Simple energy storage at home - BLUETTI EB3A energy storage test

You can even charge it during the day, and it will take a refrigerator if needed.

Introductory

Nowadays, renewable energy plays an increasingly important role in our lives, even if we are not aware of it. The energy produced by the ever-increasing number of solar and wind farms is increasingly replacing fossil fuels, although the fact is that we are not yet at the point where we can completely renounce them.

And the energy revolution that has been taking place in recent years has started to produce those new companies that deal with new types of energy production and storage. Moreover, among these, the ones that prioritized storage stand out, since even though solar developments are ongoing and wind turbines are becoming more and more efficient, the storage of the produced energy is the cornerstone of the new industry.

Due to the changes in domestic energy policy, more and more people will be aware that the technology produced cheaply but with solar cells has serious disadvantages, it is clear that if the sun does not shine, there is no electricity, if it does, then the energy produced must be stored somewhere (in the grid the possibility of feeding back has just ended). Today's increasingly advanced battery technology companies, such as BLUETTI, serve this purpose.

Before we start introducing the subject of this test, we should say a few words about BLUETTI, since this article is the first (but I hope not the last) in which I can try the company's product.

The history of BLUETTI in brief

In the midst of the great Chinese dumping, BLUETTI is one of the cuckoo eggs, since the company was founded in the United States by Wondar Law and James Ray, in the city of Walnut (haha, it must have been a tough nut...), California. It's a small town, about 30 people, and it's about the size of Los Angeles, but almost everything around there is the size of Los Angeles, so it's not particularly interesting.

The founders had been working in the field of energy storage and research and development for roughly 10 years, when good fortune brought them together in the summer of 2019. They then founded their company, BLUETTI. The headquarters of the company was located in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the management of the company still operates here, as well as research and development.

In the USA, the products are designed down to the last detail, the tests are carried out here, the materials used are selected here, from the plastic of the casing through the material of the battery cells to the last screw, but the production is no longer in America, but mostly in China.

Of course, the battery cells in the units are also Chinese, at least from the point of view of production. According to the news, BLUETTI uses LG Chem batteries, but most of them are also made in China. Of course, this does not detract from their value, because most of the battery cells used in the world are made there.

BLUETTI is therefore an American company with an American development center and headquarters. The CEO presents his company like this:

BLUETTI has always prioritized design, service and quality above all else. When designing new products, one of the most important aspects for us is to use the highest quality, longest-lasting materials available. We design all of our components from the ground up, rather than white labeling existing products. From the BMS board to the MPPT controller and inverters, we choose materials that stand out and last. It costs more, but the cost is not as important as the value it creates.

—James Ray, Chief Product Officer

 BLUETTI EB3A from the outside

Portable, large external batteries don't take much time to design, they're basically big blocks with some minimal design. If it can be said, the BLUETTI EB3A is one of the cheekier solutions.

The quality of the plastics used for construction is adequate, and the color is attractive. On both sides of the box we find the inlet and outlet windows for the cooling air, the fan is on the outlet side to the right. There is only the fold-up handle on top, it is in a good place, the device is balanced in our hands.

There is another interesting part on the top of the machine, but only the painting draws our attention to it, and it is nothing but a wireless charger.

There is nothing at the back, only the rubber pads on the bottom on which the structure stands. The most interesting part is, of course, the front panel, where the outputs and inputs are located, and here is the main wedge of the device. This is a TFT display, on which, when the sun is not shining, you can find the most important values, such as the charge level, in a clearly legible form.

On the front panel, you can see the inputs on the left, it can be AC ​​or DC, i.e. 230 volt wall, 12 volt, car charging, but it can also be a solar panel, where the maximum power is 200 watts. At the top left is the 12 volt DC output, in Hungarian the cigarette lighter socket, in the middle we find the USB outputs, above them the display. On the upper right is a lamp, on the lower right is the 220-240 volt AC outlet, of course with an EU plug solution.

And at the end, the lamp, because there is a lamp. An LED solution equipped with a small flashlight-sized spotlight that has two brightness levels and an SOS flash. It comes in handy when camping, fishing, or changing tires at night.

The box itself is medium in size and has a tolerable weight. Its depth and height are 18, while its width is 25 centimeters, and its weight is almost 5 kilograms. The latter value means that it is easy to pack, but I would not like to walk for kilometers with it.

Paper form

Let's start with perhaps the most essential, the battery! The box contains lithium-iron-phosphate cells, which according to the literature are one of the best for external batteries. According to available data, these cells still have 2500 percent of their original charge after more than 80 charging and submersion cycles.

