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Portable power station to charge stihl batteries

Anyone use a portable power station to charge their batteries? if so which one? what batteries are you charging and how many times can you charge the batteries before it needs recharging?

ive the stihl al500 charger and want to charge the ap500s batteries.

was told by a supplier that sells portable power stations, that a £400, 600w, 153600 mAh, power station would charge my ap500s battery 32 times! before it needs re charging?

seems alot to me but if its true it would be great!

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  • hi that powerbank sounds amazing! I doubt a £400 powerbank be capable of running a high speed charger to recharge a 337Wh battery that costs over £300, even couple of times. In practice just buying extra Stihl battery packs is probably the best solution, unfortunately

    • my thoughts exactly, but if the ap500s battery is a 9.3ah, does that mean every time it charges it only takes 9.3ah out of the 153600 mAh that the power station can hold?

      It would be good if i could find out how many watts the power station can hold then i would just divide that by 337... i think thats right....im confused!

      • As I understand it Gary, and I could be wrong as not mathematically minded, the power drawn by the AL500 rapid charger during most of the charging cycle is 600 Watts? About the same as one of those small mains powered travel kettles as found in premier inn hotel rooms etc. It's a 12 Amp charger. The AP500 battery capacity being 9.3Ah at a nominal 36 Volts (40 Volts plus, when fully charged). Also bear in mind losses due to heat generated, voltage conversion etc, and that the entire capacity of the powerbank is never completely usable. I just don't see it being feasible. Bear in mind the AP500 has special new generation flat cells designed to outlast the old cylindrical type in lifespan. The powerbank likely doesn't. Maybe ask the supplier how long you can boil a 600 watt kettle for, using the powerbank, to get a more realistic run time

        • The Amp hour / milliamp hour figure in itself is meaningless as this is dependent on voltage, for example a 2Ah 36V battery has double the capacity of a 2Ah 18V battery, that 153600mAh probably relates to charging a mobile phone or something. It's just a big number so people say oh that sounds good. Looked at a 153600 one on Amazon just now £240. Weight 5.1Kg. Even if the energy density of the powerbank were equal to a Stihl battery pack weighing 2Kg, and allowing for losses in powering a 240V charger, to allow 32 charge cycles, it would be so heavy you would be unable to lift it

  • Billy bop is correct. The 153600mAh figure will relate to the USB output of the unit, at 5v. This means the unit has a power output at 5v of 153.6*5= 768Wh

    The unit converts the DC voltage to AC with a built in inverter, which loses power, and you will find that most of this size units have a rated AC output of around 590Wh.

    Your Stihl charger takes 2.6A, which is 624W (higher than the power station is rated for anyway), which means that you would only manage to charge 1 battery before the PS was flat!

    a better choice would be a large 220Ah 12v (2640Wh) leisure battery, and a really good efficient inverter. You could even wire up a split charger to your van to keep the leisure battery topped up.

  • The supplier as now comeback and says it will charge 2 or 3 times, not 32 as previousley suggested!, ive looked into the leisure battery and inverter and for the cost of all the stuff to that id be better off just buying a couple of spare batteries, already have 2 ap500s maybe just buy another couple im sure 4 will last me the day. just thought someone out there may have had something rigged up at that would easily charge batteries up that was cheaper than buying more batteries

    • yes for the hassle involved, and the fact the lifespan of an actual AP500S battery will far outlast that powerbank, which will be majorly stressed by being used with an AL500 charger, I would advise going down the extra Stihl battery packs route. I own a massive Bosch li-ion powerbank designed exactly for the purpose of running heavy duty mains chargers, it must weigh over 30kg, several years old so todays equivalent would be more compact and lighter, but a pro quality unit, that would only charge 2 or 3 AP500 batteries i reckon, and too heavy to be lugging around, when introduced they were supplied with a wheeled trolley

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