$1500 budget, Jackery Expoler 2000 or Zendure SuperBase Pro 2000?

[plane66]

I recently bought an RV and started experimenting with RV travel. But I found it too noisy to bring a fuel generator to camp, annoying to put it in an RV, and some campsites don't allow it. So I want to buy a Portable Power Station, which is quieter, more environmentally friendly and doesn't have to buy fuel. My budget is about ＄1500. My friend recommended I buy Jackery Explorer 2000, an old brand and more reliable, but it cost ＄2000, which is beyond my budget. I noticed the Zendure SuperBase 2000; it performs and looks better than the Jackery, has wheels and fast recharging, and is on sale for just $1,399. But it's a new product. I don't know much about it. Have anyone bought Zendure? Can you give me some advice?thx

https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-2000-portable-power-stationhttps://zendure.com/products/superbase-pro-2000?variant=39432515944522

 

[PeterPiper]

If a generator will be too noisy, and you're using the Jackery because there is no shore power, how will you recharge the Jackery every day?
Vehicle power system? solar?

 

[Camper]

I'd get a Bluetti instead of anything else. My EB70S is absolutely perfect for me. I bought mine on Amazon.

 

[hzl333]

I recently bought an RV and started experimenting with RV travel. But I found it too noisy to bring a fuel generator to camp, annoying to put it in an RV, and some campsites don't allow it. So I want to buy a Portable Power Station, which is quieter, more environmentally friendly and doesn't have to buy fuel. My budget is about ＄1500. My friend recommended I buy Jackery Explorer 2000, an old brand and more reliable, but it cost ＄2000, which is beyond my budget. I noticed the Zendure SuperBase 2000; it performs and looks better than the Jackery, has wheels and fast recharging, and is on sale for just $1,399. But it's a new product. I don't know much about it. Have anyone bought Zendure? Can you give me some advice?thx

https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-2000-portable-power-stationhttps://zendure.com/products/superbase-pro-2000?variant=39432515944522

Bob always says to chk the life ____(I think it references how many times the battery can go from dead to full charge)

 

[technerd88]

This isn't an attack on anyone but isn't the point of living in a van/rv/truck...etc like we do supposed to be about learning and saving money? 900 bucks for not even 1kwh is just insanity. Makes me dizzy and makes my heart drop into my gut when I see people not able to learn the difference between +(red) and -(black) and use these instead of getting the most out of their money and learning how to install a basic system in their rigs.

 

[Camper]

Everyone should buy what they want.... it's their money.

 

[technerd88]

Everyone should buy what they want.... it's their money

Everyone should buy what they want.... it's their money.

You know that's what fuels the prices on completely unaffordable homes also many other things and why a lot of us are here right? This just comes from a person who wants EVERYONE to have a good time and not waste money and have a bad time. We could do with a lot more smart people :/

 

[SteveSF]

I recently bought an RV and started experimenting with RV travel. But I found it too noisy to bring a fuel generator to camp, annoying to put it in an RV, and some campsites don't allow it. So I want to buy a Portable Power Station, which is quieter, more environmentally friendly and doesn't have to buy fuel. My budget is about ＄1500. My friend recommended I buy Jackery Explorer 2000, an old brand and more reliable, but it cost ＄2000, which is beyond my budget. I noticed the Zendure SuperBase 2000; it performs and looks better than the Jackery, has wheels and fast recharging, and is on sale for just $1,399. But it's a new product. I don't know much about it. Have anyone bought Zendure? Can you give me some advice?thx

https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-2000-portable-power-stationhttps://zendure.com/products/superbase-pro-2000?variant=39432515944522

Power engineer here, If you have an RV you should have capacity for on board batteries. The weight will not make a difference in gas milage. Use wet batteries if vent to the outside and AGM if not will will save a huge chunk of change. These boxes are nothing more than a marketing ploy. Your RV is a generator most come with a upgrade alternator. Learn what an amp is and how to mange them. Take a page out of sailboats that cruise great distances. I cruised using a 8 amp output from the boats motor a few hrs a day, I had to switch back some of my LED's to regular lights just to dump extra power to protect my batteries from over charging. The only way I would want to have the smallest Jackery is to sit at a picnic table and charge my phone. Just like you need to watch your money you need to watch your power consumption on the road. True story a power boat that happened to traveling in the same direction as me was have power problems. His batteries when almost dead every morning. So he approached me and asked if I was having the same problem. I said no but I am also not running a big screen plasma tv (54 inch) all night. His reply was it helped him sleep. I said you know the tag on the back will tell you what it draws and it is probably 1000 watts or so. His solution was to run his generator til he could get more batteries. The real choices should have been:
1 Sleep with out the TV
2 Buy a more energy efficient TV

On the road you mange your money, food,water, repairs etc your power consumption should be on that list to.