If 2500+ cycles seems like a little, then do the math! If you drain and top it up every day, we are still talking about a period of 7-8 years, which means that even in this case you will get a capacity of over 80 percent.

If we examine the battery from the side of quantified data, we can talk about a capacity of 268 Wh (8 Ah), and the output power is 12 watts, but the structure is also capable of 600 watts for a short time. We draw our attention to the fact that we should only use this in justified cases, because it overloads the device and we can expect serious heating.

Of course, all kinds of protection have been added to the structure, so it is also protected against overload, overheating, overcurrent, short circuit, low temperature and overimmersion.

The BLUETTI EB3A can therefore be charged in three ways. It can accept panels between 12-18 volts from a solar panel, the charging can be a maximum of 200 watts. It is possible to charge in our car from 12 volts, and we can charge via AC input, i.e. from a socket, in which case the normal charging is 268 watts and the turbo charging is 350 watts, because there is also a way for the latter.

Another important thing about charging is that you can charge the battery from several sources at the same time, e.g. solar panel and socket can work in parallel.

It is also very important that three charging modes are available, Silent, Standard and Turbo. Of these, Silent corresponds to a kind of trickle charging, which can be a maximum of 100 watts. The Standard is capable of 250 watts, while in the case of the Turbo, if we start charging from zero, we can see up to 430 watts on the display.

We can again use several types of outputs.

From the DC output, there is a 12-volt car socket, i.e. the usual cigarette lighter socket, and there are also two 10-amp, 12-volt plug outputs. There are three types of USB output, two of which are completely standard USB A, and one Type-C for more modern devices. The latter can push out up to 100 watts, so notebooks that have a full USB Type-C can be charged through it.

Finally, there is the interesting wireless charging pad, as I mentioned, it is on the top of the machine, you can put e.g. to charge our phone.

And finally, the 230 volt (220-240 V) output. This got a regular grounded connector, at least in terms of form, because of course we don't have grounding here, it can't be. Be sure to count on this if you connect a device that is useful for grounding, because e.g. it has a traditional cekás (heating pad), where leakage current is not excluded.

Through this connector, the structure can deliver a maximum of 600 watts, which is not a shame, to put it mildly. 600 watts is already enough for a lot of things, even a smaller heater can run on it, as well as irons and hair dryers, at least if it fits into this power. He will almost certainly take a refrigerator and a TV with him. So it's good for pretty much anything.

This is exactly what it looks like, the BLUETTI EB3A can deliver a total of 600 watts, so if we use several outputs, the total output power can be 600 watts.

Finally, the DC mode has one more interesting feature, and this is the UPS mode. UPS is English Uninterruptible Power Supply an acronym made up of words, which means uninterruptible power supply in Hungarian. We use such, e.g. also to the computer, so that the machine does not stop in the event of a power failure, data loss does not occur, and we have time to shut down the machine properly.

In the case of the BLUETTI EB3A, the UPS mode means exactly what it means, that is, in this case the structure works as a UPS, an uninterruptible power source. We don't need to turn on anything for this, it is enough if the machine is connected to the XNUMX and a XNUMX consumer is plugged in. In this case, the UPS mode is automatically activated.

When the UPS mode is switched on, the current does not pass through the battery, but directly supplies the device connected to the output. In the event of a power outage, however, it switches to the battery and supplies the connected consumer with energy from there.

Phone App

What makes a tech gadget 21st century is the phone application. Without it, it is no longer worth producing anything, if it makes sense, if it doesn't. Expectation.

Well, BLUETTI recognized this with good sense and added a Bluetooth adapter to the BLUETTI EB3A. Through this, we can already connect it with a phone, we can find the downloadable BLUETTI application in the store that matches our phone, and we can start using it.

Installation is simple. You install it, turn on Bluetooth, turn on BLUETTI EB3A, start the software, it recognizes your device and you can use it.

There is a switch in the application that you can only switch from here, for example the type of charging or the setting called Power Lifting, with which the output power of 1200 watts is also available.

In addition to these, approx. we see what is shown on the display, including the fact that the amount of charge on the inputs and the load displayed on the outputs are separately visible. Take this breakdown to mean that AC and DC are separate, but we don't see, for example, how much goes out on the cigarette lighter socket and how much on the USB in the case of DC.

So the bottom line is that in the case of BLUETTI, the phone application is by no means unnecessary in that extra switches are available, and it is also good because we can see the current status of the outputs and inputs. After that, it's just icing on the cake that you don't have to constantly look at the display within about 10 meters, but e.g. we can also check whether the solar panel has charged the structure while drinking beer in the shade.

To conclude, the app is quite nice, easy to use, everything is easy to find and understand, and as an addition, it also supports dark mode.

