Yeah, everything has limitations and knowing what they are is the most useful part. Hats off to EcoFlow for engaging at the right level to educate us. I'm with you, I'd happily buy from this manufacturer over a competitor now just for this reason. Understanding is key to looking after one's purchases.

You obviously did not watch Matthias video, the video directly before this one. When he originally discovered this issue and brought it to the attention of ecoflow, ecoflow broke off all contact with him for months. When he was not saying what they wanted to hear ecoflow stopped responding to him. No praise at all for ecoflow.

@@Flowing23 EE's were telling him to piss up his own rope. Ecoflow should have done the same.

@@Flowing23 I did watch the video before this one. Their response and blog post are redeeming and that behavior should be encouraged.

Yup. EcoFlow has earned respect with me. IMO, they didn't make a mistake sending a unit to Matthias.

Capacitive droppers should also be ok if they have an appropriate zener diode.

@@Ultrazaubererger that zener would need to be able to shunt quite a bit of current to survive kHz oscilations, keep in mind the power going through a capacitive droppers is linear with the frequency

@@ratchet1freak It should be rated to survive short spikes of about 1000V which normally occur on the regular electricity grid, however the standards for this probably don't take into account that the spikes continue for quite as long.

@@ratchet1freak Not sure but I think with the inrush resistor and other stuff taking some of the load and the time of actual high voltage/frequency being just a few cycles it should be able to survive.

Scary 😱 that you think this is solid petformance

This comment wins, I couldn't agree more. Understanding is key.

Being honest should be a selling point.

Bit funny that his last 2 videos about this topic damaged the brand (not intentionally but it's what it did). At least he did a correction; and well yes these things happen, the inexperience and basically not knowing well about their reputation make you want to tell people to avoid it. But there is were the ignorance can become a harmful trouble. Because in my viewpoint that brand seems legit, and we don't know how many people that did see those other videos won't ever see this one and avoid the brand. And we need legit brands, we need brands that reach out and do legit stuff. Always compare results when doing your research.

Only true in the eyes of those who understand how difficult inductive loads are but EcoFlow cannot live from those alone. The error with the review is not taking an approach from it being an impossible task yet making something that works pretty well.

The specs I can gather say the F-150 lightning uses AC Synchronous motors, So id bet the power tools plugs are run off that inverter. Probably a transformer in there somewhere too since id imagine the drive motors are running higher voltage than 120VAC. in the case of the truck if my guess on plug source is right at all is the inverter is just so big it soaks up the hit of a tool starting up.

@@filanfyretracker They wouldn't need an extra transformer to lower the output voltage because the inverter output is PWM. They'd just use a lower duty cycle. However, IIRC the AC outlets can be active when you're driving. If true, this would necessitate a separate inverter.

@@zlmdragon. Right, that is the ticket

​@@filanfyretracker The V2L (Vehicle to load) outlets on EVs come from the circuits that are used at other times to charge the vehicle's batteries from AC supplies. The inverters that drive the traction motors are only connected to the traction motors. The AC charging circuits are run backwards to create AC from the battery. The AC charging circuits use active rectification to reduce losses compared to passive rectification, and by controlling the active devices differently, the charging transformer can be used for discharging. The AC charging needs effective power factor correction (PFC) circuitry so that it minimises the current draw and harmonics when charging at 10 kW or so. A wall wart charging an iPhone doesn't need to worry so much, but an EV taking 10 kW with a poor power factor could cause problems. The PFC circuit actively alters the current during each cycle to make it match the supply voltage, giving the good power factor. Running the same circuit in a different way during V2L allows the sinewave of the AC supplied by the vehicle to be produced.

I’m trying to figure out what happens if I overload my Ranger outlet with a circular saw.

The standard breakers are designed specifically to accept the start current of motors like this. A 20A breaker can take short 100A start currents. There are also special breakers which are more sensitive and others which are less sensitive.

