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Escape 150 battery pack (the Coffee Maker looking battery) often goes with the Boulder 15 Solar Panel. The advertisement says to expect to fully charge the Escape 150 battery from empty charge in about 15 hours using the panel. When I bought the two together I charged the battery to full and then ran it down to empty. The next morning at sun up (I live in the California desert mountains . . so I'm high above the haze layer and have 100% crystal blue sky and sun) so I faced the panel directly at the sun for 11 hours solid. At the end of that time I was knocking on the door of 80% power (75%??) according to the battery charge indicator, and took the next day for another 3 hours (total of 14ish hours) to get the Escape 150 fully charged. Recommendation: if you're going to run the Escape 150 down to empty during the day/night (for laptops, etc.) then you'll need two (2) Boulder 15 solar panels (daisy-chained) to fully recharge the battery the next day. NOTE: Also, I did run the battery to empty off 3 of their LED lights (which are outstanding at 207 illumens 3-watt, "Light-a-life" as they're called). Manufacturer states to expect getting 16 hours of light (with 3 lights daisy chained). I got 17 hours 10 minutes with the Escape 150 battery.
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I had to stay in a tent for a week during the hottest week of the summer in upstate NY. I was alone with my dogs. I was able to run a 12v DC fan I had all night and still listen to podcasts on my smartphone while it stayed charged. I had to recharge it once and used the outlet at the camp pavillion. Really glad I had this.Best Deals for Goal Zero Escape 150 -Kids
After Sandy, this is a good battery backup to have for people in the NE! Tried it out with a stove that locks unless its plugged in with electricity and worked great.REVISED REVIEW -6 months later our Goalzero does not work anymore. It still charges but doesn't dispense the charge. I have a call into GoalZero. I will update once they try to resolve. This is unacceptable because we barely have used the unit but followed all instructions from GoalZero.
Honest reviews on Goal Zero Escape 150 -Kids
I have been looking for a product that I could use in the event of an extended power outage--in particular, I wanted something that could be recharged using solar panels and would provide me the ability to charge my ultrabook, Kindle, cell phone, and other small portable electronic devices or run a cable modem/router combination. After doing a fair bit of research about various options, including evaluating some much more expensive possibilities including the Duracell Powerpacks and even considering building my own setup by purchasing an inverter, lead acid batteries, and a solar charge controller, I decided to give this a try.I have run various experiments and so far it performs very well. Although I am a Goal Zero fan, I recognize that not all of their products are well made. However, this seems like a well-designed and well-built unit. To be sure, with ~150WHr of battery and an 80W maximum output you aren't going to be able to run anything big on this (and there is only a single AC outlet), but for maintaining connectivity in an emergency this seems like it will do the job nicely. I've been able to full charge the unit in about 6 hours of full sunlight using two 15-watt Boulder solar panels chained together. It can also charge devices that are plugged in while being charged itself. The optional Light-A-Life accessory, which plugs directly into the DC output (and thus avoids the slight power loss than comes from operating the inverter), is bright and lasts forever. I was also able to run my router/cable modem combination for several hours after charging a Kindle completely and my laptop partially before exhausting the battery.
One thing I was a bit worried about was whether the battery would be of sufficient quality--the last thing you'd want in an emergency would be to find that you main backup power source can't hold a charge. I was surprised when I opened my unit to discover that the battery was a Ritar RT-12140EV, which is a deep-cycle battery designed for running electric vehicles. Although for this type of device a deep-cycle is really the only thing that makes sense (when only a limited amount of power is available to begin with, who isn't going to want to fully discharge the battery?), from what I'd read about the product, I wasn't expecting a deep-cycle. So I was pleasantly surprised to see it included one.
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