My FIRST off-grid battery: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 First Impressions Review!
*BUY Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 +100W Solar panel HERE! (commissions earned)
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What happens when you try to harvest free sunshine in the dregs of a UK winter?
I'm unboxing the Jackery Explorer 1000 portable power station alongside the SolarSaga 100W solar panels. With headlines about power cuts, I think I'm starting some "gentle prepping" to make sure my family doesn't moan at me, I mean stays powered up during a blackout.
I walk you through the simple setup of the 100W bifacial solar panels, including how to use the clever sun-target indicator for maximum efficiency. And even try out direct USB phone charging, generating my first few watts of off-grid energy. If you are looking for a portable, reliable power solution for emergencies or garden office use, is this the right place to start?
Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?
TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
What happens when I buy my very first portable power station and 100W, yes, 100 WATTS of solar panel? What's it like to unbox? Can I just plug it in for the first time? And more crucially, will this be the solution to put solar panels up on the Happy Hut in the background? Hello. Welcome back to Dad Delivers vlog. This is a a big day for me and my family. It's, how can I put this? It's very gentle prepping. There have been lots of really iffy headlines uh recently, especially here in the UK, of vital infrastructure just not working, just things just stopping very suddenly. And it's being presented to us as if it's completely normal. But if it were to happen uh on a bigger scale, I know the first problem for me as a dad would be the family would be moaning at me about I can't plug my phone in. Even though your phone probably doesn't work in a in a big infrastructure shutdown, but I've got to keep my back covered with this. It's the Jackery Explorer 1000. Okay, let's look at the specs, but keep it simple. Under the hood, we've got a 1,070W hour battery. In dad speak, that's enough juice for a portable fridge all day or charging your phone about 90 times, which for my knackered phone is about a day. It pumps out 1,500W of AC power, so could handle coffee makers and even some power tools. Though, I'm not sure I'll be doing that much DIY during a national catastrophe, but it's nice to have that option. I've even tested it by plugging in my Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier in the hut and it seems to work just fine. It's got all the ports we actually use, including a 100W USB-C for the laptop. So, I could do some editing for when the internet comes back on. And when it's empty, it'll charge from zero to full from a wall outlet in under 2 hours. Plus, with this 100W solar panel, we're basically running on free sunshine. Up yours, power company, I'm going to bill my own family! All from a unit that's light enough to carry. Now, I can hold this with with one hand, which is amazing. I mean, it's really heavy. But what I really like about this is its size. And I like it kind of jolly shape and jolly colours as well. I'll be able to find it in the event of emergency in the darkness. So, I might be able to, you know, not trip up on it. But I've also bought these. Let me tilt the camera. The SolarSaga 100. These are 100W solar panels that are bifacial and which open up. So, they're easy to store, but more importantly, they're even easier to put up because they're very light. Let me tell you some more about the solar panels. They are shock resistant. They are waterproof to a rating of IP68 and dust resistant. Jackery explained they are made with the leading IBC technology bi-facial energy generation. I think that means that it can generate power from the sunlight and from reflected light. And they have two really handy carry handles as well. So, uh, that's nice. Makes them really portable. Now, I couldn't quite work out from the videos on YouTube how the solar panels work. of the solar saga 100W solar panels work. So basically this is what the 100W panel looks like and it's magnetic so it folds up really easy and snaps shut. And then on the back they have these two Velcro straps that act as stands. So, if I show you behind here, obviously it' be a lot easier to do this on the ground, but helpfully they're labelled "top" so you know that uh it's this way up and they prop up the panels on the ground. There are I don't know what you call this, cleated holes, so I could use rope, I guess, to hold that in place. Let me know in the comments if I'm uh wrong about any of this, but this is my first impressions having opened a solar panel for the very first time. And there's also this curious device here. It looks like a target with a spot on it. Now, I'm thinking that is some way of targeting the sun. So, the sun at the moment, I'm going to point the camera straight into the sun. Uh it's over there. So, the sun is that way. And I can see from the circle there's like a shadow. So, if I tilt it this way, I'm hoping, can you see there's a shadow cast by that dot? And then you can turn the panels to target the the sun. But I'm thinking if I turn the panels to face the sun. So, I'm assuming this is a clever way. There you go. That's that's bang centre there. That is getting maximum sun if the other half hadn't folded over. It's a lot easier to do this on soft ground. The panels themselves are are really light. It's kind of like if you can imagine this size in heavy cardboard. They really are light. So I think I really would have to chalk them down. If I were to put them up on the on the happy heart, I think I'd really have to kind of lash it to the roof so they wouldn't blow away in the stormy weather we're having at the moment. Now I think the solar panels are called bi-facial that they capture light as well as from the front. the light can pass through and I believe this means that it can pick up reflected light as well. So, it's supposed to pick up more solar