My rule of thumb has been for ages that incandescent lamps take an inrush current of some ten-fold their nominal current. But it lasts very short time. On the other hand, squirrel gage motors also take about ten or twenty-fold nominal current for inrush. But the inertia determines the duration. Some fans or blower may take 4 seconds or more. The fuse manufacturers have published detailed graphs of their normal blow and slow blow fuse types. There are super fast fuses for semiconductor protection, typically characterized by a single number of XX ampere squared * second, matching the characterization of many high power semiconductors. Those numbers are typically valid in time span of 0.1 millisecond to 10 milliseconds. As to breakers, the most common (domestic ones) are based on thermal sensing element. For more specialized applications, you use thermal/magnetic combination sensing. You may also come across pneumatic or hydraulic damping (i.e. delay) in some breakers. On the other hand, for high inertia motor loads, you might see star-delta two-step starting or use of wound rotor motors with adjustable rotor resistance. Finally, you may nowadays see variable frequency drives recommended for the difficult start applications. The star-delta start reduces inrush current typically to 1/3 from the direct start value. However, it also reduces the torque to 1/10 of nominal. If you can live with that tradeoff, you can save some fuses. All that is what we had at my childhood farm, and what then later the professor of motor design explained. The rest I have forgotten long since!!

@@InssiAjaton Led lighting is also pretty terrible in terms of inrush current. Often 50-100x running current for the first few cycles. Causes big issues controlling large led light banks in factories etc. We split the lights up and use cascading contactors to keep inrush in check.

If it doesn't get the cord warm, it's not going to get the breaker hot. Typical house breakers are thermal only, so it takes a lot of current for a lot of time to trip them. Even at 10 times its rated capacity, it may take a second or two to trip. Industrial breakers like the kind I've designed into control panels also have a magnet solenoid that trips the breaker very quickly when the current exceeds so many times its rated capacity. Going from memory, a class B breaker which is designed for electronics that shouldn't have strong surges trips immediately at 2 to 3 times the rated current, while a class D which is designed more for inductive loads or other circuits with large surges trips at 15 to 20 times the rated current. Those numbers are likely a little off, but you get the point.

@@chitlitlah I'm pretty sure standard household breakers have magnetic trip elements. One time I plugged in a shorted light bulb and the Q115 breaker tripped immediately.

Marble machine ftw

Good explanation of High Frequency (HF) vs Low Frequency (LF) inverters. I too would love to see how an equivalent power LF inverter handles these tests.

It's overall a problem with electronics. It's relatively easy to go from AC to DC but going DC to AC we at best approximate the AC.

I think BLDC AC compressor can be a good solution for solar battery use case scenario. But I don't know if such things exist.. all I see on the internet is BLDC refrigerator compressor to run fridges on battery, but I think if we use it for AC it doesn't strong enough.

@@putraadriansyah8082 There are most definitely inverter-based air conditioning units. It seems to be the norm for mini-split units.

@@eDoc2020 there are multiple manufacturers of slow-start kits for traditional air conditioners, so you don't have to go replacing the whole unit. I'm not sure if it's a VFD or some other technology, but the one I have (Micro-Air EasyStart) limits peak starting current to 15 amps on an air conditioner that draws 12 amps continuous.

@@PsRohrbaugh i asked him if he can hook up what is called a drive to slowly ramp up the motor. Just like the ac soft start kit does. The way you said it was much better. I know someone who sell drives to manage the motors.. i wonder how that would work with the inverter. ? Intresting .

From the first video the problem is that when you use a motor and electronics at the same time it fries the electronics.

Let's clean the air around this answer. First, an RCD protects against live-conductor electric shock due to human body closing a loop between earth and conductor. Since the ecoflow output is inverted from a battery through an isolating transformer , there is no loop, its isolated by design. Therefore RCD useless because there is by design no loop for the leakeage to occur. Secondly, an MCB circuit breaker , depending on the Type Curve you choose can be very well tolerant to inductive / cutting tools inrush current (or startup current). So even that can be useless. So they went with a completelly tunable microcontrolled eFuse / MCB which apparently works pretty well. Wouldn't change a thing.

