Jackery 3000 Pro Review – In today’s article, we’re going to be reviewing a brand-new product from Jackery called the Explorer 3000 Pro. It weighs 62 pounds, but it’s actually one of the lightest units you can get for the power output that it’s got. It outputs 3000 watts of electricity, and they’ve tried to make this thing super portable.
Overview
It’s got two rubber wheels on the back, and recessed handles on the side so it’s really easy to pick up, but it’s even got an integrated trolley. Now, this has to be one of the best ones I’ve ever seen, because when you put this thing down, it completely disappears. This is going to be important because if you want to put it inside a camper or an RV, this will allow it to take up a lot less space.
They also made big improvements around how you can charge this unit. You can actually charge it from 0 to 100% in just 2.4 hours. Now that’s a big deal considering the battery inside is 3,024 watt-hours of runtime. The other feature I personally love is that there are no more AC charging bricks. You just plug this thing right into the wall, and that’s what’s able to get this super
fast speeds up to 1,800 watts of AC input.
Jackery 3000 Pro Review
Jackery 3000 Pro Features
Now, this is a big unit. You could use this for home backup or power anything you want while you’re on the road camping, and this smart display makes it a lot easier. You can clearly see how much power is going in and out. They kept the power distribution the same as other Jackery. They’ve put all the ports on the front.
1. AC and DC Ports
They’ve included four AC outlets that you can use up to 20 amps a piece, totaling 3,000 watts. This electricity is pure sine, and I’ll show you the test I did.
If you do any kind of camping, you’re going to love the fact that they’ve also included 120 volts, 30 amps RV outlet. This is going to plug right into your camper, and it basically simulates shore power, but you can use this thing anywhere you go. For DC ports, they’ve included a 12 volts standard car cigarette plug, and you’ve also got four USB outlets, two USB A, and two USB C’s that are rated for 100 watts each. And even the top of the unit is completely flat, there is no wireless charging inside this unit.
2. App Control
But a big deal for this model is they’ve finally got an app to control everything. Now, this is available for iOS or Android, and I found this setup really easy. Turn the unit on, and you’re going to see these icons start to blink, and immediately it binds
with the app, and you can essentially control all of the critical features.
And I found that this app does not have as many features as some competitors, but it gave you the ability to see all of the power going in and out, you can turn the outlets on and off, and most importantly, you can do things like control the timeout. That means if you’re going to use it in a built-in installation, you don’t have to worry about this thing ever going to sleep if you don’t want to.
3. Pure Sine Wave Power
Jackery made some big claims about this thing. First I wanted to make sure this thing was putting out pure sine wave power, and it’s important to do the test under a load, so I ran my small heater, and the Textronics did confirm that this is in fact putting out pure sine wave power. That means you should be able to run anything even sensitive electronics.
Testing Jackery 3000 Pro
1. Capacity Test
Next, they advertised this thing as being able to put out 3,000 watts of power, so I wanted to confirm that it really could do that. Many devices never passed this test, so first I connected up a heat gun, which was around 1,400 watts, and the small electric heater on its maximum setting uses about 1,200 watts.
Now, this still wasn’t quite getting me to 3,000, so I added that small red heater and got right to about 2,900 watts, running it for about 20 minutes with no issues at all. And now for the ugliest test of all, and I say that because when you buy one of these
units it’s got a battery inside, they rate this one for 3,024 watt-hours of run capacity, but that’s not what you’re really going to get, and in terms of actual power, that would mean you could run 1,000 watts for 3 hours.
2. Efficiency Test
Now, of course, if you’re running 100 watts, that would mean you could run it for 30 hours, so there is a lot of power.
And to test this, you have to run a maximum load and deplete the battery all the way to zero. Now, my special meter monitors this, and it determines that the unit gives you an actual run time of 2,531 watt-hours, which gives it an 84% efficiency rating.
Now, they beat a lot of competitors like Bluetti, but they’re actually not as efficient as some of the older Jackery units. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just kind of puts it in the middle of the road in terms of efficiency.
3. Overload Test
The next test involves what I call Big Bertha, that’s the name of this old air compressor made by Snap-On, it’s 20 years old and this motor is awful, no power station on the market has ever been able to start it, but the reason I do this test is it causes an overload, that means the device if it’s working correctly, should just go to an overload mode, protect itself and automatically shut the outlets off, but many power stations have tested in the past either get destroyed or they cannot handle it.
When you do an overload test with lights and things like heaters, they don’t cause enough of kind of a load or a surge to really test it out. With the Jackery I tested it 3 times and all 3 times it went into its safety mode, all you had to do was reset the AC outlets by turning them off and on, but the unit didn’t suffer any damage or issues.
