Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 500, 518Wh Outdoor Solar Generator Mobile Lithium Battery Pack with 110V/500W AC Outlet (Solar Panel Optional) for Road Trip Camping, Outdoor Adventure : Home Improvement

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 I will start this review on the company, Jackery behind the Explorer 500.I love Jackery! Jackery’s Customer Service is by far one of the best in theindustry. I have contacted them and received quick professional answers to myquestions. An outstanding company and technical support group, have a questionor problem? Simply email ([email protected]) and you’ll get a answer in a timelymanner. The Jackery Explorer 500W Lithium Portable Power Station is Big power ina small package and comes with a 24 month warranty. I love the small JackeryExplorer 500W charging station setup with my Jackery SolarSaga 100W solar panel.The Explorer 500W is compact portable power and offers safe charging withbuilt-in Over Voltage Protection, Short Circuit Protection, Battery managementsystem (BMS), a 500Watt pure sine-wave inverter capable of handling 1000watt surge,3 USB Type-A ports, 12V DC carport, two 12V 6MM barrel connectors and 110V AC outletat 500W max. The built-in backlit LCD screen displays charge/discharge rates,battery state of charge and rated at 500 cycles to 80%. It’s temperature ratingis 32F-104F which meets my camping needs. Here are some specifications whichmeet/exceed my needs such as: Lithium 518.4Wh/144,400mAh Lithium battery capacity,built-in inverter is 500W rated power and 1000W surge power from the built-inAC port, 24Ah/21.6V and input is 12V-30V at 3.5Amps. The following is my testand experience. Input charging times will vary depending on how empty/full thebattery is and how you charge it. So the following is based on battery being at 20%,charging by AC Outlet using the included Li-ion Battery Charger 25.2V at 3.5Ampscharged it in 7.1 hours, using Jackery SolarSaga 100W solar panel charged in 10.5hours in southern Louisiana summer sun from 7am till 5:30pm, no clouds or overcast.Using the cigarette lighter 12v/10A adapter charging took 13.3 hours using my 17year old 110V to 12V converter. As another test using my 110V outlet on my invertergenerator took almost 7.3 hours. The size dimensions are 11.84″W x 9.2″H X 7.59″D,weighs 13.32Lbs on my scale, has a built-in LED light which is a nice feature whencamping in my tent. Jackery Explorer 500W is a portable compact powerful chargingstation to fill my charging requirements. I use ALL Jackery products including the1 Jackery PowerBar 77Wh, 2 Explorer 240Wh Power Stations, 1 Explorer 500Wh PowerStation, Jackery 50W and 100W Solar Panel Kits and Jackery Protective CarryingBags which I highly recommend to protect your investment. I go camping regardlessof weather conditions about 120+ days a year. I have 30 tents of various sizes,shapes and designs which I modify each one for my needs. I camp all over USA andkeeping my devices charged up is of great importance. I used the 500 while on a 3week camping trip to HOT Arizona for a gathering. I recharged 4 Action cameras,4 Mavic Pro batteries, iPhone6, six 18650 batteries for 12v Fan, and 10000mahportable battery pack. When the Explorer 500Wh Power Station was at 45% charge,I would set solar panels outside 7:30am and reposition them thru out the day andwas at 100% by 5:30pm on sunny no cloud days. If you look at the picture of shadeon the panel, it was still charging whereas most panels will not charge at allwhen shade is on even 10% of some panels. The solar panels are well made. Tocharge my Jackery 240Wh I use the Jackery 50W solar which came with a nice protectivecover to stow it in when not in use. Also I use the Jackery SolarSaga 100W panel kitto charge the Jackery 500Wh Power Station. As my battery charging requirementshave increased, I love Jackery so much which is why I purchased a Jackery Explorer500Wh power station, Jackery had a 20% discount using discount code from HoboTechyoutube channel and was able to purchase this one at a reduced rate. When available,I will be purchasing Jackery 500 Protective Carrying Bag to protect my investment.Yes the solar panels are a little pricey, but they are well worth it. They arevery convenient, well made, foldable which take up a smaller foot print whennot in use, tough, rugged and do the job as described. Being able to charge multipledevices at the same time such the my iPhone, 2 hotspots, laptop, iPad4 tablet,4 Mavic Pro batteries and 4 action cameras, etc. You can use the this powerstation while you are charging it from any of the 3 charging types: solar,12v carport or 110 AC outlet. Now I am able to charge anywhere WITHOUT having tocarry 5 gallons of gasoline and my 2200watt inverter generator making my chargingsetup eco-Friendly, compact, lightweight and very manageable. If you pair togetherthe Jackery 100W SolarSaga Panel kit and Jackery Explorer 500W, it truly is aportable plug and play power station. I give the Jackery Explorer 500W LithiumPortable Power Station 2 thumbs up for portability, design and functionality.

