Read this Bluetti AC200L Power Station Review before buying, from full-time travelers and real users, Alex and Megan (Slow Roamers).
Power Station: Who Needs One?
When I built our van interior, I put in a pretty robust electrical system. Admittedly, I scoffed at mobile power stations when they were first coming out. Never did I expect to need or want one of them new-fangled mobile power stations, alas, here I am writing an article about one.
Recently we acquired a Bluetti AC200L and I have to say, it’s a pretty good looking unit and I think I’m really going to like it. Now, a brief explanation for why exactly we have acquired this new piece of tech whilst also maintaining an electrical system in our van. To start, our electrical system in the van is quite robust and really fulfills all that we need it to and then some; however, this past summer we had some issues that quickly changed our minds.
What Lead Us To Buy One
On our way up north this summer, we were camping at a remote lake up in the mountains of British Columbia. We had just spent a day there, I was editing a video and my fiance was working online. It was a pretty heavy day of electricity use and on a day with little to no solar uptake no less. The next morning we woke up to a completely dead battery. “Well, shoot, that’s too bad, oh well we can just charge it while we are driving out of here”. Wrong. As we drove that day, through a lot of overcast and rain I might add, we noticed that our batteries weren’t charging. It wasn’t hard for us to land on the assumption that our DCDC charger had failed. Long story short, we spent the next month attempting to receive our new charger in the mail while also traveling through the north.
We saw a lot of overcast and wound up having to charge our batteries at friends’ places, libraries, and random outdoor wall receptacles. Overall the experience was stressful and frustrating. Turns out the issue was a slowly failing alternator all along and the lack of sun just exasperated the issue. Nonetheless, this experience really put the fear of no power into us. We both rely on our computers heavily for work and thus need a consistent and reliable power supply.
About the Bluetti AC200L Power Station
When we finally returned home, we got our backup, a Bluetti AC200L. This heavy-duty power bank contains a 40ah (2048wh) battery, 2400-watt inverter, four 120v plugs, an Aviation plug, x2 100w USB-C ports, x2 USB-A ports, a 12v cigarette lighter outlet, and 48v outlet. Our kit also includes a 200w folding solar panel as well. My first impressions were very good. It’s sturdy, compact, and looks pretty futuristic. Its packaging is really thorough and the controls are easy to use and intuitive. The Bluetti AC200L can be charged using solar, a 12v plug into your car, and 120v power. A cool feature that Bluetti includes with the AC200L is the capability to expand the battery bank with an additional 2764wh or 3072wh’s. Altogether, it’s quite a stout power bank and will really come in use in a multitude of different use cases.
Pros & Use Cases
The beauty of a mobile power station is its versatility. People with little electrical knowledge can now have a reliable power system in their vans without ever having to pick up wire strippers or a fuse block. These compact power units can be carried easily to wherever they need to be charged and are capable of running a number of 120v accessories, charging computers, phones and camera batteries. They can be brought to wherever you’re working to keep your laptop topped up, which means you can really work anywhere nowadays, so grab a camp chair and go work in that sunny spot by the lake! Or maybe you want to power a projector, put up some cute twinkle lights and watch a movie outside while camping, gone are the days of running an extension cord back to your van battery.
Recently, I was doing some work on my van and thought it would be fun to test out the Bluetti. I plugged in a constant load orbital sander to sand down a large section of my van’s exterior. After 20 minutes of use the battery had only dropped to 94% from 100%, so in the event that you need to run some power tools in a
remote area, bring along that power station.
Why We Like It
Overall, I’m stoked that we now have a backup power supply onboard. We can head out to remote areas and sit for multiple days without a generator in cold and overcast weather and not worry about draining our battery too far. Peace of mind is a valuable thing to bring with you when you’re out on the road and with a power station like the Bluetti AC200L I think you can certainly accomplish a big chunk of that peace. Despite my initial apprehension about power stations, I think they’re a great addition to your camping kit, they really open up a new level to what you can do with your campsite, van, car or RV. Can you think of any other uses for a power station like the Bluetti AC200L?
Hope you enjoyed this Bluetti AC200L Power Station Review.
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