@@danharold3087 no, only electronics supplied by a ' capacitive dropper type ' rectifier circuit. Which is only used in cheap led bulbs and should have had better protections which the nice ones have

@@Txepetxcc l'm obviously a laymen to electronics & no offense meant. But if a tools draw goes past a certain level igniting a breaker trigger would imho be better than breaking the item or internally damaging it. Thank you for the concise information & time taken. I suppose Matthias doing his ultimate tests to see where the limits are & offering suggestions are along the R&D freebie ethos!

@@Txepetxcc a better RCD would prevent the device from blowing up if the user shorts neutral to ground. I really don't think it's acceptable for a device to break on such a common fault.

A high inductive load would work better with a gas generator than a battery backup. That's how builders have been doing it for years.

@@Beakerbite agreed.

You are absolutely correct that power tools is an extreme case. Quick charging 18V/20V batteries for power tools would be more reasonable expectation. Also, a power outage and plugging in an appliance to run (refrigerator, freezer) might be a good scenario. For me, I would put this in a shed to run DC lights, have an occasional 120V system and charge batteries for tools.

I'm trying to figure out what kind of yahoo would decide that a power outage is the perfect time to go to the shed and cut wood.

Power tools are an extreme use case, but it is also a use case they use to market the devices. And the power tools do work!

I see your point because it is a demonstration, but on the other hand it's kind of more hassle than it's worth if you choose a current sensing resistor that's a multiple of ten. Another thing, if the current trace was correctly scaled it wouldn't be visible most of the time, whereas when we look directly at the voltage across the sensing resistor it's on the same scale as the voltage trace. You could use a separate scale for each trace to make them the same size, but then what was the point of dividing by ten in the first place if you're just going to multiply the scale by ten afterwards?

@@tissuepaper9962 Oscilloscope axis don't work that way -- each channel has it's own scale. So you could always fit all the content on one screen. The point of dividing anything is usually to lower the effect of the probe on the circuit by reducing the loading on the circuit. "more hassle than it's worth" -- the menu for that is literally open in the video. It would've been on the "Unit [V]" menu item and then another on the "Probe [10X]" item.

@@Manawyrm you're not understanding me, or you didn't read my whole comment. I understand that each trace can have a separate scale, but what would be the point of telling the scope what multiplier to use for the voltage to current conversion, if you're just going to adjust the scale of the converted quantity to be the same size as the original raw quantity? Why even perform the conversion? All that matters is the shape, exact values are mostly irrelevant, so what's the point of wasting your time setting the multiplier, adjusting the scale, and then clearing the multiplier again when you're done? Just move the decimal point yourself, you could do that calculation in your head 100 times before it would have been more time-efficient to set the conversion factor.

R&D already knows all this shit, its marketing and execs who just dont care

Their Medium reply was from one of the operations directors and was very, very detailed, way more than I've ever seen from any manufacturer....

I’ll guarantee the design team already knows this and a lot more. I’d bet they can design anything that doesn’t defy the laws of physics but other real-world constraints dictate the chosen path. The critique by Matthias reminds me of audiophiles criticizing power amplifier designs.

True, their value raised HUGE time in my eyes when they send email about they get interested to make product better after showing the fault (though after KZfaq video just).

@@sheph7 this box advertises itself as an off-grid power source, and sells itself on the premise that you won't need all those extension cords anymore. It's perfectly reasonable to expect somebody to stick a power tool in there so that they can work on something without a nearby power source, and it's a very valid critique of the device that it will kill certain electronics if they're used at the same time as a big inductive load. I would have definitely been dumb enough to charge my phone with an old charger at the same time as using a power tool, maybe that's just me or maybe the hazards aren't obvious to everybody. Matthias's use case is still within the realm of what a reasonable person would try, and he has been very clear throughout these videos that this is a very good product with one notable flaw that only appears in the worst case. His coverage isn't comparable to audiophile nitpicking at all, when was the last time an audiophile actually presented oscilloscope traces as evidence for their criticisms?

They would all handle it the same. You need a lot of filtering or a massive inverter to absorb those surges.

You just stuff pennies in the fuse box. Problem solved!