to uh generate inter power. It also comes with this lead and I'm going to plug it in for the first time. I've never done this before. So, this really is a test to see how straightforward it is for someone who's new to solar. If I pull this rubber top off, it reveals this socket. On first glance, it has this box on it with two USB connections, USB-A, USB-C, and a light. So, I'm wondering if I could just plug that straight into my phone uh without the need for the power box. So, just to experiment, I've just got the uh the panels out loosely. So, we're going to see if this uh USB output works just by itself. offices panels. There's the output. You're about to plug it into your iPhone. Oh, yeah. Charging. Is it saying how much? And what's the what the number of watts? One watt. It is 3:00. It is an hour before sunset, late November. But we But look, I'm getting a free one watt. So, that works. The only plug that fits this socket is this one here. So, I'm just going to push it straight in. And it looks as if it has a particular way that it goes round. So, it's almost like a figure of eight cable, but there's this notch here. So, I'll make sure that the plug is that way round. I should push it in all the way. Bit difficult to check one handed. That's all the way in. Great. And then I'm assuming I plug this into the power station. And it looks as if there's some kind of adapter. I'll try this one. Right. That seems to look like it works. and so does that one. So, hmm, I don't know why there are two connections. Now, it doesn't actually say in the instruction manual which plug you're supposed to use. What I have found out is that one of these plugs is an 8.0mm plug and the other is an 8.1mm plug. And I can see on the side here it says DC8020. On the cable that goes to the solar panel, there's etched a DC number there, 8020. So, that is the plug that's meant to go into the power port. It would be really nice if that was explained a bit more clearly given the price of this thing. I do not want to wreck it. So, I push it in like that. It goes in okay. Let's see what happens if I stand out of the way of the solar panel so that the solar can reach it. And you can see because it's new out of the box - falling down one of Casper's holes. It likes to bend. So, I'm hoping over time that will open out a bit more so that both panels will face the sun. Only that panel is really super on target with the setting sun here in the UK. So, what I'm going to do now is see if anything is happening on the box. And oh my goodness, the the display has come to life, but it says input 5W. So, am I getting 5 watts from the uh last dregs of the sun? Now, the display's gone off. And I think that's to uh to save power. Let's try press the power button again. See if anything comes to life. Right. So, the the display has come to life. I'm going to try and open up the solar panels a bit further right next to the stinging nettles. Let's pull these back. I've got uh a tree in the distance kind of putting dappled sunlight onto the solar panels. If I just angle it a bit more aggressively towards the sun. Let's see if that improves things. It's gone down. Oh no, it's 6 Watts. I've increased my solar power generation to 6 Watts. This is pretty much the last week of November in the UK where traditionally the sun is probably nearing its weakest. Since I've been filming, the sun is setting behind these trees. There are no leaves on it, but it's enough to probably zap the power. I've got a bit of a shadow from my chair here. Let's move the chair. I got a clump of grass here that's probably not helping. Tread that down. All I need now is for Casper to run up and uh use it as a toilet. And then I think we've got the full set. Let me show you the the dot indicator. Almost bullseye. I won't move it anymore because it is really difficult to manhandle at the moment. It's a bit stiff. So I think that's the best I'm going to do. And I've managed to bring up if I press the power button, I've brought up the input to 7 Watts. This is my very first 5, 6, 7 watts that I've generated in my life. It feels like a a moment. This feels like a bit of a milestone for me. By the way, to charge this up like a regular power pack, you can get the the very nice power cord that comes with it. And I'll just plug the power cord in to the side here. And then let's see what happens. Wrong way. It's lit up. Now, this is completely empty, but you can see that the input is 347 Watts. I was going to put a power meter on. I didn't realize it would actually show it on the display. You can see a percentage and obviously the output's zero but it it looks as if it's giving a uh a rough time for charging. So it says 3.4 hours. There is even a symbol in the corner to show that the power cord is attached. And now we can see it has jumped to 1%. So I've got a while before this charges up. I... I... as I might have mentioned I've really... I'm really obsessed with solar power. Um, and it it just felt like such a expensive thing to to buy. But now that I've... I've got an ability to charge up a phone in an emergency, a phone that almost certainly wouldn't work if we've lost power. Um, I don't know if we'd still have mobile networks, but maybe we could charge up a... a tablet or a laptop to do some local work for local people. Even if the internet has gone down, it does feel good that I've finally provided power for my family and that in... in the unlikely event of a catastrophic uh scenario where infrastructure goes down, at least I won't have the family moaning at me, I'll be able to say, "No, I've got... I've got you 7 watts of power. Enjoy it. This is more than other people have. I feel like I'm providing. I feel like I'm uh creating here. I'm calling this a dad delivers success. Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if this is helping. I'm now blocking the sun, just losing some vital watts, but at the end of the day, but what I did want to say was all my other videos are right here and this is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.
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