Does the Yeti 6000 act like a UPS and power directly from AC electricity (when available)?
I live in an the Caribbean, where power outages are frequent, from a couple hours a day, to weeks at a time (for a big hurricane). And I travel a lot, so I am not at home to plug in my refrigerator to my Yeti, nor throw the switch on the back up transfer switch. So, I plan to plug my Yeti 6000x into the wall, and plug my refrigerator into the Yeti for a couple weeks while I am gone to keep the fridge running when the power is out and I am not there to throw switches or plug the fridge into the Yeti 6000x.
My question is... is the Yeti like a UPS, where the computer (etc.) runs off line electricity when available, but switches to battery when the AC goes off? Or, will the AC be constantly charging the battery, and the battery constantly running the fridge?
Thank you!
Best Answer
-
Hi @PowerGrid,
If you connect things correctly you can use a Yeti as a battery backup.
- Connect the fridge into one of the AC output ports on the Yeti 6000X. It will run the fridge until they Yeti's battery runs out of power.
- If you connect more solar or AC power to charge the yeti that it is providing it will always stay on.
Pay attention to how much power the fridge uses in Watts and connect enough solar or AC power to keep up with that. For example, in our testing, an average 2020 model 27cu ft fridge would run for 85 hours and on average pulled 71W in a room temperature building.
If the power goes out and the room gets hotter, the runtime will be shorter and power demand will be higher as the fridge has to compensate. I would recommend testing runtime with out air conditioning to see what your unique setup can actually do in your environment while you can be close to monitor and record results. Then you will know how long you can rely on that setup to run your fridge.
Does that help?
Answers
-
So, using that set up (fridge plugged into Yeti, Yeti plugged into wall socket/house electricity), when the electricity is on and running normally, and the refrigerator is running directly from the house electricity and bypassing the battery? Or, is the fridge constantly running off of the battery, and the house electricity constantly recharging the battery?
Thanks.
-
Hi @PowerGrid ,
The fridge is constantly running off of the battery, and the house electricity constantly recharging the battery.
-
Hi @GOAL ZERO ADMIN,
is it ok for battery longevity? Will it drain dramatically the battery capacity?
-
I have tried to use a 1000x on a much smaller scale as a battery backup but it cannot run unattended. I don't know if this is unique to the 1000x or if it impacts other models. But the charge controller chip seems unable to manage the situation properly.
What happens is that over a period of 3 weeks or so the unit mistakenly thinks it isn't fully charged to the point that it shuts down. If you turn off the inverter and disconnect the charger, totally shut it down for 24 hours and then turn the display back on -- boom, it's magically back at 100% charge. Then in the ensuing days it's back to topping off at 98%, 95%, 92%, 89% and so on until it dies again -- and then 24 hours turned off and it's back at 100% after claiming to be empty or at a very low charge.
Doing a reset doesn't set it right. It has to be off for some period of time. I know 24 hours is sufficient and that 1 hour isn't. Maybe 12 or 6 hours will suffice, I don't know. I don't have the patience to narrow it down. It shouldn't behave like that in any case.
Several weeks of testing demonstrates that you either have to turn it off for an extended time periodically as per above, OR do not charge while it's running any sort of load. My usage pattern now is to run all my office equipment from it during the day. At bedtime I turn the inverter off and plug the load into the wall outlet and then plug in the A/C charger. This charges to 100% overnight (when electricity is cheaper). Then when I get up in the morning I unplug the charger and plug my office equipment back into the 1000x and turn the inverter back on.
In this fashion it's at 100% (or occasionally 99 or 98%) every morning, no problem. I never run it down below about 40% with this regime but I don't expect drawing it further down to be any problem, apart from maybe not being able to fully recharge in 8 hours overnight using the provided 120 watt A/C charger.
GoalZero exchanged my 1000x for a new one to try to solve this but the new unit could be the old one for all I know because it has the exact same problem.
Bottom line, do not assume a Yeti can be a glorified uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and run unattended with the charger (or solar panels) plugged in to charge simultaneously with running a load. Test it first. In my case it kinda-sorta works but needs a rest once in awhile and if a power outage catches you with the unit thinking it's low on power, you might have to do without power for a few hours to set it right. Or do some scary "open the box and disconnect some stuff and reconnect it" sort of thing that probably voids the warranty.
