Absolutely phenomenal video! You answered so many of the corner-case questions that I had on the AC2A. I wish more video reviewers took such a solid engineering approach to reviews like you did in this one. Bravo!!
Another great and very thorough review! I have had 2 EB3A's operating in the UPS mode for almost a year and a half, each with about a 30 watt load and have never had an issue. One even runs a 135 load each day with no issues. I did find that you must set the charging mode to turbo in order for the UPS function to work consistently. In your time lapse video of the AC2A over a 48 hour period, i noticed it did the same thing as my AC70 and AC180. I saw at least one instance where the incoming AC wattage jumps even though the output wattage remains constant. It is very pronounced on the AC 70 where the fan comes on and the battery actually cycles between 99% and 100% while operating as a UPS (strange the EB3A is the only one with a UPS icon, which is not present on the AC2A, AC70, and AC180). Really glad that the new ones are all properly grounded, but they seem to be a lot busier with the battery than the EB3A is when acting as a UPS (which i have added external pass thru grounding for safety).
You are the most thorough reviewer of power stations on RU-vid. Really enjoy your videos! What is the worst case UPS transfer time you have measured? A transfer time of 12ms is fantastic and competes with 10ms offline UPS units. Now I'm interested in the AC70... Can it replace my computer UPS? The AC2A may overload with some desktop computers at full load.
I have an AC70 I'm using as a UPS. I would like to know what the switchover time is, I've found reviews with oscilloscope testing on just about every other Bluetti power station 😬 and they do seem to be consistently in the 10-15ms range so I would expect the AC70 is too. I personally tried out the EB3A, AC2A, and AC70. Noise was an issue for the EB3A. When not using the computer, the room quiet, sitting about 15 feet away, The EB3A would occasionally make a buzzing noise (quiet but enough to be annoying) and then fan would come on a bit (again quiet but enough to be annoying). I don't remember how often, maybe every hour or couple hours, likely just when it has to top up the battery (WaveformScience actually explains why in his "Bluetti UPS Modes" video). I actually experienced this with 2 different EB3As and reading around forums it sounds like this buzzing is a known annoyance with the EB3A. And it's buzzing from the fan controller, not the fan, swapping an aftermarket fan won't help. The AC2A I would occasionally notice some light fan noise but not enough to be annoying, very usable as a UPS in a quiet room, in my opinion. I ended up sticking with the AC70 for my UPS though for capacity. My computer could be browsing the internet for a couple hours at best on an AC2A, but would be kept up for several hours on the AC70 watching videos or even gaming. And the AC70 I never heard any noise from AT ALL when sitting across the room. I occasionally notice some fan noise when I'm at the computer, but it's less than the computer fan when it comes on. With the computer on standby, the AC70 either doesn't need it's fan when topping up the battery or it's so soft I don't notice when not right next to it, or it's so infrequent it just hasn't happened while I'm in the room and the room is quiet.
Thank you so much for this! I learned something important here and it’s making me reevaluate this tiny device, I never realised how having a more powerful inverter, which was why I initially ignored this, came at such an efficiency cost, but even more importantly your video is so in depth it illustrates the extent of that efficiency cost, and it forces me to rethink my actual use cases for my eb3a in the first place, because very rarely and almost just for fun, would I use 500w appliances with it’s inverter anyway… I hope you are considering the ac70, I would love to learn about it ❤
In testing the ac2a that we are currently testing the explanation from bluetti of the handle design is so it can be strapped to a quad or snowmobile rack and no moving parts less things to break on the go . So far, it's performed fine in the field on week long backpacking trips on the Appalachian trail, We tested it hooked up to a 100w swarey folding solar panel and another Renogy eflex folding 100w panel and the claims of bluetti are true as far as charge times .
I didnt hear you mention the annoying screen shutting off on all the other units ive seen review but i didnt see it shut off on this new model. BTW i did fall asleep because of the ASMR (unintentional) effect.
Not a bad unit from the tests. For what I would use it for I think the eb3a is better for the money just based on battery power. I would not use a small unit like this for a ups unless I was in a vehicle and using it just to keep something going when the main solar system dies due to long periods of no sun. I would like to find someone that does as thorough testing as you on other brands. But it is nice to have somewhere to find all the info on Blutetti products that you can possibly ask for.
Curious why you had the DC turned on during the first 12 mins or so beyond when doing DC testing? Ah, later in the video you mention to keep the unit on vs auto shutoff. Then that brings up how long before auto shutoff happens with no load. I assume auto shutoff is different from the screen turn off option shown in the app. Thanks again for the great testing/review!!
great video, a lot of explanation but what if I have 17-20watts Load no matter DC or AC, Eco Mode off, Power Lift off, Grid Adapt off, but it shuts itself every 48 hours for no reason no alarms?
QQ - And probably a dumb one, Can the AC2A switch itself from normal AC input to Solar power if it detects that it's receiving enough solar power to Self-Consumption? in other words If there's enough solar power can it stop charging and save its battery for night time and pass thru energy to appliances connected to it directly? I believe you call this Solar Self-Consumption.
Does the AC2A have an "AC Always On" feature? That is to say, if it is being used as a UPS, and the outage is of sufficient length that the battery is fully depleted and the unit turns off, can it be configured to turn the AC output on automatically when grid power is restored?
Hi Jeff, I was disappointed to see that something so portable as this can’t be charged via usb c, so I wanted to ask if you know of any adapters I could use to work around the issue and/if there’s any caveat to be aware of?
Very thorough review, thank you! I have several Cyberpower 1500PFCLCD UPS units and I'm wondering if it would be smarter to just have a bunch of these instead. I'm used to lead-based UPSes where they need batteries replaced every 4 years. I'm wondering having LiFePO4 batteries sitting at 100% for years plugged in would be any better? The load on my UPS is under 200W so that's not a problem.
Would you happen to know the range of AC input frequency and voltage that the AC2A can handle before stopping charging and/or shutting down passthrough? We will be installing a Generac whole-house standby generator, and I need a ridethrough UPS/EPS for some networking equipment. I need to make sure that the AC2A will continue providing power to the networking equipment after the genset spins up. (My other functional requirement is an extremely low/silent noise level.) This information is not in the AC2A specs, and Bluetti tech support is non-existent. Also, in your travels have you seen an EPS with a USB communication port that can signal a NAS to do an orderly shut down when the EPS loses AC input power? I have a second "technology shelf" with a QNAP NAS. If I can't find an EPS with this communications functionality, I'll have to use a full double-conversion UPS like the Eaton 9SX700.
I don't know if it was mentioned (went through the transcript and didn't see it), but the AC2A has a 5 yr warranty vs 2 years for the EB3A. Since I tend to price things partially based on $/yr, I'd say it makes the AC2A much more appealing unless you really need the extra power/feature of the EB3A. I plan on using this as a UPS to backup my CPAP so the extra year would come handy since my current 360$CAD Medistrom battery died after only 3 years (but way more portable than the Bluetti too). Amazing video review BTW.