Another Atco's Collections Video - I'm getting into these solar generators. Got two little ones and they are cool. Trying different things like can I add more solar panels to my Jackery 500? Let's see... -- Atco
My God Sir. I’m just starting out and I had no clue about this. You helped me big time. I was actually about to buy some panels today. I’m so glade I found your channel. Thank you so much.
Thank you sir for your video. I get 90% from time to time and I do mean "time to time" with the 100w Jackery panel I purchased with my Jackery 500. I average about 65-70w. Panel quality does make a difference especially in low light conditions.
Thank you for this. We just bought a Jackery 500 and we’re told we couldn’t use any other panels but theirs to charge it. We have two renogy 100w panels sitting in the garage. I know companies prefer we buy theirs panels, so it is reassuring knowing others use other brands,
The jackery Explorer 500 has a very simple mppt charge controller. The charge rate in watts is directly related to input voltage. So if you want to charge the jackery at 100w you need to provide it with approximately 28.5V. Do not worry about having more than enough amps. 3.5 amps is the minimum required. I use a pre-charged controller. which is nothing more than a DC to DC buck converter that can accept a higher input voltage and be set to 28.5 volts out. Then I use the 12 volt cigarette lighter adapter that comes with the jackery to go between the pre charge controller and the jackery.
Great information. I just purchased this and the 100 w panel 15 miles nites ago. Well I will deal with what I got not to happy about the limited input watts
Popular for boondocking campers, but not for refrigerators, heat, AC, . or high demands. It will work for electronics and LED lighting very well, as auxillery 2nd power source.. These are great for boating, and can jump start the motor if the starter battery gets low. Most RVs have at least two battery systems. But for backup power at home, a Generac, or generator, that runs on natural or propane gas is best.
Great vids ATCO, a fave topic that I've researched for years. btw, there are solar panel regulators that work very well with multi panel setups, a must needed part of a solar battery system. I think wind and solar are over rated, and are an expensive investment; panels, batteries, regulators, inverters, replacements etc. The best way to make electricity is hydro dams. Then steam, which includes nuclear. Then fossil fueled generators. Then solar and wind. But as you've demonstrated here, solar and wind power ARE NOT FREE, or even cheap, and are not trouble free either!
I'll tell ya Don, these DC refridgerators are so effecient, they'll draw less than 50 watts an hour. If you go to a park or tent, 100 watts would cover a lot of lights and charge the cell phones and laptop as well. A Jackery 500 type of power station would run most of the evening, and if you had sun during the day you could use a solar panel or two and it would cover you thru the day and keep it changed to use at night. Not perfect, but sure beats the noise of a gas generator in your camp. Cool little things! See ya -- ATco
If you're making your own solar system you can buy just about any type of regular and/or charge controller that will allow you to add just about any time of solar panel you can find. For people who have that talent, you can buy quite the system! But now there are all-in-one boxes that can do a lot for your home. Still more for emergencies, but wouldn't be surprised to see more and more solar in homes. Wind is no longer worth while and cost for a home. I find my solar generators are great now for 6-24 hours without power. But still for me, the gas generator from that point on will be my main power with a long power outage. See ya -- Atco
You should take a look at this video. It describes a Y adapter to combine two 100 watt solar panels. These panels are from Jackery but any could be used. The point is inside your Jackery PowerStation 500 there "should" be a built in MPPT solar panel controller which manages the output from one or more solar panels. So, your statement that you can't or shouldn't use multiple solar panels is simply not correct. Here is the link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A9kV5-_O3JU.html Cheers
Hi Mitch - That's new on me, but I haven't looked into Jackery for a few years now. With my Jackery 500 that I bought a few years ago, it works with two 100 watt panels, as what the specifications said when I bought it, and it has worked fine. They did show more then 2 panels is not recommended. I know that my neighbor has a model 240 and it is recommend that no more than 1 panel shown be used. I have heard that people have used more then 2 panels on their Jackery 500 with no problem, but I would not recommend it, and I won't do more that 2 on mine. Too much stress on it. Make sure to look at the specifications for each of the Jackery models they are selling today and follow what they tell you to do. I wouldn't run anything when they said "it's on your own risk". See ya -- Atco
Hi Mitch - Hey, you asked me a question about the Jackery 500 and whether you can use it with two 100 watt panels. It's funny, I had a nephew come by just yesterday and wanted to use one of my solar generators and 100 watt panel when he goes to a picnic. As I looked at my 3 generators, I was wrong about the Jackery 500.. Their specifications recommend one 100 watt panel. The specifications don't really say one or two panels, as long as the output from solar is 100 watt or less at 12-30v and 3.5amp together. So that's why the manual says a second 100 watt panel is optional as long as all the specs of each panel fall withing the output of all panels at 100 watt, 12-30v, 3.5 amp together. My guess with these newer panels, probably you can get 75% output of one panel now and 2 will probably over pass the Jackery input specs. Make sure you look at the specs of any panel you are looking at and chose from there. For me, yes... I do use my Jackery 500 with only one panel. I was confused myself because my other 500 watt generator (different brand) does allow 2 panels with higher input then my Jackery. Hope that helps you to decide what you need and what you can use for best. See ya -- Atco
Q: I Have jackery 500, and 2 sets of the Jackery Solar 100W fold-able panels that each have the Anderson pole connector. I was only getting 38 to 50w charge in when used alone. I used a Anderson y spliter cable connect 2 panels to Jackery to get more watts in I still don't get over 100 watts on the display. It gets up to like 80 watt like the ac charger. I don't see any problems happening to the unit.