My original application was to put the 1000x in my (climate-controlled) cellar to run my internet routers and switches and a couple other things (average of maybe a 40 or 50 watt load) but I have had to fall back to using it in the office where I can futz with it twice a day. Original unit was purchased earlier this year, replacement unit is probably 4 months old. I'm curious if other Yeti users have had similar experiences -- and if so, what models and vintage, etc. The sad thing is, I purchased 3 x 200 watt solar panels to go with it for emergencies and it's difficult to use those from my 2nd floor office. So the whole setup has been a disappointment.
My Yeti 500 on the other hand has worked fine. No such issues. Seems to be able to chew gum and walk at the same time.
-
This is the first ( and second ) instances I have heard of this kind of issue.
The state of charge percentage is determined inside the battery pack and to have the SoC slowly drop over time and then rebound to full for no reason than giving it a 24hr nap seems odd.
Can you please tell me what the 3 characters are after the second dash in your serial number found under the lid? it should be 2 numbers followed by a letter ( i.e. ######-##-20G##### )
-
The 3 characters at that position are 22E.
-
It happens that we expect high winds and potential power outages today so I'm moving the 1000x back to the cellar where it will do the most good if we lose power, and I will put it back into its slow-motion failure configuration. Let me know if you want some particular documentation of readings, I could leave it down there for a few days and give you numbers if that would somehow help.
-
@jg164 I have deployed downstairs as described above, let me know if you want any particular info from the display, when, etc. I am starting out with 100% charge and will leave both the inverter loads and the charger plugged in.
-
A timelapse video with a GoPro, Camcorder, IP camera, Smartphone or Computer with ContaCam would help. The more we know about the environment and power going in and out the easier it will be to identify what factors are contributing. If you share video here, please take steps to preserve your privacy ( I see you have a protonmail so you may already be aware of what is needed)
If you don't have access to a timelapse setup or just want to write notes and the date and time every few hours that would also help.
Things to take note of are SoC, SoH, Battery Voltage, Watts in, Watts out. The Yeti also has 3 internal temperatures, but it would be good to log the temperature and humidity of the room also. Please see the Wiki for button combos to access this info on the Yeti LCD.
Could you also describe the climate and conditions. Do you live near the sea or in a desert? what is the temperature like in a 24-hour period? Does it get below freezing or really hot?
Some questions we are hoping to answer with this data would be:
How long does the discharge take? How consistent is the rate of loss of SoC? Is there a problematic load or supply involved? Does the environment provide extra strains that could amplify a smaller issue? Is there an issue we need to resolve in our product for all new units or is this an isolated quality issue? What can we do to help you get a better experience?
-
I don't have a time lapse setup, but I can do my best to log. What is SoH?
Watts out is going to vary from about 20 to (rarely) 165 or so. Average of about 45 I suppose. What is on this:
1) Internet router
2) Ethernet switch
3) Wifi hot spot
(above 3 are on their own small UPS as well; they will keep going for a few minutes even without the Yeti in the mix)
4) IP Phone
5) Tankless hot water heater (gas heater, this just runs the electronics)
6) Condensate pump for water heater
7) Circulation pump for hot water output
The last 3 are turning on and off or drawing more or less intermittently, the rest are probably fairly constant.
There's also a small LCD ceiling tube for lighting in that area but it's normally off. Draws about 5W when on.
-
OK I see that SoH = State of Health
I will try to get down there 2 or 3x a day and keep a log. Unfortunately I will have to start after it has been hooked up (starting with reported 100% charge) for about 2 or 3 hours, but that shouldn't really be an issue.
One thing I noticed in both locations is that the 120W charger puts out about 118W at first and then when things start getting wonky it is drawing various lower voltages, by memory around 20 to 40. I did not think much of it at first because I would expect it to charge more slowly when nearly fully charged, and of course drop to zero after reaching 100%. But I saw it doing that when the reported SoC was like 65% too.
Might as well cover the other location which acted the same:
1) 1 to 3 laptops (MacBook Air 2017, MacBook Pro 2022, and some awful brick of an HP that comes from my employer. All 3 (plus the monitor below) are in active use during the work dasy.
2) WiFi hot Spot
3) 27" Dell monitor
4) Brother multifunction printer / scanner / fax
5) Ethernet switch
6) Ethernet NAS storage device, RAID array of 4x1-TB hard drives used for backup. Idle most of the time.
7) Occasionally charging an iPad Air or iPhone 8.
This load is a bit lighter and less variable than the one in the cellar but still pretty variable. 7 or 8 W baseline to about 65W peak load. Probably averages 35W during the workday.
