Gear Review — Duracell Powerpack 600

by | Aug 29, 2011 | Bug In, Energy, Gear, Preparedness, suburban survival, Urban Survival | 4 comments

I recent­ly pur­chased the Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 (This now actu­al­ly links to a new but sim­i­lar prod­uct).  It’s pow­ered by a recharge­able 28AH bat­tery and pro­vides up to 600 watts of AC pow­er. This device is pri­mar­i­ly designed as and for jump-start­ing cars but has sev­er­al great fea­tures.  I pur­chased it pri­mar­i­ly as a portable renew­able ener­gy source for my apart­ment or to go camp­ing with.  From the descrip­tions I have read, it seems this (to me) is a mini bat­tery-pow­ered gen­er­a­tor.  With three AC out­lets and one DC sock­et at your fin­ger­tips, the 600 is the right pow­er solu­tion for peo­ple with demand­ing appli­ca­tions or the need to run mul­ti­ple loads simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Per­fect for pow­er emer­gen­cies, this portable back­up pow­er pow­er­pack includes an AM/FM radio with a dig­i­tal alarm clock to keep you con­nect­ed, built-in emer­gency light, jumper cables that unplug from the device itself so they do not get in the way when you do not need them, and

enough pow­er to jump-start a car, truck, boat or small RV.  The instruc­tions say that it is good up to a V8 for jump-start­ing a vehi­cle.  Not too shab­by.  I looked at sev­er­al designs, includ­ing the Wagan Pow­er Dome EX.  I chose the Dura­cell pri­mar­i­ly for the reviews.  The reviews of the Pow­er Dome EX were all over the board and the Dura­cell reviews I read were con­sis­tent­ly good across the board.  To boot, for a few more dol­lars you get your hands on a 600 Watt device vs. a 400 at device deliv­er­ing a longer-last­ing load to your devices.

Heavy-duty Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 deliv­ers 600 watts of portable AC pow­er with vehi­cle jump­start, AM/FM radio, and dig­i­tal alarm clock.

Pow­ered by a recharge­able 28AH bat­tery, the Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 pro­vides up to 600 watts of AC pow­er. It can jump-start a car, truck, boat, or small RV. The sys­tem also oper­ates a wide range of DC prod­ucts. Ide­al for pow­er emer­gen­cies, Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 comes with a built-in emer­gency light and jumper cables. Inte­grat­ed AM/FM radio and dig­i­tal alarm clock pro­vides access to music, talk radio, and news. Whether it’s a job site or a camp­site, the Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600HD is the ide­al portable back­up pow­er solu­tion.

Features

  • Runs 115-volt AC (3 out­lets, 480-watt con­tin­u­ous)
  • Runs 12-volt DC (1 out­let)
  • Built-in 600 watt invert­er
  • Sealed, non-spill­able 28 amp-hour AGM bat­tery
  • AM/FM radio
  • Dig­i­tal alarm clock
  • Jumper cables designed for safe and effi­cient jump-start­ing
  • Built-in light pro­vides illu­mi­na­tion in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions at home and on the road
  • The 3‑digit dis­play allows for easy bat­tery sta­tus mon­i­tor­ing
  • Audi­ble alarm sig­nals over­heat and under-volt­age con­di­tions
  • Over­load and over-tem­per­a­ture pro­tec­tion to ensure longer invert­er life
  • Recharge at home or from a vehi­cle

Accessories

  • Jumper Cables — use Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 to jump-start your vehi­cle
  • AC Charg­er — recharge Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 from a stan­dard wall out­let
  • DC Charg­ing Cable — recharge Dura­cell Pow­er­pack 600 from your car, truck, boat, or RV -
  • I am buy­ing a 15 Watt solar pan­el to con­nect to the DC input.  With the built-in over­charg­ing reg­u­la­tor, there is no chance I will over­charge the device.  I was just at Har­bor Freight.  Once I get this set­up and test it, I will write anoth­er review of the Solar Pan­el and con­nec­tion to the Pow­er­pack 600.
  • Acces­so­ry bag

Applications

For Emer­gency Sit­u­a­tions:

  • Jump-starts vehi­cles
  • Charges cord­less and cel­lu­lar phones
  • Pow­ers emer­gency light, TVs and radios
  • Pro­vide access to news radio and emer­gency broad­cast
  • For Indoor & Out­door Appli­ca­tions:
  • Runs small pow­er tools
  • Pow­ers cam­corders, video games, stere­os, 13” TV/VCR com­bos
  • Runs hand-held blenders, fans, com­put­ers, lap­tops, clock radios

For Out­door and Indoor Appli­ca­tions:

  • Jump-starts vehi­cles
  • Charges cord­less and cel­lu­lar phones
  • Pow­ers emer­gency light, TVs and radios
  • Pro­vide access to news radio and emer­gency broad­cast
I have been play­ing with the Dura­cell Pow­er­pack and it seems like a sol­id unit.  It is 12lbs, but the han­dle makes it easy to move around, and throw in the back of my truck if need be.  What they do not tell you is that it takes about 30 hours to recharge being plugged in.  So you need to be care­ful what you plug into it.  I would­n’t run the microwave or a toast­er oven if you want my per­son­al opin­ion.  How­ev­er, I would run some low wattage lights, recharge my iPhone, or oth­er small devices, and turn the unit off when it is not in use or keep it charg­ing on the solar pan­el…
The caveat, I think, because of the type of device it is, an EMP may take it out, so I may build some kind of Fara­day box for it, and sev­er­al oth­er pieces of gear that I have.  That alone is anoth­er post, I believe…
How many of you have some­thing like this or a solar pan­el, deep cycle bat­tery, and DC/AC invert­er to run small devices in a pow­er out­age?
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4 Comments

  1. Mr-Jones
    Mr-Jones on August 29, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    I have one that I use to run com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment and recharge small­er bat­ter­ies and cell phones for com­mu­ni­ca­tions and have no com­plaints thus far. You can can buy a 5.5mm DC coax to 30 Amp Ander­son Pow­er­Pole con­nec­tor from Powerwerx.com to con­nect it to your solar pan­el. You’ll also need to get Pow­er­Pole cable to what­ev­er your solar pan­el uses, but I’ve found this is the eas­i­est since the gen­der­less Pow­er­Pole con­nec­tors allow me to also con­nect Brun­ton Charge Con­troller (that I con­vert­ed to Pow­er­Pole Con­nec­tors) to charge reg­u­lar unreg­u­lat­ed 12v car bat­ter­ies with­out over­charg­ing them. I also use a Cig­Bud­dy cig­a­rette charg­ing recep­ta­cle to Pow­er­Pole adapter to con­nect a Pow­er­Pole split­ter to the Dura­cel­l’s 12v recep­ta­cle to get an addi­tion­al (3) 12v DC out­lets.

    Reply
    • suburban
      suburban on August 29, 2011 at 8:36 pm

      Mar­tin, great advice, Thanks!

      Reply
  2. Nobody
    Nobody on August 30, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    Nice. Would­n’t mind hav­ing this because I just don’t see the need for a ‘real’ gen­er­a­tor. This would help to have around, plus its portable. Regard­ing the solar pan­el, and the pow­er pole, (don’t under­stand that stuff) can some­one link to those prod­ucts?

    Reply

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