EcoFlow Alternator Charger - ALMOST Perfect for Car Camping!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 พ.ค. 2024
- The EcoFlow Alternator Charger is an almost perfect replacement to taking up all of the real estate on your vehicle's roof with a solar panel. But, there are two things that EcoFlow can do to make this 800 watt power station charger the ultimate option! Watch the complete installation, test, and review to find out.
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Thank you for the extra 'small' details - like using your drill on "1" for small screws. For those like me, with zero experience, but wanting to learn & do it myself - these are "golden nuggets". I just learned so much about the electrical system, my battery, my ecoflow - and the hows & whys. Much appreciated!! ❤
Wow, this review of the alternator charger is the best yet. The two points or suggestions for improvements are excellent. I will hold off on purchasing this product until ecoflow makes these changes and improves the unit further.
Love how they got me with the Wave 2 bundle on memorial day and cant even use the alternator charger...
We went thru this alternator overload thing when lithium found its way into B and B+ vans thousands and thousands of alternators failed. Unless you have a HD alternator or dual alternators they will soon all fail from heat related winding and bearing problems. You can't just add on 800 watts from a stock alternator and expect it to work. Mike
Best most thorough review yet for the alternator charger! You could also try the Pecron smart car charger (i got mine for $134) that works with any brand power station. No smart app but you can set set the starting voltage in 0.5 volt increments (between 12 and 14 volts, or 24 to 28 volts for a 24 volt system) and it outputs via MC-4 connectors. It is 500 watt but offers no ability to reverse charge the car battery, but for $134, it is quite a bit cheaper than a piece meal approach and comes with all the cables and fuses.
Yes, maybe, but obviously it doesn't work with an EcoFlow Delta unit, so you should have mentioned that and not just throw some other name around.
@@Niravata Does the EcoFlow Delta have solar input? That's a yes. Does it accept solar via MC4 connector yes, but you do have to buy the cable at $24. So, any power station that accepts solar via MC4 connectors the Pecron will work with.
It’s good to know it is recommended for a high output alternator to prevent premature wearing out. Adding in that new tow rated alternator is a smart move.
This thing has been catching my eye, for the use cases that do not involve a vehicle, so my antenna kind of went on high alert as soon as you mentioned the adapter coming out for the “non Delta” range, especially after seeing examples of use cases in Hobotech’s video, EcoFlow is brilliant, I definitely have a soft spot for them, I consciously chose their year old River 2 (refurbished with 5 year warranty) over Bluetti’s AC2A
$80 for 12 to 48v converter, $50 #4 wire, $40 terminal fuses, and a battery disconnect switch and I have 685 watts going into my Anker 767 in the backseat. I love this idea, but seems very pricey
I found a $200 off code which made it a much better price when I bought it. For anyone looking to buy it, look for any discount code online first.
@dany8822 That's a great find!! I love my setup, but I definitely miss the bluetooth capability for monitoring and battery protection. I had to wire in a starter solenoid to prevent charging until the truck is running.
Yes, you do pay for more for a simpler, fully integrated design, simple installation and additional capabilities. DIY with cheaper components is always an option, but after a $200 discount, I find this to a very nice piece of equipment to enhance my Ecoflow setup. The quality, down to the armored vehicle cable, is impressive.
It is for the Ecoflo family. Nobody else.
@@henrymorgan3982 Can't argue with that since it would seem they use all proprietary connectors
Good luck to your alternator
Thanks for the honest review pulling power from the battery when the car is off is not good , once they fix that I will buy one .
There is a clear setting that can switch the dc2dc unit off when the alternator isn't running, so you're waiting for something that's already fixed, because it was never wrong in the first place. The reviewer is just mixing things up, unfortunately.
22:35 Excellent point. Along with many others. Well done!
if you want it to shut off when the car is off make the voltage 13v in the app; so when it gets to 12v(normal) it shuts off. keeping it at 12v it wont shut off until it goes below 12v. as long as your battery can push out 12v the unit will say " ok.. you set it to 12v... your battery is giving me 12v... so im gonna stay on"
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KirbyLouis is right. It is NOT an excellent point that he makes in the video. It's wrong. You want to set the cut off much higher than 12V because you want the dc2dc charger to come on only when the alternator delivers it 14.4V and close down when there's "only" 13V, for example
Great review, Mario! The price point is 🤔!!!!