Re: the cellar -- I mentioned this but it is climate controlled same as the rest of the house, which is at 68F night, 69F days. Cellar walls are also insulated. Central air in summer, maybe 74F days, 68F nights. Thermostat on 1st floor but I can never tell any significant difference in cellar temps. 2nd floor has poorer circulation and probably runs 3-4F warmer than the thermostat claims. So in other words nothing unusual in terms of temp. Humidity is constant 40% -- it has to be or the wooden floors will buckle.
-
Also to complete the picture, the house is 10 years old, heavily insulated to modern standards, double pane windows and all that jazz. Forced air heating / cooling. So this is not some old farmhouse that's drafty or has sub-par electrical. We have 26 solar panels on the roof, single inverter, no whole house battery system. No unusual electrical loads; we have an EV but trickle charge it from 117V AC and we only put about 3,000 miles on it a year so even that's not an everyday thing.
There are no water issues in the cellar, it is a 5 foot ceiling with pea gravel floor over plastic sheeting, concrete walls with insulation panels covering them. I've drilled a 1/2" hole through the foundation baseboard to allow the cable to come in from the 3 Boulder 200s when I have them set up (limited space so have only tested, and plan to use only for any lengthy outages).
-
@jg164 In addition to the above, though you probably know this from the serial # info, it's model #8, CC v170, MCB v 176.
I logged last night & this morning and will shoot for a minimum of 3x a day. The area is not trivially accessible and I am old so I will do my best. First thing I noticed is SoH was 97 last night and 100 this morning. I thought that would only go down, but maybe it is an ever-shifting estimate or something.
Also odd (to me) is SoC was 97 last night and 100 this morning with charger continuously plugged in so why did the # of cycles go from 25 to 26. Maybe it was on the verge at 25.496 last night or something. More info over time will tell if it's relevant.
-
@jg164 Since hooking it up on 11/30 it has drifted down to 85% SoC so far. SoH remains at 100%.
I note you asked about climate. This is central upstate NY so maybe low 30s at night, mid 40s or more days. I'm confused how this is relevant though because the unit is indoors in an HVAC-regulated area so it's going to be at 68 to 70 degrees around the clock. There are no doors or windows nearby, no drafts, etc.
Also keep in mind the behavior is the same in my office with rather different loads / usage patterns.
I'll post the Excel file-in-progress here tomorrow after I get the morning readings. Interested in your initial impressions.
-
Doing what we can to see all the factors involved will help us as we search for the root cause and contributing factors of the issue and help look for a solution. Sometimes people will return a unit that is not working where they are and we get it back and it works just fine when we test it here.
If you are using the product within the rated temperature rating of 32-104 F (0-40 C) the ports should stay on. If not, your Yeti will stop taking a charge or outputting power to protect its lithium cells from permanent damage that can occur.
Are you saying the Yeti is draining from 100% to 0% and locking out without any output power from it OR are you saying the 120W charger is not able to keep up with your output needs plugged in and running from the Yeti faceplate?
If you are drawing more power out that is being applied into the Yeti via the 120W charger, the battery will run out at the rate of the overage ( i.e. 120W in minus 180W out equals 60W net drain.) Since power loads change from idle to higher drain ( fridges run their compressor, Laptops recharge their battery etc). The 120W charger should be able to recharge the 1000X in 9hours from 0% to 100% SoC if there are no outputs turned on.
-
@jg164 A careful reading of what I have already posted here will answer your questions, as will the attached spreadsheet showing where I'm at so far. The Yeti is draining while both charging and outputting at the same time. In the cellar, the load is never over 160W (peak draw when the load is first attached, since the water heater and pumps are rebooting) and is seldom above 60W. The 120W charger is usually being drawn at a somewhat higher rate than the inverter is putting out at any given time, yet the displayed SoC keeps dropping. And as I mentioned ... this is happening in two different locations with 2 different sets of loads.
Another weird feature is that right now with the SoC in the high 70s you'd think the unit would draw a full 120W from the charger until the battery is topped off but that never seems to happen. This suggests to me that the true charge of the battery is closer to 100%.
At any rate I'm attaching the spreadsheet so far. I have not gotten down there 3x a day but more like 1-2x a day usually, but I don't think more granularity would really help here.
The reported SoC is gradually dropping as per usual and I will continue until it either shuts off or goes below 50% (I'd rather it not just shut off on me as it will kill my house's Internet and we all need that to work; if I'm in control of disconnecting it then the secondary UPS will keep the routers / switches / hot spot alive while I reconnect that to AC). When I stop the experiment I'll leave it asleep for 24 hrs and then report the same numbers after I awaken it.
