I Bought Amazon's CHEAPEST 2kWh Power Station...And This Happened

0:00 This is the cheapest 2k kowatth power station on Amazon. It cost me just over $600, which is hundreds of dollars less than top brands, and it claims to have cutting edge features like semi-olidstate batteries and an AI powered battery management system. AI, sure. But as we know, cheap products on

0:18 Amazon are usually crap. So, I'm going to test its charging abilities, its battery capacity, and its power output to find out if I just discovered a hidden gem or if I wasted my money. Right after it arrived, I immediately started unboxing everything so I could set it up. And I've been extra curious

0:33 to test this power station in particular because the company behind it is not your normal budget Amazon brand. Apparently, they raised $75 million and hold over 80 patents related to things like battery technology. Is this company actually legit? So, this is what I got for a little over $600. You have the

0:52 wall charging and car charging cable. No solar charging cable included. It would look something like this. But, you know, for $600, I guess I can't complain. Then there's the manual and the warranty card. And then this is the power station. It's called the Dabson 2000L. And Dabson also says it somehow lasts

1:08 1.3 times longer than other power stations for a budget power station. Let's just say I'm skeptical and we will definitely be testing that later. Otherwise, everything about it like the ports and outlets as well as the charging ports around back just all kind of scream budget power station to me.

1:25 But hey, $75 million, 80 plus patents, maybe all the magic is on the inside. And these power stations never arrive fully charged, and this one was no exception. So, after unboxing it, I immediately took it outside to first test out its solar charging. It can handle up to 800 watts of solar, so

1:42 it'll have no issue charging with a single 100 W solar panel, >> 93 watts, >> or a single 200 W panel, >> 160 watts. Just remember to pick up a solar adapter cable with an XT60 connector to be able to plug your panels into this power station and solar extension cable is always a good idea,

2:00 too. And you can also charge the Dabson by connecting multiple panels together, such as these two 200 W panels, >> 308 W, >> as long as the solar array's open voltage is below the solar port 60 volt threshold, but you can always double check with a multimeter before plugging in your solar panels. And if you know

2:17 what you're doing, you can even connect a whole bunch of solar panels like I'm about to do and take advantage of the max 800 watts of solar input. This 800 watt array is maxing out at around 550 watts. But these are not identical panels and it is close to about 5 p.m. And look on the watt meter though. It

2:32 says close to 500 watt. So that is quite a big discrepancy. With all those panels connected, I let the Dabson solar charge for an hour, during which time I set up the Dabson app, which let me remotely monitor the solar charging. After an hour, the power station had charged from 66% to 79%.

2:49 Which is honestly less than I'd expect given that power output we were seeing. And I'm not really sure why. Sometimes on first charge, these power stations can take longer than normal to charge up. Maybe that's it. But it was at that point that I realized I'd made a bit of a mistake because I noticed a sticker on

3:04 the power station recommending I wall charge the unit fully before first use. Oh crap. So before taking the power station inside to wall charge it, I quickly brought the wall charger outside to confirm this unit can wall charge and solar charge at the same time. After plugging in the wall charger, it started

3:24 charging at around 700 watts. That seemed low to me. So I went into the mobile app and then I noticed the default charging speed was 700 watts. So, I bumped it up to 1,000 watts and the unit started charging at that rate with about 550 watts coming from solar and the rest coming from the grid. So,

3:41 then I brought it inside to finish the wall charging so I could start testing Dabs's wild and crazy claims. And at the 1000 watt charging rate, it was making a bit of noise. Actually, not a great sign since 1,00 watts is actually not all that fast for a unit of this size. In the app, I turned on the

3:58 fast charge, which supposedly brings the speed up to 1500 watts. But on the screen, it said the charging rate only maxed out at,00 watts. That's when I noticed it said AC plus PV. AC refers to wall charging and PV refers to solar charging. So, does that mean you only get 1500 watts charging speed when you

4:13 combine both? I don't think I saw that in the manual, but I was willing to give the Dabson the benefit of the doubt for the moment. And I left it to finish charging so that the next day it would be ready for testing. Now that it's fully charged, we can begin to test all of Dabson's juicy claims. Starting with

