Product Review: Powertech/Autotorq Power Centre (155 Wh, 42000 mAh)

[@robertjaen949]

Good video. I really like the tone of your voice. It's a natural narration voice👌

[@caravanlifenz]

Thanks so much 🥰 People in England always say the NZ and Australian accents are awful, but the rest of the world says the NZ accent is nicer and softer than the British accent, so I'll go with that.

[@mefgodiva366]

Just received my power bank this morning so your review is very helpful and informative. Now I understand how to operate it properly and what the limitations are. The instructions that came with the power bank weren't written in clearly understandable English.

[@caravanlifenz]

I'm really glad the review was helpful. As you said, the instructions are limited, so I had to figure it out for myself. But I'm glad I bought these cheap power centres as it's handy having one in the car, and the other two in the caravan.

[@David-xk6xq]

Very well explained, clear and direct. Such a soothing voice btw

[@caravanlifenz]

Thank you :) I'll make a review about the EcoFlow power station soon and compare it to these cheaper models. Have a great Easter.

[@paulsmith9831]

Great review - very informative.

[@caravanlifenz]

Thanks Paul. Hope you're having a great weekend.

[@caravanstuff2827]

A lot of retailers are taking every opportunity to price gouge saying it's down to supply chain issues in china... I've seen folks use these things to power electric blankets..not sure how much power one uses but it can't be much?.👍♥️🇳🇿

[@caravanlifenz]

All the retailers in NZ were charging over $300 compared to the cheap price at The Warehouse's online The Market. Yes, I used an electric throw blanket throughout winter that I plugged into my bigger EcoFlow power station. On the lowest setting, it used about 50 watts, so you'd go through the power station's battery fairly quickly compared to just charging a phone at 5 volts. Anything that generates heat uses up a lot of power (hair dryers, microwaves, kettles etc).

[@caravanstuff2827]

@@caravanlifenz good to know.♥️🇳🇿

[@caravanstuff2827]

Where are you young lady...hope your ok , haven't heard from you in a while?.❤🇳🇿

[@caravanlifenz]

Hello Caravan Stuff :) I went to Australia. I've been wanting to work with electrics, but NZ doesn't have any jobs that allow people to learn about low voltage electrics, so I went to Aussie :)

[@caravanstuff2827]

@@caravanlifenz looking forward to your next post.. welcome back.❤️🇳🇿

[@tamibass6772]

Fantastic review thankyou

[@caravanlifenz]

They're good little power stations. They're just slow to charge compared with the expensive brands.

[@ckoonyin]

Hi Caravan Life NZ, havent seem you post any new content lately. Everything's ok over there? :)

[@caravanlifenz]

Thanks so much for the concern. I went over to Australia, but my computer monitor is still in my caravan in NZ, so I can't make videos (video editing software is designed to be viewed on a proper monitor, not a small laptop screen). I took hundreds of photos of places around the South Island before I left, but I just need a monitor to plug my laptop into so I can edit them :)

[@pw9133]

Appreciate all the great advice. Can you tell me what plan you're on with wireless nation . You seem to get really good speeds.❤

[@caravanlifenz]

Yes, I'm currently on Wireless Nation's 300GB NZMCA Data plan, which is only open to NZMCA members, but they have other plans for non-members. Wireless Nation's internet speed is often quite bad on Friday and Saturday nights, which apparently is due to all the online gamers tying up the internet, so I avoid uploading videos then. Sometimes I get a bad connection, but I just unplug the modem and when I plug it back in, it often picks up a better tower signal (not always, but most of the time).

[@pw9133]

@@caravanlifenz sorry, I meant to ask, how much? $.

[@donnabrydon3022]

Hi there I’m enjoying your videos can I ask how you run your modem from wireless nation is powered I’m looking at getting portable wifi and wondered how that works with just small solar set up

[@caravanlifenz]

Yes, good question. The modem comes with the standard AC plug, so you just plug it into the AC outlet. It hardly uses much power at all. You can pay extra and buy an adapter for the modem that plugs into a 12V cigarette lighter socket, but I've always just used the AC outlet. I recently switched from Wireless Nation to Spark because Wireless Nation's customer service has badly gone down hill over the past 2 years.

[@jasminmortelman5121]

Hi Mate, great video. i have just invested in one as an introduction to 12v systems. I initially wanted to it power lighting around the campsite (mostly LED strip lights). However, when i turn off the light, the powerstation turns off too. Do you know of how to override this? The only way I can find (at the moment) is to keep the torch on, but there is no indication of how much battery the torch uses. any ideas? thanks!!

[@caravanlifenz]

Yes, these power stations are designed to automatically switch off when they're no longer in use. All three of mine do that. I use mine to power purple LED light strips that I hang over my lettuce plants and I leave the LED light strip on all night, so I've never been in a situation where the automatic switching off is an issue. I think leaving the torch on would waste too much power - wouldn't your LED light strip use less power than the torch if you just left the LED on all night? If you got a cheap 1m LED strip, it doesn't use much power left on all night.

[@Boss-gd7es]

Hii there. What size solar panel do you use with these..? Thanks

[@caravanlifenz]

I bought a 110 watt fold-up solar panel that has the standard MC4 connectors on it. I find fold-up panels easier to place back into my car when I'm travelling or on rainy days when it isn't used. My caravan roof solar panel is 180 watt and on hot sunny days when my caravan's house battery is full, I charge my spare power centres (since the fold-up panel can only charge one at a time).

