Jackery Explorer 500 Portable Power Station, 518Wh Compact Backup Power

I did quite a bit of research before my purchase. 1st to make sure it would work with my ResMed CPAP machine and 2nd to get a good price. So got the sale price and sorted the delivery date, taking into account the festive holiday period. On that point it came early and luckily we had not left. Easy to follow instructions, worth doing; no matter how tempting to miss that bit out. I tried the CPAP machine on the 240v mains on the 1st night, was awoken due to the cooling fan kicking in after 2 hours. A bit disappointing really, the noise had woken me. 2nd night was able to use my Amazon acquired 12v car adapter and it ran for a good 8hrs without issue. The bonus was I had only used 20% of the battery charge. So able to run for 5 nights without issue. That includes a humidifier on the CPAP machine which uses more power. Loads of options with other power ports for phones, torches, speakers and watch but they are not heavy on battery. In summary it is a fabulous piece of kit, huge value if there is a power cut and there do occur in my area due to the trees and power lines. Total back up in the motor home too. Obviously it could run on the leisure battery or inverter. I would use the engine battery for a night if pushed. Sale price made it a total winner. Very pleased +++

So good we bought two. We mainly run our expedition fridge off it. Able to charge from cigarette lighter as we are driving and when fully charged - can run the fridge for a couple of days on average (depending on ambient temperature ) We use it in place of expensive electric modifications to our vehicle. Of course is fully transferable between vehicles and we use it for charging e-bikes out in the garage where there is no power supply (note though it won’t fully charge the battery).

Great product however we should have gone for the higher spec , this one struggles to run hairdryer or kettle, not their fault we just went for the smaller Jack bit by mistake, it will run a Cpap machine all night which really was our main reason to purchase a Jackery so excellent for this - anything above this you have to go bigger. Absolutely spot on brand we will probably be getting another one higher output.

The product is fine. Always make sure you understand the difference between Ah and Wh. They can be confusing so do your homework. Many lithium batteries are measured in Ah where as the Jackery is measured in Wh which makes comparisons not straight forward. Charges surprisingly quickly and works well. My biggest issue is that I've bought this and only when I look on the bottom I read it is Made in China. Now I find myself being part of a world who is funding the CCP genocide which is disappointing for me.

I had waited a long time for the Jackery to appear on the shores of the UK after seeing it many times on US based YouTube VanLife videos, so I ordered it as soon as it was available. I was not disappointed the Explorer 500 and the SolarSaga 100 Solar Panel (Tarquin did you really name it that?) has been good with no ‘Saga’. I played with many USB devices and wanted to give it a full work out. I bought it for use in my VW camper so I plugged everything I carried into it and all was good. I was very impressed when I plugged in a 500W 240Vac fan heater and let it run until it died, mainly to drain it down to see if there was a ‘Saga’ with the solar. The screen showed I was pulling just a tad over 500W and I sat and watched it, then got bored and started to check it every few minutes, it finally died at 59 minutes so it does what it says on the side of the can. I then sat the solar panel out in the sun (This was April in the UK) and it charged up, I thought very quickly with over 90W shown coming in. Once charged I realised that one other toy could be plugged in within the specs, that being my eMTB charger, so once the Explorer 500 was charged I plugged my eMTB into its 240v outlet and with the solar making up for the draw I could charge the bike directly from the sun, you cannot imagine how much of a smart arse ego trip that was 😊 All in all I am very happy I got this unit, it is robust and may well survive life in my van jumping around as I drive across fields. I should add that the SolarSaga is a perfect fit to sit on the dashboard of a T5.1 Vdub.

As a photographer I found that charging camera batteries, drone batteries, iPhones and lots of other rechargeable items whilst I was away on trips in the camper van, was draining the leisure battery and the vehicle battery in the van. I bought the Jackery Explorer 500 to enable me to charge everything with it, leaving the leisure battery to deal only with the fridge and the heater. It worked perfectly and I now have the Jackery as a more or less permanent fixture in the van, but the great thing is that it is portable enough to take out whenever I want. The Jackery itself is charged by the solar panels on the roof of the van and rarely goes below 90% charged. All the information you need is given on the display and it is simplicity itself to use. The Jackery is not cheap but I think it is worth the money and very robustly built. If you need extra power in a camper van, caravan or anywhere else, I can highly recommend this piece of kit. FiJI-Images

I bought this as a backup for my pc so that in the event of a power cut I could carry on working. Great. I check it weekly or thereabouts to make sure it doesn't need topping up because it's no good to me if I go to use it and it's dead. Every time it says 100%. Only the next week I try and it's dead as a doornail - 0%. The first time it did this I thought maybe I'd not checked often enough and it had run down in between checking. So this time I've been checking weekly or fortnightly - today I check it (last weekend it was on 100%) and it's 0% again. It's not being used at all in between times, and after you've pressed the button to check it it turns itself off so it's not draining like that. It's pointless. What a waste of money. Update - it's now died completely and won't recharge at all. Total waste of money.

Really pleased - does exactly what it said it would do.