Xantrex 852-2000 XPower Powerpack Portable Backup Power Source
January 23rd, 2007A kind reader ordered this Xantrex portable power unit from Amazon via Cryptogon. (Many thanks to whomever you are!) I had never heard about this thing, but as soon as I checked it out, I knew that several of you would like to know about it, too.
Xantrex 852-2000 XPower Powerpack 600HD Portable Backup Power Source
This looks like a great unit, at a weirdly low price, considering what it does. (I’d like to know where it’s made. At this price I have a guess…)
AC and DC out. Recharge on AC or DC. (Solar, wind or hydro, anyone?) If you have modest needs, this should be easily enough power for all of your (LED or fluorescent) lighting and small appliance/electronic needs. Compact. Portable. Multi function… Great stuff.
If you wind up building a weird little power station with this, please send pics!
The XPower Powerpack 600HD provides up to 600 watts of backup power during a power outage and emergency power when you’re in your vehicle or away from home. The XPower Powerpack 600HD will jump-start your vehicle in a roadside emergency. This portable power source will operate a number of AC and DC powered devices such as a cordless phone, TV, radio, fan, computer, laptop, printer, and more. Ideal for power emergencies, the XPower Powerpack 600HD comes with a built-in emergency light to keep you out of the dark and to provide light so others can see you if you’re stranded. It also features an AM/FM radio so you can stay connected to important news and weather updates during a blackout. It even charges mobile phones so you can stay connected to family and friends during a blackout. The XPower Powerpack 600HD also can be used to operate small power tools or at your worksite our outdoors so that you can get the job done even without an outlet nearby.
We lost power briefly last week in the ice storm so I wanted to be better prepared in the future.
The downside according to the Amazon reviews is the extremely limited charge-cycle lifetime.
I’m supposed to get this one tomorrow so I’ll charge it up and see if I can (unscientifically) judge the battery degradation over a few cycles.
The ideal complements to this unit would be a high capacity inverter which could charge it quickly, and a reasonably efficient automobile to charge it off of. No need for a separate generator!
I plan to combine this unit with an inverter, my (4-cylinder, Korean) car, an all-weather extension cord, a battery-powered icemaker, and a high-efficiency “5-day” icechest, for long term low power primitive refrigeration.
I take no credit for this plan- it was part of a disaster preparedness plan linked off of LAtOC originally by someone named “Alphageek” on Daily Kos.
Neal,
Thanks for that information, and for buying the device via Cryptogon.
I know it sounds like legend, but have you heard the one about the 100 watt hour per day fridge?
http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.html
Re: the Xantrex, I wonder if it would be possible to connect more batteries in parallel (boost amps not volts) in an easy way? Probably not, but just wondering…
Alphageek is a well prepared paramedic. His experiences relating to hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans convinced him to write the series of articles on DailyKos. I have them saved, as they are excellent.
Xantrex builds a variety of good, solid little units combining battery backup with inverter in a small package. Xantrex is actually the former Trace Engineering, a well known and respected manufacturer of backup and off-grid PV inverters. And yes, these little all in one models are manufactured in the far east. It’s a good buy for the price, but does suffer some degradation of battery performance over a number of charge/discharge cycles. Standard fair for all but deep cycle batteries.
Neal has the right idea. I’ve actually had that emergency plan for years. It’s helped out several times.
I recently bought a 5,000 W power inverter for my bus. It’s enough to run the air conditioner for a short while on the batteries with the engine off. I need to test it with the engine running sometime. 🙂 It only has 2 12v batteries (set up as 24v), so I really need to put in more batteries, to make a larger bank so it’ll last longer.
You have to be careful with a high load inverter, with a small car though. If the load on the alternator goes too high, it’ll burn the alternator up fairly quickly.
Xantrex is a good brand, so this is very likely a good purchase, and an even better gift.
Here’s the Xantrex page:
http://www.xantrex.com/web/id/182/p/1/pt/29/product.asp
I would suspect there would be no problem with putting extra batteries on it. The big consideration would be how much stuff you run on it.
I took a no-brand unit apart a while back, to be a power supply for my laptop while flying. I got it through airport security, because I took the jumper cable part of it off, and removed all the identifying and warning stickers.
Now the problem.. The unit was enough to jump start a car, but as it turns out, my laptop draws a LOT of power. With the unit and a power inverter, I could run my laptop for about an hour. The laptop only lasts about 1/2 hour on it’s own batteries.
That’s not to say the idea sucks. When I made a cross country drive a few months ago, broadcasting video and GPS information over my Verizon air card, I found out that even my high power alternator, in my nice strong car wasn’t enough. My car has a 160A alternator, where you’ll find that small cars have a much (MUCH) smaller alternator, probably around 90A.
At idle after about 5 minutes, my battery would be drawn down enough to put on the warning lights on the dash, and made the engine run rough (down to about 9v). It was ok cruising, but that was rough, booting up and starting the required programs while driving.
In contrast, I can idle with everything on indefinately. That’s with the lights on (4 halogen headlights, 6 tail lights, 6 marker lights), interior light, map lights, air conditioner, radio, and XM receiver.
Even while driving at speed, I overloaded two different power inverters. One lasted for a few hours. The other lasted several hours, but eventually blew a fuse.
You should be aware, alternators are designed to work best between about 1,500 RPM and 6,000 RPM. At idle, they’re not putting out as much power as they should.
We had my laptop hooked up in my girlfriend’s Honda one day. It was daytime, so no lights were on, and the air conditioner was turned off. At idle, the inverter would beep due to low power, and the check engine lights would go on. That wasn’t for sitting for any length. It would start warning as soon as she stopped at a red light.
If I were to run something like this on a scale of planning for emergency backup for a long duration, I’d say have a bank of large deep cycle 12v batteries (big truck or boat batteries), and a large inverter.
I know of a battery “rebuild” shop where I live. It’s an interesting place. They literally rip the lead plates out of the battery, and replace them with fresh plates and acid. If you can find one locally, you’ll save a fortune versus new batteries.
It’s still quite likely you can use the Xantrax inverter that you have for it, but you’ll want to add a connection so you can hook up to your other batteries. 600W isn’t a lot though.
Yes this unit can connect to external batteries via the jump-start cables.
It charged really fast so it must have been shipped out fully charged.
This might sound stupid, but would one be able to swap the standard batteries in that Xantrex unit with some deep cycle batteries? Use the batteries that came with it for some other purpose?
Is the degradation of capacity bad? It probably depends on how far/often they’re discharged.
The electronics are probably designed specifically for what’s in that thing. It just seems like such a cool little package. Would the deep cycle bats even be worth doing on this scale?!
JWSmythe: 5000 watt inverter! HOLY CRAP! Man, we could run our electric oven and hot water cylinder with that thing (separately, at least) if we had an extra house to store all the batteries! HAHAHAHA
All batteries, even deep cycle ones, slowly degrade in performance over a number of charge/discharge cycles. Wear and tear, if you will (mechanical analogy). It’s only a question of how much, and how much is acceptable.
At the cost point in question, it is probably not worth it. A major factor is in how badly you drain the built-in cell pack. If you do not run it nearly dead, the battery can be recharged hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times. Even one discharge below 50%-60% of so, on the other hand, will shorten usable life and full charge level fairly significantly (5-10%).
Deep cycle batteries are similar, except that they can be drawn down to around 20% before suffering serious internal damage.
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