Update 3/3/2020: This unit was not a free test product. I paid for this, and here is my honest opinion. Jackery sent me a replacement unit to replace a defective unit. I have built my own testing equipment to check on voltages, wattage and test capacities. This new unit performs just like I expected it to. The Jackery 500 has a regulated 12v DC output. That is very important, and the main reason for selecting the Jackery.When it arrived, I charged it fully, and then connected it to my DC powered fridge/freezer. My tester immediately showed that the 12v DC output is working on this unit. Under load, the Jackery is maintaining the 12v output even after 15 hours of powering the fridge/freezer. Which, by the way, the Jackery still had over 50% capacity, and my fridge/freezer did not error out once. I checked the AC output at over 280W load for 6 minutes with no problem. The USB ports worked fine as well. That is quality and reliability.I shut it down, and then took it to my garage to test the solar charging, It was connected to two 50W panels and the input varied, but I was able to see a 62W input at one point. I did not observer the input all day, however the unit fully charged by 5 PM when I checked on it. So, a little over 8 hours and it charged fully from around a 57% starting point.This is a great unit that performs like I expected it to. It is a great value for the price, and it beats out the competition in the same power class with its regulated 12v DC output. This now gets 5 stars form me. I will continue to test the unit for capacity and efficiency, and I don’t expect to be disappointed.Update 2/20/20: I finally received an email from Jackery today. After two months of trying to get a defective unit replaced that has a DC output voltage problem. The DC regulated output did not work, and voltage constantly dropped during use causing failures and errors. This defect caused endless issues with DC devices that rely on a constant 12V. The Jackery has a regulated 12V DC output, and that is one of the reasons for purchasing it. The Jackery 500 is one of only a few power stations of this size and capacity, to my knowledge, having this feature. It is very important and shows quality in design and manufacture. Thank you to Jackery for finally reaching out to me, and now trying to resolve the issue. I am raising my rating to 4 stars. This is my last update, as this has gone on too long for me.Update 2/3/20: I did get a reply from Jackery. They did not address my issue at all, only to tell me that the 12V output was regulated. A two sentence reply. I had written them a detailed email with my issue, and they blew me off. So I now have to take other measures. Please keep in mind that you have been warned. If you have issues, you are out of luck and lots of money.Update 2/1/20 2 stars: Absolutely no contact from Jackery. Just a tip, these may be great products, but if you have an issue, your left out in the cold. Because this is a battery, there is no returning it. You get stuck with it as there is no customer service from Jackery either. I will just continue to try. If there are no further posts, consider this to be 1 star, you can imagine why. If by any luck Jackery contacts me, I will update. As of now, Jackery is dead for me.Update 1/24/20 3 stars: I finally got a call from Jackery. It wasn’t support, as I guess they are all out of town. So I expressed my issue, and it is supposed to be handed off to someone who can help me. By the way, we did a reset, but my issue still persists. They will contact me at a later time. Let’s hope! Meanwhile, I still have a paper weight.Original review 2 stars: I have been having issues with my Jackery 500 that is only 3 weeks old, and have attempted to contact them multiple times with no response at all. There is a telephone number that gets you absolutely nowhere, email that goes unanswered, and a website that is sparse in information. By the way, Jackery offers a 30 return policy on their products, but not if you order on Amazon. They only honor the free 30 day returns on their products bought directly from their website. So Amazon customers are treated differently. Jackery seems not to care about their Amazon customers, and obviously make it too difficult for customers to claim warranty issues.I warn all that want to purchase from Jackery, to reconsider. If you have any issues, and purchase Jackery products from Amazon, you have nowhere to turn for issues. Now I am stuck with a Jackery paper weight.