4. Solar Input Test
Next, I wanted to test out the solar input, now this model is capable of handling up to 1400 watts of solar input, now I don’t have that many panels to test, but I did use one of their actual Jackery panels, and these things are really good, they’re built super well, they’ve got a semi-rigid frame along with those built-in supports, the other reason people like these is they are truly plug-and-play, there’s no programming, no setup, you just unfold the panel, plug it right into the back of the unit and everything is completely automatic.
Now, this is just a single 200 watts panel, but you could daisy chain up to a full 1400 watts, it is sunny out but it’s kind of muted behind those trees, so I wasn’t expecting to get the full 200 watts, but I was pleased to see that after it was on for a few minutes,
it was getting about 160 watts.
People love Jackery stuff because of the build quality, super well built, and this is exactly like their smaller units, this built-in trolley system really works, the only concern that any buyer may have is first the price, but you are getting very high output unit, so if you don’t need that much certainly go for a smaller sized unit.
Jackery 3000 Pro Battery
The next worry for some people is going to be the batteries. These are lithium-ion batteries inside, that’s the same type of battery Jackery’s been pretty much using since day one. The difference here is many people today want lithium-ion phosphate batteries.
Jackery told me they are designed specifically with lithium-ion in mind because they wanted the lightest weight unit that people could take around with them because most of their customers want their units to be portable, whether that’s camping or just for home backup power.
Battery Safety
The last concern is safety. It is true that lithium-ion batteries can more easily catch fire or explode if you shoot them with a bullet, stick them with a knife, or cut them in half. Now, those things are kind of ridiculous and people do tests that kind
of spook people.
But the reality is your phone has a lithium-ion battery and all of your power tools have lithium-ion batteries, and they’re not generally exploding phones that have exploded in the past. Because if you think about their size, they are so small, it’s actually fairly easy to twist a phone or to puncture it.
These are more like your power tool batteries. They’re encased in cages and they have plastic around them so that the batteries can just not easily be damaged. These companies aren’t stupid, they don’t want to get sued for somebody getting killed over a battery blowing up, so they design them so that the batteries are protected inside.
So, that they’re going to better hold up against issues. The issue with lithium-ion phosphate batteries is they are much heavier. If they wanted to make this device with the same amount of power output, it would literally weigh almost twice what the unit does now, which means I couldn’t really pick it up without help.
Charge Cycles
Now, lithium-ion phosphate is going to give you more charge cycles, and for some people that may be a concern. You need to remember that when they advertise one of these devices as being able to run for a certain number of charges that doesn’t mean that if you recharge the unit a thousand times it stops working.
It means that after that thousandth time, it will start to hold less runtime. The battery that went to 100% today will only give you an effective output of 99% than 98%, but it takes a while. The other thing you need to realize is every time you plug it into the wall, that’s not a charge cycle.
A charge cycle is going from 0 to 100% if you went camping every single weekend and you charged it fully once a week. You would be able to use this unit with maximum output for over three years and that’s using it every single weekend. Now, after three years, it doesn’t just die, which means that in the third and fourth years, the battery will now hold a little bit less than it did at the beginning.
Explorer 3000 Pro Specifications
Capacity: | 70Ah/ 43.2V DC(3024Wh) |
Cell Chemistry: | Lithium-ion Battery |
Lifecycle: | 2000 cycles to 70%+ capacity |
Weight: | 63.93 lbs/ About 29 kg |
Dimensions (LxWxD): | 18.6 x 14.1 x 14.7 in/ 47.3 x 35.94 x 37.36 cm |
Warranty: | (3+2) Years |
Operating Usage Temperature: | -20~40 °C (-4~104 ℉) |
4x AC Output: | 120V~ 60Hz 20A Max |
1x AC Output: | 120V~ 60Hz 25A Max |
Total AC Output: | 3000W Max, 6000W surge peak |
2x USB-C Output: | 100W Max, 5V⎓3A, 9V⎓3A, 12V⎓3A, 15V⎓3A, 20V⎓5A |
Load More |
Final Thought
Jackery 3000 Pro Review – For many people the portability and ease of use, and build quality of the number one concern, Jackery could have easily put lithium ion phosphate batteries in this thing. They did not want it to be bigger and heavier because it just wouldn’t be manageable for a lot of the people that would consider buying it.
And finally, for the price, this thing is $2,799. You should also note the warranty for this is three years, but if you registered online they extended to a full five years, and this is the perfect unit for you, well that’s something that only you can decide, but hopefully, this article helped give you some information to make that the decision.
Other Articles Review
- Off-Grid Solar Generator Installation: A Comprehensive Guide
- Best DIY Solar Kits for Eco-Friendly Homes
- Best Solar Generator 2023: Above 2,000 Watts
- EcoFlow Delta Pro for RV: The Ultimate Portable Power Station
- What is Battery Management System?
[…] Jackery 3000 Pro Review: Stay Connected Anywhere […]