[@davidlr97]

Very interesting comment about the pure sine wave vs modified sine wave, I wouldn’t have thought of that. Any insights on how these compare to the Anker Powerhouse range? I have considered maybe buying one of those for the rare occasions when I go camping

[@caravanlifenz]

Modified sine wave inverters are cheaper, which is why this little power station is cheap :) So it's not good for laptops, but great for my phone and cameras. I haven't bought Anker products, but I've seen them advertised on the Dick Smith website. There are so many brands out there now. I use an Ecoflow for my laptop charging - it's been reliable so far over the 18 months I've had it.

[@armagansabetian5269]

I just unboxed mine, but the AC won't work. Strange, because i have had 3 of these previously, but this is the first one that has given me issues. Have you had any such issues? BTW don't run AC devices on them for too long; once the power drops to below 50% they can't maintain steady wattage. I have burnt two fans before i realised what was going on.

[@caravanlifenz]

Good advice. I never let any power station or lithium battery get below 40-50%. That's why I bought three of them so I can always recharge when it shows 50% remaining power. No, I haven't had any issues with any of the power stations I've bought, but I do know that electrical wiring is so delicate that anything made in China and shipped all the way out here is going to potentially have issues with lose connections (especially if the guys working at the shipping yards and warehouses drop the whole box of products and they don't own up to it).

[@armagansabetian5269]

@@caravanlifenz Thank you for that. Yes I suspect that's what's happened because everything else works.

[@caravanlifenz]

The retailer will swap the faulty one for a functioning unit (consumer guarantees). But if you did happen to open it up, I'd suspect you'll see a loose wire in there somewhere. A common problem with electronics is when they're transported on rough, bumpy roads for a long distance and it causes the wiring to loosen or break from the solder. If I ever build a tiny house and live rurally off-grid, I'd do all the electrical wiring on site to avoid that problem.

[@thefloodtower4866]

I thought usb a and usb had the same voltage (5v) it is current that is different.

[@caravanlifenz]

The original computer USB type A ports provided 5 volts of electricity with a max current of 0.5A (so that's 2.5 watts), but power stations and other specialised electronic items don't necessarily conform to these original computer standards. For example, my EcoFlow River power station has a fast charge USB type A port that is 12 volts and 28.8 watts (2.4 amps of current). It's quite common for power stations to offer 12V USB type A, even though in the computer world, a USB A port is thought of as 5V. So in answer to your question, no it's not just current/amps that varies, it's the voltage too with these power stations.

[@caravanlifenz]

I looked up the specs for these little Powertech power stations, and it says the two regular USB type A ports are 5V and 2.1A of current, and the "Quick Charge" USB type A is 9V and 2.1A of current. So amps/current is constant, but the volts vary between the fast charge and regular USB type A ports. With power stations, the USB type A ports don't conform to 5 volts like computers.

[@craigweston5887]

I wonder if it could be used to boil water in a kettle.

[@caravanlifenz]

These little power stations are not advertised for that purpose as electric kettles are often around 2400kW, making it a high wattage home appliance. My big EcoFlow power station promises to boil a kettle, but it uses up so much of its power that it is far more efficient to use the LPG gas stove to boil a kettle using gas. Anything that heats will use up a considerable amount of power (kettles, microwaves, hot water cylinders, heaters), so that's why I use my LPG gas for the kettle, hot water cylinder and heater. Power stations are intended for powering electronics like phones, iPads, laptops etc.

[@user-db4bu8sm8e]

Hi my friend how long does it last in one complete charge? In general i mean

[@caravanlifenz]

Do you mean, how long does it take to charge? Or how much usage I got out of one charge? It takes quite a long time to charge - maybe 3 or 4 hours. And when I use it, I mostly charge my phone, 12v desk lamp, camera etc so it lasts a decent amount of time as I'm using low voltage items. Its efficiency in terms of the use I get out of it is about on par with expensive 155 Wh power centres.

[@julielockett1812]

I've used mine 5 times and it's taking longer and longer to fully charge ours took over 12hours to charge this time and its running out of power really quickly around 6hr of running my fish tank pump that's very low wattage

[@caravanlifenz]

Hi Julie - sorry for the delay; it's better to start a fresh comment thread for questions as I can't see a comment if you just reply to an old comment (KZbin only notifies creators of new comments, not replies to old threads). Anyway, taking 12 hours sounds really bad to me. I own three of these power stations and all three only take around 4 hours to recharge completely. They've never taken 12 hours, not even the first time out of the box. I don't know what wattage your fish pump is, but my power stations can run my computer screen and modem for many hours. I'd be taking it back to the shop. My three have worked normally for a year and hold their charge well when they're in storage.

[@thecompletetom]

Don't buy powertech power stations I've client two now and both broke, one the second time I used it. I was using it at about 1/3 of its started capacity. Very disappointing brand.

[@caravanlifenz]

I've got three of them and all have been fine. When I had an electrical wiring job in Australia, the company bought Powertech products regularly without issues because it's cheap but still as reliable as the expensive brands. If electrical engineers are buying Powertech without issues, then that's a positive sign. I've had more issues with my expensive power station. Did you open up the power station and take a look at the wiring to see what the fault was?