4:30 its semi-olid state battery. We know the Dabson is very lightweight for its size. One of the most popular 2 kowatth power stations, the Delta 2 Max, weighs 50 lb and the Dabson weighs just 41 lb. So, if the Dabson has close to 2 kwatt hours of battery capacity, that could indicate it

4:48 has a semi-olid state battery because they're more energy dense. And to find that out, I set everything up for a battery capacity test, turned on the heat guns, and started the timer. Got identical heat guns connected to the power stations with identical smart plugs. They each pull around 550 W from

5:06 the wall outlet. And I'm also timing how long the power stations last to get a sense of if the Dabson really lasts 1.3 times longer thanks to some amazing inverter technology that reduces energy loss supposedly. Oh man, it is already starting to get hot in here. And if the Dabson does have semi-olidstate

5:25 batteries, this would be genuinely cool and exciting. In addition to being more energy dense, they last longer and they can work in wider temperature ranges. Although the Dabson's operating temperature range is not wider than normal, which makes me a little skeptical. And if Dabson, Dabson, a

5:43 random budget brand, has gotten their hands on these nextgen batteries, just imagine how quickly the big brands will follow. The Dabson ended up dying first about 10 minutes before the Delta 2 Max. So, don't expect 1.3 times longer run time. But what about the capacity? Well, I checked the smart plug data, and the

6:01 Dabson did in fact output the amount of energy I'd expect from a 2 kWh power station, though it was slightly less than the Delta 2 Max. I also calculated the AC efficiency. Okay, we got 91.7% efficiency from the EcoFlow. And then for the Dabson, we got 89.1%. So, it's not like we've confirmed

6:25 whether it's a semi-olid state battery or not with a simple capacity test, but we haven't ruled it out so far. But I saw zero evidence for an AI powered BMS. And the whole claim just feels fishy because what does that even mean? It reminds me of those AI powered walking shoes that people were testing on

6:41 YouTube a few years back. In one article about Dabson's technology, it implies that the AI helps manage temperature. But when I charged both power stations back up, I checked their internal temperatures, and the Delta 2 Max was cooler than the Dabson despite charging way faster. But it was nice to see the

6:57 Dabson live up to its claims in at least one way. Okay, now we're getting closer to the 1500 watts charging speed they claim. And right as I was about to start testing what devices the Dabson can run, I noticed something surprising. >> I can use an Allen wrench to open up this entire side panel and take a look

7:15 inside. >> That's how they put the case on. All right, there she is. The inside of the Dabson. Those blue cylinders, those are the battery cells. Oh, okay. We got some more fun stuff on this side. Some XT60 connectors with just a zip tie

7:42 to keep them together. That's funny. Look at this plastic cover they put on top. That's making me laugh. It's literally just thin little plastic. Well, guys, I think we found the AI. There it is. So, is it a semi-olid state battery? I'm highly skeptical. It doesn't have the wider temperature range

8:03 that I'd expect to see. And as for its weight, well, the Jackary 2000 V2 is a similarly sized power station that is even lighter than the Dabson. And they make no claims about it having any special batteries. Sometimes being lightweight means it's cutting edge, and sometimes it just means it's cheaply

8:20 made. But the main thing you'll be using power stations for is running your devices and appliances. Home backup power is arguably the main use case for these size power stations. So, I wanted to see how well the Dabson handled a number of devices you might plug in during a blackout. So, I plugged in my

8:36 kitchen fridge, Wi-Fi router, and a couple lights. And with all that, the power station showed zero watts output despite everything, including the fridge being on. Though, the fridge was not running in this moment. I also plugged in a TV and started charging my phone and laptop. Okay, now we're getting some

8:52 power output on the screen. So, with all these devices plugged in and running and charging, the power station is outputting around 160 watts, it says, and there's an estimated 8 hours of run time. I just heard the fridge kick on and start running. Let's check the power output. Okay, it's jumped up to about

9:09 220 watts. And you can see it there, estimated 6 hours remaining. Now, I also wanted to push the Dabson to find out its limit. So, I then plugged in my microwave. The outlets can definitely get a bit crowded, so I had to rearrange everything first using a power strip. Then I started the microwave.

