Jackery 1500 Pros Cons

Jackery 1500 Pros Cons – in this article, we’re going to take a look at the Jackery 1500. I’ve gotten a lot of requests to review this unit and I’ll give you my honesty. Take now, that I’ve had a chance to kind of play around with this for a little while. I reviewed a number of these types of devices over the years, and they each have their own unique features. And I will be upfront and let you know that there are things that I like about this unit and things I’d like to see improvements on in future models from this company.

Jackery 1500 Pros Cons

I think this unit does fulfill the needs of some looking to get into a backup power source that can be recharged from solar panels. If you’re interested in picking up one of these I will post a link in the section below. Now, based on the information, in this article hopefully you can make your own decision whether it’s a right fit for you or not.

Jackery 1500 Pros Cons

1. Technical Aspect

So, let’s jump into technical aspects for starters. It puts out 1800 running watts and 3600 surge watts. For the non-technical people out there, running wattage is the amount of electricity necessary to run your appliances continually. Surge or starting wattage is the additional amount of electricity you need for about two to three seconds to start electrical motors. Commonly found in household appliances. You get 1488 watt-hours which are in the upper middle range of these units.

A watt-hour is a measure of electrical energy equivalent to the power consumption of one watt for one hour. That is an improvement over previous Jackery units as we know though these numbers are always optimal at optimal conditions, actual times. They tend to vary, and that variance on any generator is always lower and not higher.

2. Jackery 1500 Weight

It weighs 35 pounds or 14 kilograms. So, it’s not necessarily the lightest, but a wide handle makes it easier to carry. So, based on all the information presented, what does this mean for non-technical folks out there? It means that even with no replenishment input from solar panels, this unit will run a mini cooler for about 26 hours without any replenishment input.

It will run electric grills, microwaves, pressure cookers, or coffee makers continually for over an hour. To put this in perspective, you could power a blender on high for about an hour. You can power up to 7 devices simultaneously, you can run led lights, and charge small electronic devices for probably days and days.

3. Charging Ways

You have one USB-c and two USB-c ports, three AC outlets, and one DC car outlet. It takes four to five hours completely charged exactly with four 100 watts of solar panels or a wall outlet. And it will take 13 hours to fully charge with the car outlet. If you plan on using this as a backup in your house for when the power goes out, you will be glad to know that you can leave it plugged into the wall to charge.

This unit will support what’s called pass-through charging. A fan on this unit is about average for these types of devices. Any inverter of any brand is going to be a little noisy at about 56 decibels. It’s audible and that’s twice the level of whisper and about the same level as your household refrigerator, you hear it. But also easily tune it out and don’t notice it after a while.

The fan isn’t always on but it will kick on when the inverter kicks on. It has a second fan in there. If you’re already pushing the unit’s capacity that will take it to about 75 decibels which is equivalent to a vacuum cleaner, but personally, I don’t think it was that loud.

4. Battery life

It has an estimated total battery life of about eight years. It has 800 cycles to 80 capacity set of batteries that means over the course of 800 cycles, you can expect it to lose the top 20 percent efficiency of the battery. Don’t throw it out, though because you’ll get eight solid years of use out of it. Even after the run time goes down to 20% 800 cycles is a long long time for casual users.

Displaying other features, the display on the Jackery 1500 is an improvement over the previous units. If you ever have looked at a generator display, and only seen incomprehensible numbers that made no sense to you, you’ll love the more intuitive approach they used here. You get a clear visual display of the input and output power along with the battery icon.

If you do not want to do all the calculations on every device, you’re going to plug in this, remaining power level meter will allow you to plug in different devices. Turn them on and instantly know what gadgets will drain your battery, the fastest, and which are the most efficient.

On the side of the unit is a built-in flashlight. Each output section has its own activation button. And again, there’s a nice digital readout on the display’s bottom that will tell me exactly how many hours of charge I have. There’s no math for me to do additional accessories.

Jackery 1500 Accessories

The basic unit is a Jackery explorer 1500 package with one car charge cable, and one AC and DC adapter. You can use up to two AC adapter cables which get the charge down to two to three hours as a home emergency solution. There is enough to keep you powered for minor outages. If you think you’ll be without power for an extended period of time, however, it’s worth the investment in the optional solar package upgrade that will give you 4 solar saga 100 watts panels that plug into your two input devices on the Explorer 1500.

1. Solar Saga Panel

This will make you energy independent so long as the sun is shining with the input gauges on the Jackery. Aligning your panels for maximum efficiency as a breeze the solar panels are designed with an integrated kickstand magnetic snap, closures, and outdoor cloth backing for a little bit of protection.

A pocket and a built-in handle, make it much easier to carry. Load unloads and set up than your average panel. They’re also waterproof. There’s a USB-a and a USB-c port built right into the back of the solar panel, so I can charge devices right off of it independent of the Jackery unit.

