I need help trying to figure out if this power station would run some things on my fish tank. I can’t seem to figure out/understand volts/watts etc. I have a heater and an air pump. There are some other things as well like lights etc but, in a power outage, I’m just concerned with those two things:
This is the portable power station that I am thinking of buying. I’ve done some research and read reviews but I honestly can’t figure out how long it would last with those two items running.
I have a large generator but it’s honestly embarrassingly loud. It’s good for prolonged outages but I just want something for if the power goes out for a few hours and I need to keep the fish/frogs warm.
as per your link, the heater claims “50w of power” … (=consumption)
no info on the airpump … but air isnt that heavy - so lets assume 10w
having a total of 60w if both on … assuming this is constant, you’d have a consumption of 60Wh, conveniently below the 518Wh provided by the generator …
so, yes this should work and has lots of reserve for other non-mentioned consumes (light,…)
You need to know how much power or current each device draws. I don’t see that info for the air pump, but the heater draws 50 watts at max power so the battery will be able to power it for about 10 hours.
yes … and that is a good size battery for your application, as you dont want to deplete your battery to 0% too often … but your scenario seems indicative of using roughly 50% of the battery
Looking around, the air pump draws around 3 Watts. So 518/53 = 9.7 hours assuming peak efficiency (which it wont get). Generally you don’t want to run a battery below 50% of it’s rated capacity either, but ignoring that you can get 8-9 hours runtime.
Nope. the lower you let your battery get, the less charging cycles you will get out of it for that type of battery. You will also loose about 5-15% capacity from converting from DC to AC, but i’m assuming that’s accounted for in the Watt-hour rating for that power pack.
It really depends on the chemistry of the battery. Lithium-ion batteries are much more tolerant of deep drawdowns than lead-acid, for example. but as a general rule for optimum battery health and longlevity you shouldn’t let it drop below 50% very often.
Air isn’t heavy, but that air has to get pushed down through some water before it’s allowed to bubble up again. Not much air though. It turns out these pumps only use 2-3 watts.
I thought the same as you, but it turns out there’s an optional solar panel for recharging:
It can recharge the battery in 7.5 hours, so figure 518 Wh divided by 7.5 hours = 69 watts provided by the solar panel. Factor in the battery-charging inefficiency, and it means the solar panel is putting out a good bit more than 69 watts; it could keep the OP’s equipment running without depleting the battery at all, as long as it’s getting direct sunlight.
Overcharging is not good either If it’s well made it should have charge protection circuitry built in that will “turn off” charging internally once it’s charged, and “back on” if needed. Or you can keep it on a trickle-charger which will do the same thing externally.
True, I should clarify that I’m talking more about large deep cycle batteries, not so much the small high capacity batteries like you’d find in drones and cell phones. Most of my DC electrical experience is with Deep cycle batteries on a 12V circuit like you would find on a boat or car.
those lithium batteries will come with a BMS (Battery Managment System) - no need for anything else …
it will disconnect the battery from the PV before overcharged, and it will disconnect the load (pump,…) before the battery’s voltage gets drawn down too much
so, in short: that already comes built into the battery - nothing to do manually
Nitpick on the heater consumption: 50W tells you the power consumption when the heater is on, but the heater does not stay on all the time. The real measure is the rate of heat loss in the aquarium, which is a function of ambient temp, rate of evaporation of water, how warm the water needs to be, etc. A heater may only turn on a couple of times per hour for just a few minutes at a time to retain heat. It depends on the size of the heater compared to the size of the tank.
However, you might as well assume it’s on all the time as a worst case scenario and plan for that, since it’s not that much power anyway. But realistically it’s probably more like 1/5 the rated power per hour or less. I’ll bet a 50W heater in a smallish tank consumes less than 10W per hour.
Very true. The tank stays quite warm and the heater only comes on a few times an hour. Also, during an outage, I put blankets on the aquarium to conserve heat.
If it’s well made it should have charge protection circuitry built in that will “turn off” charging internally once it’s charged, and “back on” if needed. Or you can keep it on a trickle-charger which will do the same thing externally.