9:30 Whoa. Okay, now the power station is outputting close to 1,800 watts. Put a minute on the microwave. It says 1 hour estimated time remaining if I were to be running all of this at the same time. And no issues with the microwave. I have not seen it flicker or act weird in any way, which I have seen before running a

9:49 microwave off of power station. All right, 1 minute, no problem. No issues with the power station. The fan did kick on. It's making a little bit of noise now and the battery dropped by maybe two percentage points, but it worked great. And if you want to take this power station camping, it has the

10:05 12volt car socket you could use to run something like a 12volt mini fridge. You could charge your devices like your headlamp or camping lights. Though, the power station does have a built-in light right on the front, which is pretty bright. It can run fans, whether they're DC fans or not. Run a Starlink Mini off

10:21 of the outlets or the 100 W USBC port if you buy the Starlink USBC power cord. And I even got it to boil two cups of water using a small electric stove top. It took about 6 minutes to boil and with the stove top on, the power station was outputting 1,000 watts. Without the stove top on, everything was using

10:39 around 100 watts and there was an estimated 10 hours remaining. And if you're dumb like me and want to play with power tools in a thunderstorm, the Dabson will definitely charge your power tool batteries and run small power tools like a jigsaw. But how does it perform with bigger power tools like a circular

10:53 saw? The first time I tried, the saw started up without issue and the power output settled around 1,000 W. But when I brought the camera closer to try again, the saw overloaded the AC outlet. We had an overload with the circular saw and I couldn't use the outlets again until I reset the entire power station.

11:13 I tried looking into the Dabson's power boost mode, but it said it works best for heating appliances, which is typical of these extra power modes. Besides, I couldn't even find where to turn the power boost mode on in the app despite looking through the entire thing. So, I brought out the Delta 2 Max to see how

11:27 it would fare against the circular saw, and it started up two different times without issue. And we can see that the circular saw on startup can pull over 2200 watts, which explains why the Dabson's outlets cut out. They can supply 2200 watts continuous, while the Delta 2 Maxes can supply up to 2400 W

11:47 continuous. >> Still, I am a little surprised that the Dabson's outlets cut out because that startup power surge from the circular saw was just so brief. Because power boost mode is supposed to work best with heating devices. I brought out both heat guns, plugged them into the Dabson and

12:02 turned them on. And the Dabson kept its power output right around the 2200 W limit and they ran for a minute with no issue. So I turned them off and then brought out the electric stove top as well. Plugged it into the Dabson and turned all three devices on. As you can see, the power output surged to 3200

12:21 watts for about 10 seconds before the power station started throttling the output. And you can actually hear the heat guns get quieter once that happens. And I let all three devices run for a minute, which they did again without issue. So really very similar power output between these two models. In practice,

12:41 the Delta 2 Max will be able to run a little bit more, mainly in those edge cases like we saw with the circular saw where you're using a ton of power. Budget brands usually have terrible customer support, but when I called their phone number, they picked up right away and answered a simple question I

12:56 had about over paneling this model. >> Um, unfortunately, it's it is not safe. >> They told me, "No, this unit cannot be overpanled." Not bad. They actually picked up. But being a budget brand is not a bad thing. The 2000L cost me $350 less than the Delta 2 Max. That's great. I really like that.

13:18 Bad news, y'all. So, it's been a couple weeks since I finished testing the Dabson. I was about to post this very video that you're watching when I discovered something. Watch what happens when I try to turn on this lamp. Uh, shouldn't be hard, right? Well, I'm going to turn on the AC

13:37 outlets by pushing that button, which I've done many times before. You see, they turn on, but watch it starts slowly flashing on and then off. And then you might be able to see on the screen here, there's like a little 60 Hz display that pops up and then it goes away. There's a fan symbol that pops up and then it goes

13:57 away. Not a good sign. And I try to turn on the lamp. The AC outlets have stopped working. You know, for a minute there, I was thinking this could be a good budget option, but it's been just sitting around for a couple weeks, not being used or abused in any way in perfect storage

14:22 conditions. Wow. I'm glad I was able to film this before putting this video out there. Buy everywhere when you buy the cheapest stuff on Amazon.