I have the same unit and love the 30amp trailer receptacle. I wasn’t keen on having it outside so I split the shore power feed under the cabinet to a 40 amp 3 position rotary switch. Installed a second female receptacle in the trailer and made a small pony cord with 30 amp ends so I didn’t have to have the long shore power cord inside. The rotary switch is 1 for regular shore power, 2 is power from the Bluetti unit now safely inside the trailer and 0 for off, or DC only. No worries about weather or theft. We run our toaster, ninja mixer and the microwave all like having an electrical site.
@@jeffw8611 that's awesome! I seriously considered doing that but then got lazy. We only camp without an electrical hookup 2 or 3 times a year. I keep it on the picnic table under the awning. If I have to bring in the awning I put the Bluetti in the box of my truck under the cap and run the cord out to it. Your way is much better. Maybe I'll get motivated and do it.
@jeffw8611 That sounds great and I would like to do something like that on my Lance truck camper. Do you have pictures or a video of what you did and a list of the parts used? Thanks!
Just got this exact product on a very nice sale on Amazon. I plan on using this in conjunction with my Rivians 135 KwH battery to power my RV. The Rivians 120v AC outlets only output 1500 Watts, so between that and the roughly 300 Watts from solar, theres a real possibility I could stay powered for quite a while, if not as long as my Rivian battery lasts.
It sounds like your checklist of what you were looking for was very similar to mine. I also ended up with the 200L and a solar panel after my generator packed it in and did not want to replace it. Depending on where you camp, it is certainly not an endless supply of power but has definitely been a game changer in running more things and staying longer without running out of power. It fits in one of my storage compartments and run the 30 amp cable to it. I really enjoy the odd person walking by, stopping, trying to figure out what the heck I am doing with a cable out in a campground with no hookups and say, "can I ask you a question?" - lol! It has been a great conversation starter. I was blown away when it fired up my AC unit as well. Just need more batteries to keep it going longer!
@@edword3457 I ran the AC non-stop for 45 minutes to get the temp down from 30 Celsius to 23 Celsius and the AC200L went from 100% to 31% in that time.
Awesome review! We have an older version (BLUETTI Portable Power Station AC200P, 2000Wh) and never thought about turning off the inverter! That’s an Awesome tip!
Turning off the converter made a big difference for us. I hated when 700 watts would be pumping out as soon as I turned it on and I just wanted to use the microwave for 2 minutes or we wanted to watch TV for two hours and we used up 70% of the power station because it's charging the trailer batteries at the same time.
Very good review, thanks. I have a small RV, no air conditioner but has a microwave, furnace, TV, radio, 3 way fridge, Hot water tank (electric and gas) Maxair fan, 2 burner stove. Kitchen is in the back where you have access to it while outside only. I've had this RV, new, for almost 6 camping seasons. I have just over 200 nights in it and have only used power hookups for about 12 nights, the rest is off grid. I do pretty much the same as you for solar and have never run short of power. I have 100 watt GoPower panel on top and a 90 watt GoPower suitcase with controller built in along with a GoPower 30 ft cable to extend to the more sunny areas. The GoPower connector plugs directly into my 7 pin to charge the 2 Group 24 lead acid batteries with a combine 160 ah of storage. Of course being lead acid you should only take is down no more than 50%, which I do. I have a 1500 watt storage with 3000 watt surge along with a 400 watt portable solar panel. I use this power bank when my batteries get low. I plug the power bank directly into the RV and use the disconnect to shut off the batteries so the 100 solar panel will charge the batteries. I can run on the power bank for up to 2 days like this. I run at 30 watts normally and increases when the furnace kicks in. I live in northern Alberta so the nights get pretty cool so the furnace does run. Anyway, I agree with your info as I have be doing it the same way for just over 4 years without any issues. Thanks again for the review.
You are someone that knows what they're talking about. Sounds like you have it figured out. When it's time to get new batteries I'd suggest looking into some LiFePO4 batteries. I found that they made a world of difference for me. You can run them down to almost 0%, they're lighter and they're much easier to monitor with a bluetooth app. That was the biggest upgrade for me. Money wise they are a good investment as they last at least twice as long as lead acid. I upgraded from two 85 ah lead acid with a total of 85 usable amp hours to two 100 ah LiFePO4 batteries with a total of 200 usable amp hours.
You can get expansion batteries that work with AC200L like 2- B300 which you can have 6,144 wh or 2-B210 4,300 wh or 1- B230 2,048 wh. Bluetti sent AC200L and PV350 for free.
I used it with air-conditioning last week. It was about 30 Celsius outside and I set the thermostat in the trailer to 23 Celsius. The AC ran for 45 minutes straight to get the trailer down to 23. The AC200L went from 100% to 31% in that time. I didn't run it anymore but once the trailer is down to temp the AC runs for much shorter periods of time to keep it to temp. If you had a sunny day and just needed to cool it down for a short period of time you could run it then charge it up over a few hours with solar so you're good to run it again.
Great review. Portable power like this has many advantages for sure. Before buying one myself I’m looking at options to keep it outside the trailer (connected to my 30amp rv plug) but keep the unit out of the elements. Solar panels that can’t take some rain is a bit of a disadvantage.
I keep it on the picnic table bench under the trailer awning. I use a heavy duty bicycle lock to lock it to the picnic table. You could buy some all weather solar panels from somewhere and use them. They likely wouldn't be as easily portable and transportable though. There are always trade offs when figuring out what works best for you.