The Jackery Explorer 500 is a solid, well designed product. The unit is rugged and compact with nothing on the exterior to break off or catch on nearby objects. The display shows charge level, charging wattage, and use wattage, all very handy. The pure sine wave inverter provides a clean AC supply at 110V, 60 hz. The unit charges in 8 hours with the AC wall charger, and 12 hrs with a 100W solar panel. Solar charging is ultra simple, requiring no charge controller on the panel, simply an MC4 to 8mm connector from the panel. Pass through charging is awesome, gives the ability to charge and use the unit simultaneously. DC socket provides a solid 12V (actually 13.4V) to ensure your 12V devices have full voltage as the battery discharges. The unit can run as many devices as you can plug in at a time in the 12V, 120VAC and USB sockets, as long as it doesnt go over the 500W max. The 6 hour socket timeout for loads less than 10W is still an undesirable feature. Running a ceiling fan or diesel heater in my van, the unit shut off sooner than desired. Jackery is working on extending the timeout time, but until then the problem can be solved by adding an additional load (cell phone charging or light) to get load over 10W and avoid the unit shutting down.The price is on-par with other portable power units at about $1 per watt hour. As mentioned, the battery is lithium ion, which has only 500 use cycles vs. LiFePo batteries at 2000. However, I dont think any LiFePo units are available at $1 per Wh, so the price is fair for the product. Thats only $1 per charge cycle!Note that inverter losses are real. I ran a desktop monitor from the AC plug with the typical AC/DC adaptor, and the unit drew 58W. I then plugged the monitor into the DC plug with 12V to 16V step up convertor and the draw was 30W. So use DC whenever possible…This is all around a great product with a combination of features superior to other portable power units you might find on Amazon. Jackery has prompt customer service to back it up.

This is a review of the Jackery Explorer 500. At 518wh and 500 watts continuous and 1000 watts peak this solar generator can power pretty much any of your portable needs. The display readout is clear to understand and is backlit showing the Input and Output in Watts and the remaining battery in percent and battery icon. The AC outlet is capable of 500 watts continuous. For technical specs I am sure you can just look at the description of the amazon product. My review is of my personal experience with this product.In my test of a nutribullet with a max load of 600w it was capable of running it through a normal blending cycle jumping from 600 to 100 watts as the blender chopped through ice. I was also able to test Wagner 350w heat gun for 10 minutes and it ran it without any problems.The 3 USB ports on the device performed at their rated 5v/2.4 amp rating without any problems. However it would have been nice to see a Input USB-C or an output USB-C with a high output to charge larger devices.On the Explorer 500 is included a handy flashlight. The light is bright enough to light your way but I wish they would have made a led halo ring around it so that it could also illuminate the generators surroundings for a table.For DC output, I tested the primary 12v cigartte port on my Alpicool style 30L and 50L compressor coolers and they ran without any problems. I recorded the compressor intervals on a spreadsheet and calculated the time the battery would last with no input. Remember this is approximation as it is also depending on how hot the environment is and the amount of things in your cooler. The room for my test was around 20 degrees and the cooler was half full.Each cooler used the same amount of watts for each of their settings. MAX – 10 Minutes Load – 15 Minutes Idle Load – 44-45 watts Idle – 2 watts Cooler was half filled with items Set to -14 Degree COn MAX setting the cooler would last for around 25 hours at -14 Degree C. ECO – 10 Minute Load – 20 Minute Idle Load – 30 watts Idle – 2 watts Cooler was half filled with items Set