Experiences

Well, unlike usual, this chapter will not be the longest, but expected to be the shortest in the article. The previous paragraphs contain all the important information. Of course, I tested the outputs, everything works, everything knows what the manufacturer promised, so there were no errors with these.

What was perhaps a little surprising was that even with the 100-watt, so-called Silent charge, the fan in the structure turned on and off, even though I thought Silent was Silent because it was silent, or at least quiet. In any case, the fact is that the cooling does not go on continuously, only intermittently.

It's also strange that the display seems to stop charging for 1-1 second while charging. I can't determine whether this really happens or whether the software just switches the value on the display incorrectly. It means that the entire structure does not stop in this case, because both the AC and DC output side are working.

I also tried solar charging, but the sun hasn't been shining much lately, so of course its efficiency didn't even come close to the values ​​measured in a similar test in summer.

An interesting thing also appeared in relation to the application, namely that if we plug a device into the AC output, its power consumption is added to the charging power consumption. So, for example, if in Silent mode I plug in a battery charger that draws 27 watts, the input power changes from 100 to 127 watts.

This is also logical, but it means that the application does not show the real power used for charging. This is only interesting in that the value on the display built into the box does not change, that is, only the 100 watts used for charging are still displayed there.

As a final experience, you don't have to be afraid even if you connect too many consumers to the battery, you don't have to calculate to stay below 600 watts. If the total absorbed power exceeds 600 watts, the device switches off, if you reset it, you can continue using it, of course by disconnecting one of the consumers.

Summary

I can honestly say that I was really looking forward to this device, because BLUETTI is a bit like Mercedes to me in terms of batteries. So definitely the upper category, but even their cheaper stuff is the top of the middle category. In short, quality pieces.

Of course, BLUETTI does not only deal with small units like the BLUETTI EB3A in the article, but also with modular solutions that can be used to turn an apartment into an isolated plant, all with cost-effective, modular solutions that can be easily expanded according to needs.

BLUETTI EB3A is a much simpler structure. If we only look at the battery capacity, it can't handle much more than ~3-5 machine tool batteries or ~3 notebook batteries or ~20 phone batteries, etc. etc. etc. In practice, this also means that the capacity in the package is approx. 3 times a notebook and approx. Recharge a phone 20 times. According to the manufacturer's data, we can operate a 5-watt lamp (this is already acceptable brightness in LED) for 30 hours.

So what's interesting about it? The fact that in this box weighing less than 5 kilos, in addition to the battery pack, there is a rather large inverter that can deliver up to 1200 watts. There is a charging unit that can charge over 400 watts, which in itself would be a pretty big brick if it were marketed as an external charger. There is the electronics for receiving solar panels up to 200 watts, and I could go on and on about everything that had to be crammed into this small box. This is art to me!

In our Facebook group, there was already a discussion about whether such a battery pack can recover its price, i.e. whether it is a sensible investment or not.

Well, in my opinion, there's a good chance he won't be able to get his price back, but that's not the point. Of course, if our computer is plugged into it and acts as a UPS, then a shutdown due to a power cut can cause damage that far exceeds the price of the BLUETTI EB3A. So, from this point of view, the price may even pay off.

However, from other points of view, not so much. However, if you have one, you can put it in the car, if you went camping, you can put it in the camper, you can put it in your boat or ship. You can take it with you on night fishing or even if you're going to a lake shore for an entire weekend with your family. You will have two twenties, you will have USB, you will have electricity.

I bought the package in the previous similar article so that I would have electricity to operate the gas boiler even in the event of major power outages. Because it doesn't work if there's no electricity, right? So I have something like this loaded up and put away in the closet as a safety solution.

Does it bring your price back like this? I hope not, because I hope I won't need the boiler to run because of this, there won't be a power cut that would justify this, because if there is, then there will be other problems.

I compared this to home insurance, which essentially everyone takes out. Staying with my own example, I have been paying home insurance for roughly 30 years, and as far as I can remember, I have never had a claim that was paid by the insurance company. I don't want to calculate how much money I spent on basically nothing, and maybe it's better that it went to nothing than if I had to use it.

I think this parallel can be understood in this way.

So, the BLUETTI EB3A can be used for many purposes, it is a very high-quality, very capable thing, it basically has all the capabilities that we can expect from such a structure. I do not undertake to decide whether the price is high or low. Compared to its competitors, it's at a good price, maybe that's the conclusion that can be drawn on an objective basis, and whether it's worth it to you is up to you to decide.

If you want one for yourself, you can buy it by clicking on the link below. The price for a few more days, in the Halloween sale, is 350 euros, or roughly 140 forints:

BLUETTI EB3A energy storage