@@1pcfred Fried my entire installation following that advice, pure luck the house didn't catch fire 🙈

@@OmmerSyssel it'd only work with old pennies. New pennies aren't copper anymore so they'd blow like fuses do. Well, maybe they wouldn't blow as good as a fuse but it wouldn't hold like an old copper penny either.

If you see my comment above... Any chance you could do some testing yourself, with a 'scope and circular saw, and see how some of the big HF inverters fare under this type of load? the EG4 6500 would be the one I'd specifically love to see how it handles.

It doesn't matter if it's HF or LF. If it can't handle the surge load then it needs to shut off instead of putting out crazy oscillations.

I suspect that if they were to do that, the box would end up so sensitive that it would shut off seemingly at random during normal use and get a reputation for being unstable. Near the end he mentioned likely needing to design from the ground up for this and I wonder if it just ends up that LF is the cost-effective solution- factoring in it being heavier to boot. Would love to see this tested with an LF inverter even if the battery is separate as a POC.

@@xavierneckor8918 if an inverter is properly sized, it won't. The ecoflow is not designed to run the load in the video, plain and simple. A LF inverter can manage inductive loads easier because it has a massive transformer, which increases its surge capacity considerably.

@@woo6712 They could do that, but it would increase the weight considerably. Hysolis actually sells an LF inverter power system with NMC chemistry. Worth checking out if power tools or well pumps are to be run.

yeah this seems like a good solution. have a "powertool" addon module.

I had a similar thought, but as you might guess they already exist. Search for "power tool soft starter", you can buy them as a control module to hardwire in or as a plug in box. That said, they (the plug in style) seem expensive enough that there may be room for ecoflow to sell one as an accessory at a lower price point.

@@jamesthomas4080 this is great info. maybe matias can get one of them and test it out with the ecoflow!

jj_crank I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe. I got it in my about tab.

Will work with soft start but ultimately masks design flaws per normal consumer expectations

I agree. Adding a soft start reduces both mechanical stress on the power tool and on the backend power source which is not always grid. I notice some table saws have such a hard start that it messes up the blade height adjustment that I carefully adjusted prior. A soft start could also reduce damage to a body in the terrible case of an accidental startup at the wrong time. Even a generator with its higher inductive buffer could get bogged down depending on its size and multiple hard starting power tools that might be starting at the same time. I've seen gas generators advertised as 2000W instantly shut off with just a single miter saw on it. The bottom line is adding a soft start device to the power tools costs the tool manufacturers money upfront and introduces another failure point for their warranty program which is a backend cost to both their financials and reputation.

That is an excellent point! I hook my generator up to the main panel and switch off the circuits it can't handle so I don't have extension cords running all over the place. This would be a problem in that scenario. Thanks for bringing it up!

Agree this is an important point. Backfeeding the house supply is a very useful application. Even a 3 pole disconnect that also disconnected the neutral coming in to the panel as well as the hots would still leave the panel neutral bonded to ground.

@@AndrewMoizer Agreed, however, most folks would only use one of these battery packs to power their fridge or small freezer through a power outage or to keep the oil furnace going in the winter up North. Where I am in Florida, I have to deal with occasional power outages for days or weeks at a time so I have a generator system to power the house essentials and a stash of 50 gallons of fuel to get us through. I do like those power boxes though!

What if you cut the extensin cord with your hedge trimmer or drop the socket in a puddle of water? This is very common.

@@samTollefson I think that is changing though with these companies allowing you to link two or more systems for 240v output. So having a device that blows itself up if it is connected to a neutral bonded panel is a real pain. Of course, maybe the linked 240v system doesn't suffer from the same neutral bonding issue when linked. Then the problem sort of solves itself since most people feeding a panel from a generator input are doing 240v. Still curious if they warn of this in the documentation or not. But not quite curious enough to check myself. lol.

Probably much better. I run an old Trace DR inverter and guess that the transformer makes all the difference.

well this sort of info does turn off some potential customers - just read some of the comments.

wardprocter I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe. I got it in my about tab.