panel as all the other circuits? Or was it because the delta does not have a neutral/ground as you mentioned and that messed it up? And if any of those are the case, how could I rectify this?? Do you think that what happened had anything to do with my setup or did my delta just decided to fail and it’s a sort or one-off failure thing? Any clarity you or anyone could bring me would be greatly appreciated! – Tommy Taylor
P.S. – It should also be mentioned that now whenever I plug the delta into the wall to charge it, it trips the breaker of whatever circuit it’s connected to.
Hi there!
If I understand what you are doing, basically is taking 4 outlets that will total less than the 1800 watt maximum of the Ecoflow. You installed a transfer switch as a convenience but it is essential the same as if you just plugged those 4 circuits into the Ecoflow (except its switched). It sounds like you have everything isolated and it worked fine. Then you plugged it into to simultaneously charge and it popped, right?
I’m scratching my head on this to be honest Any chance the outlets you plugged the Ecoflow into are miswired with a reverse neutral and hot? I would test that outlet to be sure.
The lack of a ground shouldn’t cause an issue like this, but could be really dangerous if done incorrectly.
Here is another thought. Does that transfer switch connect to house wiring? Maybe its not as isolated as you think. I have seen house wiring where both legs of 120 volts are mixed in the same outlet, could you possibly have 120 volts of house wiring bleeding on to the ecoflow output somewhere? I’ve also seen bad house wiring where two circuits are bridged in an outlet box. Doesn’t cause a problem if both on the same 120 leg EXCEPT its a ticking time bomb because if you switch off one breaker the circuit is still live.
That might explain why it worked until the Ecoflow was plugged in on the other leg?
To me its too much of a coincidence that it blew when you plugged it in, so my guess is you have a short somewhere or some other wiring issue. Especially if you are using existing house wiring.
Thank you for the promp reply and some good things to look at! I’m definitely going to be meticulously looking at ALL of the wiring connections. – Tommy Taylor
Stephen,
I had the same happen to me and googled for answers then found your post. I would love to know what the answer is and whether you resolved the problem?
Hey,
So do you just plug this into shore power then switch in your battery charger Tim power up your RV? About how many Ah does it replenish?
Thinking of using this on a boat as a shore power backup to recharge house bank of batteries.
Hey Matt
It’s somewhere around 100 ah so you can plug pretty much anything into it that you can plug into a normal 15 amp outlet.
The only issue I had is it fried my surge suppressor on the RV.
But otherwise I’ve run battery chargers, tools, etc
Did you find an answer to why the Delta killed itself using it the way you described?
Harry: The Delta didn’t kill itself. Are you referring to when I plugged the RV into it and it blew the surge suppressor?
I called progressive and thats a bug or a feature, depending on how you look at it. They told me that inverted power isn’t supported and may blow the surge suppressor.
It didn’t quite make sense to me because lots of people use inverter generators with a surge suppressor. They were nice enough to send me a new board anyway. Its also possible it was just a fluke, because it only happened after a few usages.
Since then, I added a third lithium battery to my RV and haven’t tried using the Delta there again. Buf if I did want to carry this on the RV, I would wire an outlet off the transfer switch – and skip the surge suppressor to be safe.
What about home freezers. I purchased this so that would not lose my freezer or refrigerator contents.
Hi it should work great for this. Depending on the size and model of the fridge or freezer it can certainly power one and maybe even two. I would test several hours so you will know how long to expect – it’s likely over a day for one.