Portable power stations are great, but I often get asked in the comments of my videos whether they can run a particular device and for how long. So in this short article and accompanying video, I’ll be demonstrating what a typical compact unit like this Jackery Explorer 240 V2 is actually capable of. I’ve recently done a thorough review of this unit if you’re interested.
The Explorer 240 V2 has a 256Wh long lasting LFP battery with a 300W maximum AC output. Jackery has a useful tool on their site to estimate run times, but the calculation is pretty straightforward. You need the power rating of what you’re plugging in, which obviously needs to be 300W or less. Then you divide that into the capacity of the battery which is 256Wh. This tells you how long the device will last in hours. Since I measured this power station to be only around 75% efficient, you need to then multiply this value by 0.75. So if I run these studio lights at 256W, I could run them for 256Wh/256W x 0.75 which is around 0.75 hours or 45 minutes off a fully charged battery.
So let’s start with something simple like this Milwaukee battery charger which is rated at 155W. Charging this 5Ah or 90Wh (5A x 18V) battery at 143W I’d be able to run the charger for around 256Wh/143W x 0.75 = 1.34 hours. And I should be able to fully charge at least two of these 5Ah batteries off a fully charged Jackery. Which could be super handy when you don’t have any power outlets nearby on a DIY job.
Carrying on the tool theme, it’s very handy turning corded tools cordless. You’re pretty limited with small power stations like this, but it just manages to run this 175W Dremel. At turn on it hits over 300W but then settles between 120W and 140W which is a total of around 90 minutes of continuous runtime.
Olight kindly provided this power station to mark a new collaboration between themselves and Jackery. So it would be rude not to use it to charge an assortment of Olight torches and lights. I’ve used a car charger adapter for some extra USB ports. Charging all these Olights consumed around 24W. A typical Olight torch charges at between 5 and 10W which is around 38 hours of charge time with the Jackery. It’s unlikely you’ll exhaust the battery just charging torches.
Portable power stations are great for power cuts. There is a spotlight on the unit itself but I ran this mains lamp with two LED bulbs off the AC outlet. It only consumes around 13W and would run for up to 15 hours.
And I can run my TV at just under 80W for 2.5 hours. You might also want to work in a power cut, so you’ll need your router and a computer.
There’s only one AC outlet on the Jackery, but there’s nothing stopping you plugging in a multi-way extension lead. I’ve got my desk lamp plugged in too. I am pushing almost 300W so I’d get less than an hour but still great in an emergency.
The Jackery will also work as a UPS or Uninterruptible Power Supply. Here I’m running my fairly power hungry video editing desktop computer which consumes between 100 and 150W most of the time. I have the Jackery charging off mains so the computer is actually bypassing the battery and running off mains. If I simulate a power cut by pulling the mains plug, almost instantly the computer switches to running off the power station’s battery.
And will run for up to 1.5 hours off the Jackery’s battery or until power comes back on. I’ve also used the Jackery as a UPS for long 3D prints.
I also tried charging my 14” MacBook Pro. You can charge off the 100W USB-C port or the AC outlet with the Apple charger and Magsafe cable. It can charge at up to 100W but that depends how empty the battery is. In this case it’s more useful to know the capacity of your laptop’s battery. The Macbook battery is 70W so I could completely charge my laptop almost 3 times off the Jackery.
Some devices like this EcoFlow fridge don’t consume constant power. The compressor turns on and off as required to keep the unit cool. It’s much harder to gauge what sort of runtime you’ll get off devices like this. I could use an energy monitoring plug like this cheap one off Amazon, to measure exactly how much the coolbox uses over 24 hours. I measured usage in KWh over one hour – longer would be far better but I got 13Wh, so I could run this fridge for around 15 hours. Running off the DC car outlet will be slightly more efficient. I measured around 86% efficiency off DC in my tests so you’d get almost 2 extra hours of runtime off DC.
You might also want to run a long video or timelapse with your action camera. My GoPro only needs around 2W so you could run it for almost a hundred hours or 4 days off this small power station.
With such a small load you could also keep the power station topped up with Jackery’s 40W solar panel. I’ve not got more than 15W from it, even on a sunny day, but that’s still enough for devices like this, or even your phone.
Hopefully this short article has given you a better idea of what a small power station like this can run, and for how long.
Don’t forget to take a look at my YouTube video at the top of the page, and again please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
Please help support website and my associated YouTube channel by sing my links below. It doesn’t cost you a penny more – and I’ll keep the link updated with any offers:
Jackery Explorer 240 v2 Portable Power Station: https://thetechnologyman.com/Jackery240V2 (use OLIGHT5 for 5% off all products until 31st May 2025!)
Olight: https://geni.us/kjOSZK (use JACKERY3 for 30% off all products until 31st May 2025!)
Leave a Reply