You are no longer attached to the power grid and when you where you mange your useage to keep your bill down.
Nothing has changed you need to manage your power use.

As for solar depends where you are and you need enough of it to be worth while, if you move every day take advantage of your. vehicle and capture the surplus energy it produces.

 

[afblangley]

One of the most important variables in power stations is the battery chemistry. This determines how quickly the unit will deteriorate, eventually it won't be able to hold a charge. Measured in life cycles, the simplest way to look at it is as a comparison. The Jackery 2000 has 500, the Zendure units have 3500 and 6000 cycles. In the real world, with full time use, this means the Jackery will start to struggle to meet power demands in 700-1000 days, while the Zendure can be discharged and recharged for 10 years before you'll start to notice a difference.

 

[scaredycat72]

This isn't an attack on anyone but isn't the point of living in a van/rv/truck...etc like we do supposed to be about learning and saving money? 900 bucks for not even 1kwh is just insanity. Makes me dizzy and makes my heart drop into my gut when I see people not able to learn the difference between +(red) and -(black) and use these instead of getting the most out of their money and learning how to install a basic system in their rigs.

You're a tech nerd so I would assume you could easily see the benefit of getting a portable power station. I know the difference between red and black and I got a Jackery 1500 for $1454 with tax. I priced it out and I would only have saved $200 or $300 setting up a similar 24 volt system in my SUV and it wouldn't have been portable, it wouldn't have come with a 3 year warranty for all the parts, it wouldn't have been one company I'm dealing with, and it wouldn't have been simple. I was more than willing to pay an extra $200-$300 for all that.

And there's no universal reason for living this life. Some people want to save money. Some people, like myself, just want an easy, simple way to travel full-time. Some people just want to camp in the weekends. Some people have no choice and they're doing this until they can do better. We're a diverse group. No one way works for everybody.

 

[scaredycat72]

I would wait on the Zendure super bass pro. They just did a fundraiser on it and so far haven't actually delivered anything. People are asking why their power station hasn't shipped. See link below.

In addition, the company has no history on making reliable power stations and the power station hasn't proven to be reliable. Anybody can claim anything they want online. That doesn't mean that's what they're going to deliver. Look at some of the reviews for the other power stations and you'll see people complaining about them not working, not charging, not holding a charge, etc. When I researched where to buy my power station, reliability, dependability, and customer service were at the top of my list. That's why I chose a Jackery but Bluetti was also up there. There batteries were just too big.

In addition, there's no way to reach this company other than email. They can give you a 20 year warranty but if you can't reach them, the warranty doesn't do you any good. These companies know most people can't afford an attorney to chase down a few thousand dollars.

They even say on their website that they'll call you about placing an order. It's supposedly to avoid fraudulent orders but that's BS. They're calling you so you don't have any way to contact them.

Everything about this company screams scam to me. I would give it some time, like years, for them to prove me wrong before I invest me money with them.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/superbase-pro-fastest-recharge-iot-power-station#/discussion

 

[Sky]

Agree however some of the people I know who consider themselves to be smart or smarter are also the most not smart past getting alphabets/degrees memorizing and spitting out what they memorized. So I would suggest that it would be nice to encourage more people to be more inquisitive and model critical analysis. And to further access what is intelligence vs programming in order to become walking zombies repeating whatever they thought sounded good whether smart or not.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

It boils down to convenience really.
There are products that sew up all the components and decisions into one package with standard connections.
This is a good thing. The more of these there are the closer we will get to commodity pricing.
For Dremel owning nerds like me, I'm happy that I can go out and select my prefered battery chemistry, and the charger, inverter etc that suit my needs.
My system was a lot of sweating and grunting to get it all put together. (crimping 4 gauge)
It worked the first time I powered it up. Yay me.
But I also have room to expand for all my trouble. The prepackaged solutions generally do not.
In a few months I'm going to double my battery bank and install panels on the roof.
Some but not all of these power stations are designed for solar use. Some are just fancy iPhone batteries.

 

[GomerPile]

my fist post...I'm an electrical engineer so my advice will be heavily slanted towards the DIY crowd.