Here's a thought. The only thing in common between my two applications (and different from where I'm using the Yeti 500, which isn't displaying this behavior) is that there's a UPS being fed by the inverter for SOME of the load. In the cellar there's a small ceiling-mounted unit that, in the absence of the 1000x, will keep the main router, ethernet switch and one of the WiFi hotspots going for a few minutes and is designed to give us time to save work / shut down gracefully if there's a power outage of more than a few minutes. In my office there is a larger
unit that can allow me to work offline for an hour or so if desired. Is the way in which SoC is determined somehow possible to be influenced by these external batteries in the circuit? I don't see how, but I suppose experiment #2 could eliminate the cellar UPS from the circuit, just to be sure.
-
I want to see if a larger power supply will make a difference and maybe the Yeti is not reading input and/or output power accurately.
Please call customer service and ask for a 230W charger for troubleshooting and reference this thread.
While we are waiting for that to get to you I would like to see an itemized list of the power requirements of the items you are using. Something like this, priority to Watts, if missing at least Volts and Amps.
DEVICE, Volts, Amps, Watts
Router, 12, 5, X
Lamp, X, X, 100W
etc
Another thing that would help verify is a Killowatt meter. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00009MDBU/
If you have/get one or two we can check both input ( plug the GZ charger into it) and output AC ( plug the 2nd one into your yeti and loads into it ) with these
-
OK I will try to get through to customer service today, and I ordered 2 of the meters -- I had been thinking of getting one anyway.
The 1000x was down to reporting 48% SoC this morning so I logged the numbers and put it to sleep. I'll send the latest spreadsheet tomorrow after logging reported numbers when I turn it back on.
I will also do my best to get individual numbers on the devices. Some are ceiling mounted and it may be hard to read labels without disconnecting. Again though I doubt it's relevant as it behaves the same with an entirely different set of loads in my office. But more info less info I suppose.
-
Meant to say more info greater than less info but it stripped out the greater than sign.
-
Here is the final spreadsheet for this test run. As you can see, after giving it a good nap it is back to 100% SoC.
-
Thank you!
When you receive the KillAwatt meters and the 230W charger start the testing and logging again with the same columns, but also include these:
- Watts to INPUT ( What the GZ charger is pulling from the wall ).
- KWH INPUT (accumulated kilowatts per hour)
- Watt from OUTPUT ( What is being taken from out of the Yeti's AC output port )
- KWH OUTPUT
Don't do more than 7 days of the 230W if the SoC is not dropping below 80% ( Hopefully this larger charger keeps it full )
It will be interesting to see what these meters will show.
-
You will note that the smaller charger WAS keeping it full. As evidenced by SoC being 100% after 24 hours of sleep. The problem is that at some point it becomes confused about the false SoC reading and shuts off in confusion.
Also as you can see from the spreadsheet, it was maintaining a full charge with way less than 120W input.
But ... I'll go through this exercise and see what happens.
-
@jg164 I arranged for the 230W charger; it should be here later next week. The meters should be here by then as well, and I'll get you the requested info on the attached loads and start testing again.
Thanks for your help with this, I really appreciate it and hope we can get to the bottom of it.
One question, I am using both output AC plugs on the unit. One goes to a power strip into which is plugged the water heater electronics and 2 pumps and I believe the IP phone module; the other to that small UPS I mentioned which in turn powers the router, switch and hot spot. To get the output metering you want I'll have to find another power strip and use just one of the output plugs and plug the two power cords formerly connected directly to the 1000x, to the new power strip. I assume that doesn't change anything material here.
-
All AC power coming out of the Yeti must pass through the KillAwatt on its output as the only thing connected to the Yeti AC so we capture all the output demands. You may need to find a power strip with more than 6 ports like this.
-
This is a great thread - I've been using my 3000 (li) as a UPS and getting similar results - . Small load input shows as greater than output and yet battery slowly drops - 3%a day.
-
This UPS configuration is exactly how I wish to use my Goal Zero Yeti 3000X (PPS). Back in the thread someone asked if this config would affect the life of the internal batteries of the PPS. No One Answered.
In my case it is not essential but very convenient to have such a configuration work. However, if it were to degrade the batteries life over time I would forgo it.
-
Incoming power from the MPPT ( HPP or 8mm or MPPT Ext Module ) and Link ( Car or Tank ) is applied to BOTH the Yeti's Inverter and the Battery at the same time. Both can consume power at the same time. If the battery is full, the incoming power will essentially bypass the battery and only go to be used on loads on the outputs.
Does this help?
