Aferiy P280 power bank

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Picked up a new addition to the power banks. This is the Aferiy P280. It's 2.8Kw continuous output, with a 2048Wh battery. They claim its portable... well maybe - its not light. What I liked about it is that its expandable, up to 10KWh - you can daisy chain 4 more external batteries.

At the moment, they are on sale via the Aferiy site (no affiliations). I got this at 40% off the normal price.

[jennyjj01]

Picked up a new addition to the power banks.
At the moment, they are on sale via the Aferiy site (no affiliations). I got this at 40% off the normal price.

Whoa !!! That's a serious piece of gear at a not insignificant price.
How does it fit into your prepping plans? For filling in between power cuts? To be used with big solar panels as an off grid solution? Timeshifting economy 7?

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Picked up a new addition to the power banks.
At the moment, they are on sale via the Aferiy site (no affiliations). I got this at 40% off the normal price.

Whoa !!! That's a serious piece of gear at a not insignificant price.
How does it fit into your prepping plans? For filling in between power cuts? To be used with big solar panels as an off grid solution? Timeshifting economy 7?

Over the years i've been slowly expanding things. The main "rig" is 350W of panel into an ecoworthy 280Ah battery, feeding a renogy 2kw inverter. However i've capped that at 1.5K, to keep the current down - 12V. This rig is for providing "base load" in the event of an outage. That's about 250W - fridge, freeze and a few bits of electronics.

The second rig is the recycled old rig - 2 100Ah AGM in parallel so 100Ah at 50% discharge fed by a spare panel - either 50W or 175W (I picked these up cheap). This is only 12V and has outputs for car adapters, USB etc. This is my "charge all the small stuff up" solution. This includes an ecoflow river pro, which is portable and provide 600W max, 720 Wh. The ecoflow is the "bring into the house" portable solution. LED lights, laptop/router etc.

But i had a gap. Kitchen stuff - microwave, small kettle, air fryer. This if where the P280 fits. At 2.8Kw, I can dump this on a kitchen surface and power stuff.

What I am trying to do is remove single points of failure. Build in redundancy by having fallback solutions.

[jennyjj01]

Picked up a new addition to the power banks.

Whoa !!! That's a serious piece of gear at a not insignificant price.
How does it fit into your prepping plans?

Over the years i've been slowly expanding things. The main "rig" is 350W of panel into an ecoworthy 280Ah battery, feeding a renogy 2kw inverter. However i've capped that at 1.5K, to keep the current down - 12V. This rig is for providing "base load" in the event of an outage. That's about 250W - fridge, freeze and a few bits of electronics.

The second rig is the recycled old rig - 2 100Ah AGM in parallel so 100Ah at 50% discharge fed by a spare panel - either 50W or 175W (I picked these up cheap). This is only 12V and has outputs for car adapters, USB etc. This is my "charge all the small stuff up" solution. This includes an ecoflow river pro, which is portable and provide 600W max, 720 Wh. The ecoflow is the "bring into the house" portable solution. LED lights, laptop/router etc.

But i had a gap. Kitchen stuff - microwave, small kettle, air fryer. This if where the P280 fits. At 2.8Kw, I can dump this on a kitchen surface and power stuff.

What I am trying to do is remove single points of failure. Build in redundancy by having fallback solutions.

Thanks.
I reckon that as we solar 'sperimenters all do our thing, it's useful for us to share our expectations as well as our experiences. I like how you are targeting individual needs, which I summarise as:-
Small rig to keep chargeables charged
Modest EcoFlow Solar Battery rig as a stand by for base load
Latest power station to serve kitchen needs in a short outage

You should be well able to withstand rolling blackouts, but still have dependence on some grid up time?

For me, I currently have :-
Shed mounted 25W panel and regulator module just for charging phones, chromebook and lamp batteries. Absolute minimum cost and features. Cost maybe £50 all in.

Spare 150W panel with Epover MPPT to feed two car batteries which power a 1500W inverter during small outages. Used in anger recently during an outage while panel was not in situ. Cost maybe £300 all in. Biggest cost the battery.