It seems to scale based on voltage, and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If your alternator can’t keep up with the load, voltage will drop, so the EcoFlow lowers its charge rate.
I bet when you put in the newer alternator, you get a full 800w, unless your car battery is bad.
Set your starting voltage to 13.
told him that to
So it's better if you change your Negative to the chassis, instead of the battery (alternator its connected first to the car body and its connected to battery from the body with another cable) and keep at 13 volts. And it's annoying that it don't came with the xt60I.
please cite where you were informed of the xt60i cable. no one else who reviewed this nor ecoflow has made any mention of this upcoming option...
I’ve seen the whole video and my honest opinion is I love the product and I love the AC unit, I just don’t like Ecoflow as much as I like bluetti so if you can use it for any power station like if I can use it for my bluetti, then I would buy it in a heartbeat
Wait if you don’t need the extra features There will be a Bluetti product similar to the pecron unit in july or so
If your vehicle is running shouldn't the alternator be putting out 13v or higher? So if you left setting on the app at 13v it shouldn't be pulling power from vehicle battery when not running....am i wrong?
old school alternators put out a constant 14.5 volts so it would work like that. but modern vehicles have smart alternators that lower the voltage of the alternator while accelerating making the gas efficiency better, and when you are braking it uses the engine power to increase voltage on alternator and charge the batteries. kinda like how a hybrid uses braking to put the power into the battery. So for modern vehicles sometimes it would run under 13v. it can be as low as 12.5v when the car is running. This would easily be solvable if they allow you to fine tune the on off voltage in the app by 0.1 increments. that way you can find the perfect sweet spot for your setup.
@@conradcoolerfiend oh now I see... kinda like prius brake charging. I learned something new. Thanks.
My battery doesn’t have posts like this. Where would I possibly connect it to the battery?
I completely agree with the voltage increments. It also seems like it should be easy for them to change via a software update.
if you want it to shut off when the car is off make the voltage 13v in the app; so when it gets to 12v(normal) it shuts off. keeping it at 12v it wont shut off until it goes below 12v. as long as your battery can push out 12v the unit will say " ok.. you set it to 12v... your battery is giving me 12v... so im gonna stay on"
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This would easily be solvable if they allow you to fine tune the on off voltage in the app by 0.1v increments. that way you can find the perfect sweet spot for your setup.
Any news on when exactly the XT60 cable will be available? I'd love to use this with my Anker F3800 battery.
Does this work with smart alternators?
I don't know if this is easy on a jeep but on a lot of toyotas there is a fuse box hack to make the alternator push 14.2-14.7v. That should solve your problem.
It's clearly not about the Voltage level, so your comment doesn't really make sense.
i know that this device will not draw charging amperage when below the set voltage, but im curious about the parasitic draw when its left powered on when the vehicle is off.
Great video , just like to comment on the power from the alternator / car battery , at 760 watts at13volts that drawing 58 amps thats a lot of current! what is the capacity of the alternator ? you could overload the alternator, some of the power may come from the battery at the same time so the load is shared between the two, on my eco delta on solar in bright sun Iget 42 volts at 7 amps they are 2 x 150 watt panels , the question is how long can the alternator sustain this kind of load, a lower charging rate would do the job on a long drive to fully re charge and bear in mind that the eco may not be totally discharged anyway , so will only need to top up!
It is not so much the battery damage you need to worry about. According to Scotty Kilmer (TH-cam channel of 50+ year auto mechanic), the alternators are designed specifically for the electrical system of specific cars -- and adding a separate electrical system to charge will eventually lead to prematurely wearing out the alternator and possibly worse yet damaging your car's microprocessors (very expensive repairs).
Scotty knows 🎉
Ugh, just install it and repair later lol
@@jwfmechanical9864 I'm pretty sure people that buy into this cheap marketing have money to waste. They will just buy another car and another set of ecoflow crap without knowing what hit them in first place.
If you have the "right" Ecoflo, this unit is hard to beat. Size. Function. Simplicity.
Which one
I got this recently to charge my Wave 2 Extended Battery which like your video, does not work. Would be very interested to know if you figure it out.
Sorry to be dunce but if you don’t have the unit plugged into the power station, you wouldn’t be drawing anything from the starter battery if engine is turned off?