Another great product review. I have a 1000w jackery power station, which I used a lot during car camping & using my Instant pot, but it is not powerful enough to get the AC going in our new travel trailer. I might just switch to Blueti. Thank you for sharing.
@@CampingwiththeColes i should have... you would have made a commission and I'd have saved $100. Im going to email them and tell them I made the purchase because of your video... maybe they will acknowledge you somehow.
Jackery was a little slow in switching to the LiFePO4 batteries. Many of their power stations have them now, but not all. LiFePO4 batteries are where it's at now.
I tried starting my 15k BTU ac on my Intech OVR and it did not work. The a/c comes equipped with a soft starter, too. But the compressor never kicked in upon doing the test.
My ac kicks in at 2400watts. Then goes to 1400.my AC200L wouldn’t run trailer and AC together,trailer was already using 400watts for other accessories ,I have isolated my AC from trailer breaker box,my AC200L ran ac no problem,
@@jimmyFX I agree with what you're saying. During all my tests I had just unplugged the trailer from power before doing the tests so the trailer batteries were full. In real world applications the trailer batteries are not full and they do a big draw of, what I've seen up to 700 watts, to charge the batteries. The AC wouldn't work then. I flip the converter breaker off in the trailer to prevent the AC200L from charging the trailer batteries and the AC works no problem.
On a hot day I don’t see the ac running more than - a couple hours total which probably would not keep the rv cool for very long. Correct me if I am wrong.
I just got the AC70 this year. I'm tent camping this summer so we'll see how much power I end up needing. Considering getting the pv200 panel too but I was just wondering if the comfort stations had outlets I could top up at, so thank you for mentioning that! Love that I could also charge up with the car too so seems like I have lots of options.
I would think that the AC70 would be plenty of power for tent camping. Charging from a wall outlet is many times faster than charging from a car. If you're lucky you can get about 100 watts from the cigarette lighter whereas withe AC70 charging from a standard AC outlet you can get 850 watts. With the AC200L you can get a max of 2400 watts from an AC outlet although the max I have seen so far is 1400 watts.
That's great info, I had no idea how much I could get from a car. Will definitely consider saving up for a panel, they look like great quality. Also very happy to see Bluetti supporting you guys, I'm glad I chose their powerstation, super excited to try it out! 💙
Great review about the Bluetti. Love the idea of being able to run the trailer off it. Do you know if it is it compatible with other solar panels? I have a go power 120w panel that I like to use and just purchase the unit.
Great Review thanks! This was the unit I was considering over the winter and was wondering what my AC would draw. I’m curious, if you were hooked up to a power source (solar panel or 120v) what would be the duration of available power?
I normally keep the Bluetti on a table under the awning of the trailer. If the weather is so bad that I have to retract the awning I put the Bluetti in the enclosed box of my pickup truck where it is protected by the cap. I run the cord out to it.
If you had two 350-watt solar panels charging the Bluetti, would you be able to run the AC all day and still maintain a good charge for the evening and night?
@@Jeremy-am the AC when running uses 1200-1800 Watts. Two 350 watt solar panels with full perfect sun would only bring in a max of 700 watts. So, under perfect maximum solar generation you'd still be consuming more power than your generating. Now, to be fair the AC doesn't usually run non stop but also rarely do you get perfect solar conditions. I certainly wouldn't really on it to get you through heavy AC usage.
Hey there. Just purchased an AC200L and hooked up my class C RV to it for the first time today. I'm getting a "shore power fault" error message. When I connect my EMS (surge protector) to the Bluetti, I get an "open ground" error. Do I really need to connect a ground wire to the Bluetti? Ugh!
I don't really see a need to attach a surge protector to a power station. If you ever plug a surge protector into a generator of any kind it will always show an open ground error. You can get a grounding plug for it if you really want to use a surge protector. I always use a surge protector when plugged into an electrical outlet because you never know what you're plugging into and don't know if it's wired correctly. The Bluetti has a BMS that would shut it down if it wasn't working correctly and it can't really surge because it only has as much power as the batteries can hold. I'm no expert in this but that's my thoughts on it. Here is a video about whether or not you need to plug a surge protector into a generator, from the National RV Training Academy ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0pnSvxokYWI.html
Terrific review Ben! Might be a dumb question, but, can it be recharged with a 30 amp plug from one of those Parks Ontario outlets and would there be any advantage to doing that vs. the standard 120 plug/extension chord?
Unfortunately, it has it's own proprietary plug that plugs into the charge port of the power station and the other end is for a standard 120 volt plug. If you had a 30amp to 20amp adapter that you could plug into the 30 amp outlet on the pedestal then you could plug into it. I'm not sure if it would give you more watts going in. I've only ever received 1400 watts going in even though it says it can take 2400 watts in. I'm going to try that next time to see if it can bring in more watts which equals a faster charge.
Wow! While it's running at 575 watts it'll only run it for about 4 hours. That's if the fridge ran non stop for 4 hours. It comes on and off as needed. I tested it with our BougeRV portable fridge that says its 60 watts so it should run it for around 35 hours or so non stop. It actually ran it for 156 hours.
Hi there. Jim and I purchased this product from Bluetti. Thank you for such a good and thorough review. Here is what we wrote: "We used our power station while camping on crown land. It was exactly what we needed. We heard about it when watching a "Camping With the Coles" segment. The link is: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8x8gWdPvCYo.htmlsi=S0DQY7JhS_rt--k1 Because of their positive review, we got one for ourselves. We are very satisfied. "