Well, a Jackery 500 watt power station can only charge up to 65 watts input whether you have 1 or more 100 solar panels installed or not. Plus, I wouldn't do it since the voltage and/or amperage from two 100 panels would pass the controller's input. Don't do it. Could damage the controller. But I have heard that those Jackery portable panels can get 60-65 watts out of one as long as the sun is hitting at the best time of the day and positioned correctly. If you just lay it out on the floor, you'll get less. Also, if you started your charge earlier in the day when the solar was low, the controller will held the input down. So if you think you should get more input, then pull out the input of the Jackery and plug it back again (that resets the controller). You'd be surprised that it will go higher after that. But still you'll never get more than about 65 watts no matter what. The Jackery 500 was designed for using only one 100 watt panel. Too bad, 2 panels would sure help. The new Jackery 1000 will have a MPPT controller that will be more efficient using the solar. I'm looking forward to see the specs of that. I think it's due to come out somewhere in March. See ya -- Atco
Great subject. I am getting ready to buy or build a solar generator for camping. One thing I think you are off a little on though is why you are only getting 55 watts or so. The Jackery is limited to 3.5 amps and your panel is probably putting out about 18 volts. 18v times 3.5amps = 63 watts maximum. The Jackery does not have the most efficient charge controller either so that is probably where your loss is coming from. You could, in theory, put two panels in series and then use a DC/DC converter to lower the voltage down under the 30 volt maximum. The AC charger runs a DC voltage of 25 volts and that is why it can charge so much faster.
Hi Shasta - The best input of solar from my 100 watt panel has been 61 watts. But on a clean, sunny day it will charge around 56 watts for a few hours continuously. I talked to Jackery and said the PWM controller will limit the solar input to about 60 watts +/- 2 watts. I just bought another 500 watt power station from RockPals. Got it on their Christmas sale. Currently asking it for $459, and I got it for $344 including tax and shipping. Looking forward to see how it will handle it's input of solar. My Jackery 500 will only handle one 100 watt panel. The RockPals will handle 2, plus it uses a MPPT controller rather then the PWM. I hope I should get 140 watts input on a good day using two panels. We'll see, and will do a video of my new RockPals soon. See ya -- Atco
Thank you I’m a newbie too and only looked at the 100w...thank god I watched your video before buying...there is a dc- dc gizmo where you could adjust the voltage and amps to meet the 100w requirement...I think anyway...UNLESS the built in MPPT will adjust it for you...18v X 3.5amps = 63watts...if your single 100w panel can charge the Jackery higher than 63 watts (on a clear blue day) then I think adding another panel should work and give you the 100w you want even on a partial sunny day...maybe ...if if if
Hi Michael - Jackery makes great units. But, the 500 watt unit with only one 100 watt panel and using a PWM controller is terrible. Many of the other similar 500 watt units will handle 2 100 watt panels and some even with MPPT controller for the same price or cheaper. The new jackery 1000 does. For me it's a big pricey for what you get from it though. I will still buy one once I can get one on sale for $799, but the retail of $999 is too high for me. Put $400 bucks more into it and you can buy a EcoFlow with 1800 watt, can handle 3 or 4 panels, 1280 wh and a fast AC recharge. Many other new companies coming in. See ya -- Atco
I got a Paxcess 120w panel and a Jackery 500 just recently. Only tested it once so far. Around 10 o'clock clear day with very slight haze got about 72 watts. Un plugged it then tried again and got 70. Maybe could of got more if I played with the angel of the panel. Do you think I got a newer version of the jackery 500? Maybe they changed the PWM controller
Bought a dokio 100watts solar panel for my 500 but the but lost I got out of it was 58,this was a sunny no clouds and the panel was up to temperature. I’m leaning that the panel are no equal even within the brands some are good and some are just ok very disappointed on my trip had to learn the hard way.
