In our van we don’t have solar panels or deep cycle batteries so we decided to get the Jackery Explorer 240. We decided out of the many sizes of Jackery portable batteries the 240Wh would be enough for us and still be within our budget. We choose Jackery after many recommendations by other travelers. They also sell their own solar panels to go along with the portable battery but chose not to get them due to price.
We used the portable battery to charge our phones, laptops, and camera batteries. Charging worked just like using any other outlet you would expect in a house. However the output is only 200 watts, so this means you can’t use appliances that need more power. One of the downsides of Explorer 240 is that there is only one AC outlet. This meant that we could only charge one laptop at a time or one camera battery.
Since we don’t have solar panels we need a way to charge the portable battery. We used the 12 volt car outlet to charge every time we drove anywhere. Going from 0-100% battery takes about 7 hours. We never got below half battery and would get back to 100% fairly quickly.
We would recommend this to someone looking for an easy setup and you don’t need to run appliances. If you drive a lot or have a way to charge the battery you should have no issues with battery life. If you need a better system with more power I would recommend a deep cycle battery system you can run off the alternator or solar.