If you have ZERO DIY skills then you're stuck with pre-built systems like the jackery. If you can learn a little bit of wiring you can make a really nice and more capable system much cheaper.

I use a site: https://batteryhookup.com/ (not a promo/affiliate/whatever) to get surplus LFP cells. I was able to get 75AH (~900wh) of very nice prismatic LFP cells for $150 shipped. Combine with a Bluetooth BMS, inverter, and some USB ports and you can build a pretty nice system for $500. Expanding it with solar is pretty simple with the Victron charge controllers.

 

[frater secessus]

I want to buy a Portable Power Station, which is quieter, more environmentally friendly and doesn't have to buy fuel. My budget is about ＄1500

How are you going to charge it? Have you already calculated your power requirements?

How long are you going to live in the RV? If you will only be in the RV a couple of years either will work. If your plans are for 5+ years a box with LiFePO4 cells inside is an important consideration, as @afblangley correctly notes.

Not the question you asked, but for comparison a DIY system can be put together for relatively little money. This system was right at $1000, and is oversized because I live off-grid fulltime:

* 750w of panel
* 50A mppt
* 100Ah LiFePO4 (have also used GC2 FLA to good effect)
* alternator charging (VSR)
* shore power charging (unused as I am off-grid)
* 300w psw inverter; most loads powered from DC

This is the 1,249th consecutive day offgrid in the campervan. I started with zero skills or knowledge, and some would say I am still that way today.

One of the most important variables in power stations is the battery chemistry

Agreed. In this case I think the Zendure specs are squirrely. The page says cell chemistry is "Li-NMC | LiFePo4". Perhaps this is meant to mean 1500 and 2000 models have different cells.

The rated cycles are "3,000 | 6,000", which is unjustifiably optimistic (BS, imo) for both chemistries when used by the intended audience.

f you have ZERO DIY skills then you're stuck with pre-built systems like the jackery

Many of us started with zero DIY skill and no electrical knowledge and still built serviceable power systems. If OP is interested in learning I encourage them to do so. Safely, of course. And welcome to the forum.

So I would suggest that it would be nice to encourage more people to be more inquisitive and model critical analysis

True, although to your other point I haven't found blowhards to have (or lack) any particular level of education.

 

[plane66]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, which helped me a lot in my choice. I have also compared other power stations on the market, but none are as cost-effective as Zendure.

Considering my budget, I finally chose the SuperBase Pro 1500; It costs only $1099, cheaper than the SuperBase Pro 2000. I can use the remaining $400 to buy a solar panel, which total costs $1558. I think it is the best choice within my budget and I will get a large capacity Power station with an endless supply of power.

Other than that, I was surprised by the 6000 cycle life, and I can use it for almost 20 years. It also has the advantage of fast self-charging, so I don't have to spend more time waiting.

I chose to believe in this product after seeing that it had raised a considerable amount of money on Indiegogo. I have already purchased it on their official website and look forward to its arrival~

 

[Camper]

I don't see it listed on Amazon or eBay... that's a big red flag to me. It may be there but my searches didn't find it.

 

[GomerPile]

Buying a product because a bunch of people (who probably know very little about off-grid power) signed up to buy one is probably a recipe for disappointment. You are buying a prototype or pretty close to a prototype. There is nothing wrong with that if you have the $$$ to risk.

I'm pretty skeptical about the 6000 cycles claim. You pretty much have to expect that an Indiegogo company will not be around for version 2 if there were any issues with the V1 product.

If it works as advertised you should have a really nice unit.... it's just a big risk IMO.

 

[SteveSF]

Great you want the cheapest packaged unit / box. At the end of the day profit is made some where. I've been burned by lithium-ion, so they're not my thing. Look up their safety record / requirements, look at their cold weather performance a.k.a. charging. I think going cheap on batteries period let alone lithium ion. Is a fire waiting to happen. If your putting them in a vehicle, that's a lot of vibration. There is a reason why marine batteries and golf cart batteries are made the way they are. There is a reason why there is fire bags for lithium ion batteries. Just saying.

 

[frater secessus]

I've been burned by lithium-ion, so they're not my thing. Look up their safety record / requirements

The unit in question appears to be LiFePO4. As you say, "look up their safety requirements" as LFP is not prone to thermal runaway like Li-NMC, etc.

look at their cold weather performance a.k.a. charging.

Mine sits on a lizard warming mat.

There is a reason why marine batteries and golf cart batteries are made the way they are

I've used GC to good effect. Horses for courses.

There's a big difference (or should be) between "not my thing" and spreading FUD.