These ports on the panel are inside the back pocket, so I can put my charging device right in the pocket. One thing to note, this is built to be a kind of plug-and-play. That’s both good and bad if you want to use other panels you may lose efficiency.

The eight millimeters input into the Jackery units is proprietary. The center pole is too large for a standard adapter. You have to use the Jackery parallel adapter for two panels. If you want to use solar panels that aren’t Jackery, you’re going to run into quite a few hurdles. You’ll also find that Jackery’s panels are better built, and charged faster than many panels of the same output.

2. Car Charging

Car charging this isn’t necessarily great. I tried it in my SUV and a friend’s Tacoma truck. The truck had a better output with the AC adapter, but the charge time was over 7 hours in my SUV. The truck had more output 263 watts and brought that to a respectable 3 hours. If you’re driving somewhere that’s great, but if you’re wanting to charge this up by running your car, don’t count on it. You would burn too much vital fuel in the process.

I was also interested in how well this charged up with the separately sold upgrade to the 45 cells. Solar saga 100 watts solar panel setup four after all in a grid down situation, or a situation where the power was down for a few days, or a week, or more. This would be a big deal in my consideration, can’t run our car engine obviously for 13 hours to get this charged up. It was easy to plug it all together and set it up.

My first solar charge test with all four panels was during the evening sun which was filtered through trees. So, not ideal by any means, still, it was pulling 53 watts with the 15 hours charge time to fall from where the battery system was currently charged. Only had about an hour’s light left. It was charging at a trickle which really wasn’t ideal.

My second test was early in the morning. Clouds obstructed the sun but this may be similar to what many encounters in northern regions. Just two panels pulled a better 137 to 144 watts and brought the charge time down to 9.8 hours. That’s pretty good, considering the peak at 200 watts output.

The second set and even not-so-perfect morning light had the 400 watts total coming in at a respectable peak of 250 watts. And brought my charge time down a little over 6 hours for more. The current charge level was that still wasn’t good enough for me. Though that’s decent for most practical purposes, and most can get by on that.

So, I set all the panels up in my yard in full sun. They were super efficient with 400 watts peak performance. They were combined for around 340 with a peak of 372 watts for a 3.2 hours charge time. That’s really really good. After a disaster, I could get this battery up to 100, and just over 3 hours from where the current charge was with direct sunlight with the 4 panels 100 watts system setup.

There are two things to note here

1. Jackery does market 200 watts monocrystalline solar panels. And this will reduce the charge time, and be much more efficient though they are much larger almost 8 feet long when unfolded. They’re also 18 pounds each, instead of just 9 pounds for the 100 watts panels. I think the portability and deployment of these 100 watts panels are acceptable for most situations.
2. These photovoltaic cells are a wiredness series, which that means, if you shade one of the cells, you will significantly diminish the production from that panel here. I have just one panel plugged in and is generating a respectable 90 watts. I cover one cell completely with my hat which dropped the panel’s output to 27 watts one-third of its peak performance.

If you’re going to be in partial shade or non-direct sunlight, the output of these panels will drop. Still, if you know that you will have sun the solar package is a great option. They’re highly portable and they put out good efficiency. If you’ve ever lugged around traditional monocrystalline solar panels, you’re going to appreciate these panels.

If you have no experience with solar panels, you will enjoy how easy they are to carry, set up, plug in, and get charging. Even, if you don’t want to add on a solar package.

Jackery 1500 Pros Cons – The final consideration is a home unit. With this plugged into my wall, the wattage input charged at around 263 watts. If I have thoughtfully considered, the water requirements of my emergency devices and I have to cook, communicate, and have some led lights, I could stretch this emergency power source out for days. Even without the sun.

That to me is excellent peace of mind. If you’re an overland trekker, RVer, or camper, or you’re just looking for a home emergency power station, this is an option worth considering. Jackery has done the thinking for you and built this unit with the user in mind. I think that’s great for most of us. It allows you to easily turn your attention to the devices you need to be able to plug into.

If there were a disaster, low draw, high efficiency, led lighting, an efficient hot plate, or heater and electric blanket can all plugin and would easily have gotten. For most people though, the recent outage in Texas, low temperatures, however, will present challenges recharging a mini refrigerator, fans, swamp coolers, and led lights can all plug-in in hot climates, and heat waves.

Plus, your ability to solar charge will likely be higher so long as you keep your unit under 104 degrees. Possibly, by keeping the Jackery itself in the shade, however, you use it. I’m confident it will run most of the small devices you want to run off of it.

For the price point, it’s slightly under competitors and decently priced. It’s a suitable unit for most applications and most users, and I would recommend it to anyone who just wants an all-in-one package. Easy to deploy the system. So, now that we’ve covered the basics.

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