Of course it does at least considering the amperage. That's what its purpose is (apart from the MPPT). The charge controller decides which amperage to pull from the solar panel(s). So adding up the amperage ratings from the solar panels does *not* help to answer the question it it will harm the Jackery. So, in essence, connecting the solar panels in parallel should work. However, judging by publicly available information, the charging power of the Jackery depends on the voltage. Thus, connecting two panels in parallel won't probably increase the charging power.
Solar installers suggest we "overpanel" our inverters by as much as 50% so that on the less bright days we can get more out of the one inverter. On the bright times of day the inverter limits the input to the max allowed by the inverter even thought the array is actually producing more, but in essence the inverter controls what it will pull in. The voltage still must be within range as the inverter can not limit the voltage and only the watts coming. That describes my sunny boy inverter but there is no battery on that system. Still, I would like to see someone try a 200 watt panel under 30 VDC and see how the Jackery handles it. If you think about there are times when a solar panel will suddenly have a spike of higher output due to lensing from a passing cloud so one can speculate that any system should be able to operate fine with overwattage?? Anybody tried it?
help please ,, i see some videos say you must use the jackery solar panel,,, and another video saying all you have to do is change the plug in back of a off brand is this true? so what did you do ? and very important to me can you charge this up with a 300 watt carport plug inverter so as to use the 110 ac of the inverter???thank you
Hi D - I assume you have a Jackery 500 already just don't what to have to buy the brand Jackery 100 watt portable panel. It's a nice product, but it is expensive. No, any 12v solar panel that works normally around 18v (always check the specs of it before buying) will work. I bought a 100 watt panel for $85 on amazon with free shipping. I use it for my Jackery 500. I also have two other $85 panels that I use for my RockPals 500. The RockPals can handle 2 panels. The Jackery can only handle 1. More than likely it will come out with MC4 connections. Just buy a cable to connect to that short panel and on the other side a 8mm power plug that will plug into the Jackery. I think the 30' cable cost me around $22 if I recall. Either got it on amazon or ebay, don't remember. Be sure that if you are using that for your Jackery, buy the panel without the controller. Jackery has it's own controller inside of it. As far as your question about your 300 watt inverter, I don't quite follow of what you are trying to do. Explain more for me to understand. Do you want to plug that inverter into the Jackery? Are you trying to plug the inverter directly from solar panel? If that is the case, that won't work. -- Atco
@@atco21117 thanks for your time..... to use the carport charger for the jackery while driving would take a long time to charge but if you use a inverter pluged in the carport dock and plug the jackery 500 into AC plug into the inverter it would charge up a lot quicker wouldn't it?????? i'm asking not saying it would.. do you know ???thanks
I just bought the explorer 500 and a MC4 connector to 8mm cable to charge the hackery from my 100 watt renergy solar suitcase. For some reason it doesn’t do anything when plugged in and my solar suitcase keeps saying it’s not connected to a battery. I bought a second cable thinking that the first one was bad. Same result. Any ideas?
Hi Rescue - Well, I know you don't want to use the solar panel controller connected to the Jackery input. The 500 has it's own PWM controller inside. I have 3 solar panels with no solar panel controllers and the panels charge just fine. Might be worth calling Renogy and tell them how to bypass the Renogy controller panel so that you can connect the output directly from the panel to your 8mm input plug of the Jackery. Hope that will work. -- Atco
I Think Jackery are being very unhelpful I got a Jackery 500, If you do not buy the solar panels From them ,But their solar panels are about TWICE The price of other one's Be warned.