New rig being constructed
2x 600W panels and EcoFlow micro-inverter which will cut my power bill during 'peacetime' but will see the panels swung over into my MPPT controller system in a post grid scenario. Cost so far just shy of £300

I also have a 600W two stroke Genny (£40) cast to one side for use at the allotment. And a spare 24V inverter for if I ever switch to a 24V battery.

The Gap in my scheme is nothing to power cooking or laundry appliances. Just enough for a travel kettle and slow cooker at the moment.

For me it's been a fun learning process and I like to think it gave me some confidence that in a Mad Max world, I'd be able to bodge together a neat off grid Frankenstein solution from what we could scavenge. Batteries and lamps from cars? Panels from useless grid tied installations?

[Adjee]

I have the same piece of kit (European version) along with an additional battery. I charge it from 2 x 400w portable panels. I have been using it all winter via solar charging without any problems. Along with some good discounts I was sent their Nano 100 for free. That has also been well used after my initial doubts of the rewindable lead, that to, is proving its worth (charged via a 40w portable solar panel).

[GeraldTheBonzai]

The Gap in my scheme is nothing to power cooking or laundry appliances. Just enough for a travel kettle and slow cooker at the moment.

Have you got a battery charger? I've got a small 2.2kw generator. I picked up an ecoworthy 20A smart battery charger designed for multiple battery types, including lifepo4. If there is no sun, I can use the genny for base load and also use it to recharge the 280Ah at a reasonable rate. Was also looking at a DC-DC charger, that could sit between the two battery banks. Again, it gives redundancy.

[jennyjj01]

The Gap in my scheme is nothing to power cooking or laundry appliances. Just enough for a travel kettle and slow cooker at the moment.

Have you got a battery charger? I've got a small 2.2kw generator. I picked up an ecoworthy 20A smart battery charger designed for multiple battery types, including lifepo4. If there is no sun, I can use the genny for base load and also use it to recharge the 280Ah at a reasonable rate. Was also looking at a DC-DC charger, that could sit between the two battery banks. Again, it gives redundancy.

While my 'middle' system is temporarily without panels, I have the three car batteries on trickle charge with a modified cheapo car charger.
But the Inverter is 1600W peak and I've never really tried pulling >1000W from it.

Do you find yourself constantly moving plugs and power stations around to use the energy in them effectively?

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Do you find yourself constantly moving plugs and power stations around to use the energy in them effectively?

Not really. At this moment in time, the energy meter is saying that we are pulling 180W. Thats the fridge, freezer and an assortment of electrical devices like the router and NAS (which I ought to turn off...). Over the years we have slowly migrated to low voltage or rechargeable devices. The main rig powers the shed, where I have my tools. We also have some smaller power banks dotted around the house. Most of our devices are usb powered - we don't have a lot that needs to be plugged into the wall, other than the TV and stuff in the kitchen. So when things need charging, they get recharged off of the power bank in the room. Every so often I take a power bank out to the shed and recharge it. So, in reality, its not that much different to bringing in a load of wood for the wood burner.

[jennyjj01]

Do you find yourself constantly moving plugs and power stations around to use the energy in them effectively?

Over the years we have slowly migrated to low voltage or rechargeable devices. The main rig powers the shed, where I have my tools. We also have some smaller power banks dotted around the house. Most of our devices are usb powered - we don't have a lot that needs to be plugged into the wall, other than the TV and stuff in the kitchen.

Probably 80% of our energy usage is after 6pm: Electric shower, Electric Cooker, Washer and dryer. I anticipate that my microinverter will almost completely cover 7am to 6pm usage apart from the odd kettle boil and a bit of ironing. Showering, ironing and laundry stuff might get time shifted, in due course.
I can't be too bothered using lots of rechargeables around the house.
EDF's energy usage hub is handy for evaluating hourly usage.

I'm in two minds about the energy gifted back to the network, on the one hand it's lost value, but on the other hand it demonstrates my system's efficiency at generating

[GeraldTheBonzai]

jennyjj01 - do you make up your own cables or do you buy them in? I assume you are running at 12V?