In the cold winter when everything is dormant, walking in the wilderness, a cup of steaming coffee can drive away the cold; a warm yellow camping lamp can illuminate the darkness of winter night; a satellite phone can keep the passage of life unblocked.
All this is inseparable from outdoor portable power station, but the question is, What capacity of portable power station should we buy to meet the needs of outdoor activities?
Output Power
In outdoor activities, each of us has different preferences. Some people are keen on long-distance hiking, and some people are keen on "light luxury" style camping or RV self-driving.
Different preferences have different equipment options. For hiking, you should bring electronic equipment such as mobile phones, cameras, headlights, and GPS;For long-distance self-driving, in addition to the above equipments, you should also carry high-power equipment such as drones, rice cookers, coffee machines, and car refrigerators. To maintain the operation of these devices, the supply of electrical energy is necessary.
There are power banks and power stations on the market. The former is mainly used to charge low-power devices; the latter is used to provide electrical energy for high-power devices.In addition to considering the supply of electric energy, it is also necessary to consider the output power of the power supply.
The output power is mainly rated power. The rated power of common outdoor power supplies is 500W, 1000W, 2000W, etc., which determines whether the power supply can carry electronic equipment. For example, I want to use an 800W electric oven when camping, but the power station input power is only 500W, so the outdoor power supply cannot be driven.
Battery Capacity
Battery capacity is one of the important indicators for purchasing an portable power station. mAh (milliampere-hour) and Wh (watt-hour) are the units of marked capacity. The power bank is mostly marked with mAh (milliampere-hour), while the portable power station is marked with Wh (watt-hour).
This is because small-capacity devices such as power banks mostly use a single-cell, rated voltage structure, and the mAh label can accurately reflect the "battery capacity", but the portable power station uses multi-cell, series or parallel high-capacity charging devices, using The mAh label is not accurate. Therefore, the portable power stations on the market are represented by Wh, which is more rigorous and can reflect "battery energy".
Taking lipower as an example, it uses the Wh power labeling method, and there are many products such as 296Wh, 472Wh to 1100Wh. If you choose the 472 kWh portable power station, what can you do with it outdoors?
Through the above picture, we know the time or number of times that various devices can be used. How is it calculated?
Power station capacity * actual loss (0.9) / operate power of your device = number of charging times, so that we can roughly estimate the required outdoor power supply capacity according to the number and power of electronic equipment we use.Of course this result is only an estimate. Because in the actual use of outdoor portable power station, it is affected by factors such as ambient temperature and conversion rate.
Power Ports
There are many interfaces for portable power station. The input ports have three types: AC outlet, car charger and solar panel. Among them, solar energy is the supplement of the first two charging methods, which can prolong the time we use the power supply outdoors. Its charging speed is affected by the number and material of plates, the intensity and angle of sunlight.
For example, the Lipower 100W solar panel APOLLE100 adopts high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon, IP67 waterproof and dustproof, which realizes the effect of high-efficiency conversion and high-power power generation outdoors, and supports simultaneous charging and discharging, allowing you to charge while plugging in the solar panel outdoors.
In addition to the input ports, the outdoor power station also has an output ports. AC, DC, USB, and Type-C are common output interfaces.
AC output: used for charging computers, fans and other equipment with national standard triangular sockets and flat sockets.
DC output: It is the DC output interface. Usually used for notebooks, tablets, etc.
Car charger output: used to charge various car equipment, such as car refrigerator, rice cooker, etc.
USB output: used for electronic devices with USB interfaces such as juicers, electric fans, etc.
Type-C output: It is an interface with fast charging technology, which is faster than USB charging. Commonly used in mobile phones, computers, etc.
Power cell
We often hear reports of electric bicycles exploding while charging, but there are few reports of outdoor power sources exploding. Why? The safety of the portable power station depends on the cell, which is the core of the portable power station and directly determines the stability and performance of the portable power station.
Outdoor power sources can be divided into liquid lithium-ion batteries and polymer lithium-ion batteries according to different electrolytes. The most obvious visual difference between the two is the difference between liquid state and solid state; in terms of performance, polymer batteries are viscous. They have better plasticity than liquid lithium-ion batteries, and are safer and more stable. Therefore, high-end power supplies will Using polymer lithium-ion batteries.
The polymer battery is usually named after the material used in the positive electrode. Commonly used positive electrode materials are lithium cobalt oxide（LCO）Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) and Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (NMC).
Lipower portable power stations adopt the latest battery tech, the high energy density and stable performance of NMC batteries offer high capacity in a compact package. Supports external temperatures from -4℉ to 104℉.In addition，Battery Management System (BMS) improves battery utilization and extends battery life. The system also provides short circuit protection, overcurrent protection, over-voltage protection, overload protection, overheating protection, and other functions.