Battery Station for Pellet Stove

I'm interested in this thread as I have been looking at those power packs that do solar recharge. I already have a Ryobi 1800 battery pack that should keep my P43 going for several hours. With the Harman, if I place the APC UPS between it and the stove, when the battery pack runs down the stove will shut down gracefully (hence, I don't have to be there or monitor). But the only way to recharge is by hooking up to an outlet. The pro is that these batteries can be used for other Ryobi equipment and as one battery runs down, I can just slip in another while the rest of the batteries take the load.

I'd like an expandable station that is solar recharge (and really, a bonus would be wind recharge also) to put on the P61a in case of long term power outage. But some stations take like 10 hours to charge by solar, which seems rediculous. And I believe some stations you can't change out individual batteries while it is running. Plus, I'm not sure which companies to trust - they all either have 5 star or 1 star reviews. Another concern is some batteries are cold sensitive and may not charge (I'm not looking to operate in cold - just charge in cold), and power outages are more likely to occur during single-digit weather.

I rarely have outages, and haven't had any last longer than 4 hours, so a gas/propane generator just isn't attractive (and there are other considerations). But every 10 or so years an event happens that stresses how one should be prepared.

 

I saw that unit that is a nice use of the batteries. I bought a Kobalt 40v lawnmower last year that came with a 5ah battery. Bought 4 more 2.5ah batteries for a steal ($24 each). But they only have a modified sine wave inverter adapter whereas Ryobi has the one you have and a smaller one that are both pure sine.

 

Stove has been running for 21 hours and it still looks like it would use about 650 watts to run for 8. Longer test than my original but for all intents and purposes is the close enough.

 

I ended up buying that smaller unit I posted yesterday as it had a $40 coupon attached. I expect it will run the stove over 3 hours on its own. Should receive it this week and be able to test it out next weekend.

 

J, rather sounds sweet but I don't want you to go to the trouble. The odds are slim that I would ever really get to put that to real use. But I really do appreciate the gesture.

Some of the bigger power station and associated solar panels do get pricey but sure are nice. Some of the more knowledge folks can probably rig up their own bank,inverter,panel setup and likely save some coin.

 

I keep forgetting that every day is Saturday for you. Let me see how this little station performs and I will let you know.

I wouldn't mind contributing to your beer fund in labor and parts.

 

I would think any of the smaller automatic transfer switches could be used for this type of application?

Amazon.com : automatic transfer switch

sam

 

I got 4-6ah batteries with the Ryobi power station. I was originally looking at the 2 battery station (still 1800), but for just $150 more, I got the 4 battery version (and at the cost of batteries, that was a no-brainer). And I happened to have a 10% off coupon. I already had a 4.0ah battery for my chainsaw.

I'm thinking about a battery operated mower in the future, so the batteries would be used lots if I do. Was looking the other day and now they have put out an 8.0, and will soon release a 12.0 battery which "should" fit in the power station too.

 

I guess I should have mentioned there are a couple of threads on power stations:

One that was supposed to be about people's experiences, but ended up with "guesses" and then my experience with the Ryobi

A small Jackery station (not used for pellet stove)

 

I really like that Ryobi power station. It makes a lot of sense since you are already part of that ecosystem.


Kobalt has a modified sine wave one and I actually just bought it. It's not idea, but I think* I can use it to charge the new incoming power station while it's in use. Enabling to me expand that from 300 available watts to 900 as I have a bunch of Kobalt batteries already. If it was a pure sine wave it would give me more options but I believe this would be an acceptable compromise. And I had a gift card so it was virtually free.

 

The UPS hates it. So I would have to use it to charge the battery pack while that is in use feeding the UPS which feeds the stove.

Its a filtered modified sine wave coming out of the Kobalt inverter.

 

Not that I need it for a pellet stove any more, but I have one of these for extra power. Works great, and extra benefit is that all these batteries also work on my leaf blower, string trimmer, and hedge trimmer that Ego makes. They all work very well. But the unit & batteries aren't the cheapest. I bought the unit bare (no batteries), and kept watching FleaBay & Marketplace for people selling them cheap. I now have about 9 batteries that can be swapped out. Pure sine wave too.
POWER+ Nexus Portable Power Station | EGO

 

That looks like another good one. It is nice to see alternate uses for the batteries thst typically sit around.