Wow! Amazing what they can do now!
Does anyone know if this can be used on a hybrid car?
Super helpful and detailed review as always! Good to know the pros and cons of everything.
It’s an excellent system, but I believe it’s one firmware update away from amazing.
I would not have known I needed and upgraded alternator, really appreciate this. On another note, how hot does it get, was planning on mounting it behind the backseat of a Tacoma?
Not completely necessary, I haven’t had issues with the setup. Also, the charger uses GaN Prime which is very resilient to high heat. This is also one of the reasons the thing costs more than other chargers. It feels as warm to the touch as a laptop charger.
So its just a battery charger 🤔
To me this would be perfect only if it charged while the vehicle was running only. The fact that it still pulls from the starter battery after the vehicle is shut off is a NO GO for me. I only want to use excess power and I do not want to use any of my starter battery power when vehicle is not running. It is much more important to me that my battery is maintained and can start my vehicle then it is that my battery pack gets charged. I will admit that it is slick how it can reverse the power though. I like that idea.
It depends on how you set up the starting voltage.
nice review. i would of (-) to the frame, not to the battery (-). the victron 12v to 24v is also a good power source to create a dumb solar panel (mine charges at 346 watts) into one of delta 2 max solar ports, and 2x 350w panels (parallel) also adds watts to delta 2 max second solar port. (alternator charger weighs 5lbs plus cables about 7lbs, whereas small genny and gas about 30lbs - not practical on a small truck camper.)
Wait, i can limit the output from 800w to anything lower?
Then i dont need to worry about burn down my alternator as it draws less amps
It will go as low as 100W.
13:31 - Hey y’all positive terminal first right?
Are you sure about them coming out with an XT60i cable later this summer? Who provided you with that info, and are they a reliable source? I really hope they do, because I have a Delta Pro connected to TWO Extra Batteries in my van, and I'd really not want to disconnect one of the Extra Batteries in order to free an XT150 port for the Alt Charger.
And for all the people screaming like their hair is on fire about this hurting your alternator or vehicle battery, you obviously aren't paying attention to the specs and what this thing actually does. And, yes, a Sterling DC-DC charger, a Victron, all of them can do what this does--- but only to a limited point. And not at 800w. And none of them, none that are "smart" at least, will destroy your alternator unless you use them incorrectly. Chill out, folks. Jeesh..
I could be wrong, as it has been known to happen. But, I believe you are setting the starting point, for it to charge, in the wrong direction. You only want the unit to kick on "start charging" when it senses the voltage coming into the unit is above the normal voltage of a battery, i.e. over 12.8V and in this case 13V and above. That way the unit will not try to charge anything unless it receives 13V or higher. Please provide us with an update. Thank you, Tony
No you're not wrong. What he's saying somewhere past 22:00 about setting the voltage doesn't make any sense and is very confusing 😕
19:34 I would of pointed wave 2 to the delta to chill it 💨
I like the Jeep! Looking good😀
The great thing about this is you can keep track of everything on ecoflow app and auto shut off to keep from overcharging to protect the equipment.
so, is your overlanding adventure about playing with the app, or relaxing with your friends and family once you set up the camp and not to worry about your electric gear?
Daygreen and Pecron have dc to dc converters that are way less exoensive that do the sane thing.
If you need app support Victron has a 12-24V dc to dc charger that works on Bluetti, Econflow and several other power stations.
They do...a bit less power delivery but at a fraction of the price. They Pecron is a nice option but only 500W
Daygreen units can be stacked and they also have a 1500w version. Unlike this, they can be installed outside/under the hood.
@@whitmorestrains that sounds really intriguing. Links to the Daygreens? I’m not familiar with that one
@@SpartanOverlandAdventures This is the one I have been using for 4 years under my hood. I don’t want to hijack the comments but I have some videos and know a lot about them from actual use. 100% flawless.
@@whitmorestrains Appreciate the info. I'm not seeing any link and would love to have it. I'm in the process of putting together an overlanding setup with a EcoFlow Delta Max, and likely a 200ah or 300ah extra battery that I want to have a good fast charge setup for. The EcoFlow Alternator looks great but man that's costly at $500+. TH-cam might not allow a link, but I would love the part number
Great video very educational
if you want it to shut off when the car is off make the voltage 13v in the app; so when it gets to 12v(normal) it shuts off. keeping it at 12v it wont shut off until it goes below 12v. as long as your battery can push out 12v the unit will say " ok.. you set it to 12v... your battery is giving me 12v... so im gonna stay on"
Had email from ecoflow update firmware on max 2 should fix problem of charging 😢😢😢 it did not fix anything
Best review on this tithing I’ve seen !
