Charging a Jackery Power Station with CarGenerator

Here's a quick way to charge your Lithium power station when the sun don't shine

Dear Readers,
Continuing my experiments with solar panels and portable Lithium Battery Power Stations, I had a brainstorm last week about how to power a Jackery 1000 Explorer Pro if the sun isn’t shining.

While I think these portable power stations are great for adding power to your camping experience, they can also be useful for home emergency power if there’s a rolling blackout (like in California), electric grid failure (like in Texas) or hurricane (like in Florida).

Of course, you don’t have to live in any of those states to experience a power blackout for hours, days or even weeks. One of my friends in West Virginia lives out on the end of the power grid, so he’s often ignored, like when a small tornado tore through the area last year. I have colleagues in New England who experience power outages from snow storms, and some of my friends in the Midwest have suffered for days when power went down.

Where you live makes no difference

Portable generators like this Honda EU2200i must be broken in correctly for a longer service life.

So no matter where you live, you can’t depend on the power grid to be up 100% of the time. This is even more important when you need medical devices like a CPAP machine or oxygen generator.

While gasoline-powered generators are great, they only work while you have enough gas to run them. And that was a problem for my business partner on the eastern shore of New Jersey about 10 years ago when the power went down for an entire week, and gasoline couldn’t be found anywhere. A gasoline generator is useless without gasoline to run it.

Also, you may live in an apartment or condo where you can’t keep a generator with enough gasoline containers for a week of backup power. In that case, a portable Lithium “Solar Generator” may be your only practical option.

I have a LOT of generators (over six, at last count), but only enough gasoline for about a week of power. So I decided to see what I could do to run the important things in my house from the latest Jackery Explorer 1000 Pro power station. And it does work great to power my refrigerator and Wi-Fi system plus lights for an entire day. However, while I have enough solar panels to recharge the Jackery daily, what would I do if the sun wasn’t shining for a few days in a row?

CarGenerator to the rescue

Since I also have a CarGenerator 1000 in my shop, and the Jackery 1000 Pro has a built-in 750-watt fast charger, I thought this would be an interesting experiment.

And, indeed, it worked exactly like I saw inside my head. All you need is a CarGenerator 1000 and a Jackery Explorer 1000 Pro to make this work. Click HERE to watch a short video of me doing this.

I was able to recharge the Jackery 1000 Explorer Pro from 0% to 100% in 90 minutes of idling time from my Nissan pickup, then carry the Jackery into my house to power my internet, computer, lighting and refrigerator for a day.

Since the CarGenerator 1000 can provide roughly the same power as 1,000 watts of solar panels, and the Jackery Pro has a 750-watt charger, it will charge up as fast as 800 watts of solar panels under perfect sunny conditions. Plus, there’s no need to leave your solar panels outside for the thieves to help themselves to. I just sat out in my truck for 90 minutes with my iPad plugged into the cigarette lighter, then carried the Jackery into the house when it was done charging.

Yes, you can use a long extension cord!

Of course, you could simply run a 100-ft. extension cord from the CarGenerator 1000 into the Jackery 1000 Pro sitting inside your house, and it would recharge in less than 90 minutes. And a full tank of gasoline in your vehicle would probably run for 90 minutes per day for a few weeks. Plus, I highly recommend you also get solar panels for your Lithium Power Station, because you might as well take advantage of the free sun when it’s shining.

Just remember that while the CarGenerator is rated to be left out in rainy weather, the Jackery Explorer 1000 Pro is not. So please don’t leave the Jackery Explorer out in the rain.

But other than that, this is a great backup power plan that can go on your next RV adventure as well as help keep you safe and powered up for weeks on end when the power goes out at your sticks-and-bricks home.

For a special deal on CarGenerator, please click HERE.

Let’s play and stay safe out there…. - Mike