to -14 Degree COn ECO setting the cooler would last for for approx 2734 minutes or 1.89 days.For all cooler tests, the cooler was prechilled to -14 Degree C over night with food or water in it.Testing with the SolarSaga 100w was easy and simple. The 100w 18v panel produced around 50 watts mid afternoon Oct 2019 in the PWN. This is pretty good as that is 18v at 2.78 amps for that time, I also tried another 200 watt panel at 12v in better conditions and it was only producing 44 watts 12v at 3.67 amps. If I was to test again(weather permitting) I could probably see higher watts on that Jackery SolarSaga 100w panel. Overall the input for solar is good enough for my needs. It would have been nice to see an MPPT controller input instead of a PWM, but it is nice to have that single easy to use port. That 50 watts /18 v = around 2.7 amps, at that rate you could see to charg the Jackery Explorer 500 in around 10.5 hours.All in all, this is a great solar generator for its weight and price. The battery coupled with a SolarSaga 100w should increase the time you could spend off shore power. This can also be topped off with the 12v charging cable while you drive if needed. I personally cant wait for us to use it on our camping or weekend trips and have cold food without the hassle of Ice.The construction is solid and looks great however I wish the handle did fold down for storage.Pros:Large 518wh batteryAC 500watt continuous and 1000watt peak3 x USB 5v/2.4ADC 12v 10A cigarette port and 2 additional DC portsExtremely easy readout displayFlashlightInput of 12v cigarette AC wall and SolarCons:Flashlight is not as bright as I hopedNo USB-C for Input or Output, it would be nice to not have to get an adapter for those types of devices.No 12v cigarette port coverNo MPPT controller.I will try to make a video review of this product, the Jackery SolarSage 100 and any other Jackery products I can get my hands on.

I really like the Jackery 500. It is perfect for dry camping or remote charging requirements. It is well built and easily powers a host of small appliances including my car refrigerator.One of the only issues I have with the 500 is the fact that it uses a PWM charge controller instead of a MPPT controller. The PWM controller limits the input charging current to 3.5 amps regardless of the input voltage (up to 30V). It won’t let you go beyond 30 volts, so you can’t series connect two solar panels that put out 18 volts. Also, since the car only puts out 13 volts, at 3.5 amps I am only able to charge it at a rate of about 45 watts. Thus, the time it takes to recharge from a solar panel or from the car 12 DC is way too long (12-14 hours to charge from 0%). AC charging rate is about 82 watts, which is fine (6-7 hours to charge from 0%).I found a great way to increase the car DC charging input to 78 watts. I purchased a KFD 12V-24V DC converter (that is used for a ResMed 10 Series CPAP) on Amazon and replaced the 24V terminal with an 8mm male barrel connector to fit the Jackery input port. Now when I plug it into the car’s DC cigarette lighter to charge, it charges at 78 watts instead of 45 watts, in just over half the time. Here’s the link to the KFD charger if you are looking for a similar solution:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RQP7G14/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1Now that I’ve got the car DC charging time solved, I’m looking at a way to increase charging output from my 100 watt solar panel up to a similar wattage range.One other improvement that would be very helpful on future versions of the Jackery (and other solar generators) would be to provide AC output paralleling capability with a 2nd solar generator, similar to what you can do with a gasoline powered inverter generator. This would allow RV’ers to attach their 30 amp shore power cord to a paralleled set of 500’s to power the internal AC outlets (with 8 amps of current). I am not aware of any solar generators with this capability as of today. Maybe put this feature on a future 1500 watt Jackery with an MPPT controller???? :-))