Why would you need 800W charger for overlanding? 30-40A charger is sufficient for such purpose. People typically explore the area by driving at least 3-4hrs, which is enough to charge your power station. With such a small draw you don't destroy your alternator and you don't have to spend more money on bigger alternator. I have spent $50 on 30A system (12-24V DC-DC converter built by local company), which charges my Delta 2 in 4hrs. It is hooked up to my gang switch via relay, so it won't drain my starting battery once the ignition is off. For the jump starting scenario I have a small power bank, which I can use for many different things. Unless you have a huge rig with 3kW+ batteries this charger is pointless and its price point is ridiculous comparing to other options you have on the market. You can get Victron Orion for much less.
Turning OFF the ignition should stop all charging and in fact you could wire it that way, so only on ignition/car running the charger can start charging, the problem is you wired it stright to both battery terminal's! Seems to be a USER error as thats surley not how the install instructions would have diagramed it?
Yeah, you lost me when you said it could burn down your alternator. How is that possible if you don't even need one?
24:06 Dude should of had a smoke screen happen here (as a joke) $
I know it's fun playing with electronic gadgets for power. But to my mind it's Overkill. Just think about all the extra gas and space you're wasting hauling around solar panels. Trying to get a little juice out of them or idling your car to recharge your lithium batteries, adding more weight to your vehicle not counting all the money these gadgets and batteries cost. To where a simple, quiet running portable generator can give you all the power you need anywhere anytime for little cost. They could run on gas or propane and take up very little space.
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That hood prop... 🤦
. Very interesting 😊
Could be a perfect way to top off these batteries.
thery like 800 bucks
Pretty sure your device is faulty
Suggestion: wear a mic at all times. Sounds way better.
And this is just the Beta.. And they're going to make this for all their batteries
They’re always improving with firmware updates.
That negative should go to chassis ground. Also for 70-80 Amps the cables are too small IMO. I use Victron DC to DC. The price is way better and you can charge any power station with it. But for plug and play I guess if you want to spend the money, 🤷♂️
Warning, your being sold a device that will 100% at least damage if not destroy your expensive alternater. Why do you think some pick up trucks offer two alternatives that have extra load devices. Stay clear!
And how will this "destroy" your alternator?
I have one installed in my '17 Tacoma, and charging the Delta 2.
The unit only uses excess available power to charge with. If for instance, if I had a ton of exterior lights running, stereo amp cranking, etc.... it will dial down the available wattage accordingly to accommodate the alternator's output.
It won't continue to stress the alternator to maintain the watts you have selected in the app. The unit favors the alternator over the charge function to work in harmony.
This product is dangerous; especially in the way it is being sold, advertised, and marketed. Lots of people are going to blow up their alternators and batteries because of the misinformed influencers marketing this product on TH-cam. I appreciate your review compared to what I've seen so far. You highlight the major flaws of this product in an honest and genuine way.
Can you elaborate?
He is referring to over working your alternator and rendering your charging system unless. Potentially stranding yourself in the process. Not all alternatornators are created equal. The Ecoflow charger will overload the electrical system if your alternator is not rated for the amp usage. Adjusting the output wattage on the charger and knowing correct formula is going to be paramount.
Yeah…I don’t think so. Unless you have a low power “dumb (old)” alternator, if your alternator can’t keep up with demand, you’re going to get a voltage drop. This is why the device was pulling a lower wattage when he had it set to 13v. Lowing the voltage setting that he was is telling it that it’s normal for his voltage to be that low, thus is going to draw more…
This is double the cost of Victron's DC charger and Victron is well known to be both top of the line and over priced. Would this generic ecoflow "brand" even exist without giving influencers free stuff to make "content" about?
WHAT A LOT OF TALKING ABOUT FUCKING NOTHING!!
how set it and forget it is? Anybody compare it to the Victron Orion XS50? MPG impact? where will you install? Will the cables reach the back of a your van or SUV?