Review EcoFlow Delta Max

Review EcoFlow Delta Max – I’m pretending there’s a power outage, and I’m able to run my fridge, chest freezer, boil water, make dinner, charge my devices all at the same time with this new battery. There’s one big disadvantage to a grid title array, like what I have because even though it provides for all of our electricity when the grid goes down, I lose power just like everybody else.

Capacity:	2016 Wh Expand up to 6028 Wh With 2 x Extra Batteries
Weight:	48 lbs
Battery Chemistry	NCM
Connections	Wi-Fi
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I was a little embarrassed the other week after a blackout. My neighbor pointed to my solar panels and he said well at least you still have power, and I had to tell him, I actually didn’t until now. This is the brand new Ecoflow Delta Max. It’s a bigger and more feature-packed version than the original Delta, and in this article, I’m going to review it, and I’m going to show you, how I would use it in a real-life scenario if the grid were to go down, and we didn’t have power to our home for a long time.

Delta Max Overview

So, what is this thing? The Delta max is a battery storage unit with a capacity of over 2 kilowatt-hours, and it can provide you with direct AC and DC power. It’s portable and can power almost any device in your home, RV, or anywhere you don’t have access to the power grid. And since it doesn’t burn any fuel, you can leave it running while it’s indoors.

1. Capacity

And if you need more capacity, you can add up to two more batteries to achieve a total of over 6 kilowatt-hours, and all of this can be mobile and ready to be used at a moment. So, if the power’s out at my house or friends, I can use this to power the fridge, cook food, or boil water in case of an emergency now, because this is a battery.

2. Charger Methods

It has to be charged up, and you can do that in 3 ways with the included cables, you can charge from a wall outlet, your car’s 12 volts port, or directly by solar panels. And with the option to charge by solar panels, you could potentially be off-grid with this power source indefinitely. That’s why a device like this is sometimes called a solar generator.

3. Output Ports

I’ll get to the charging features in a minute, but let’s first look at what it can output. Starting with the 6 AC outlets on the back. These outlets are powered by a huge 2400 watt inverter that can surge up to 5000 watts. Now, to give you a sense of what these numbers mean, I hooked up a 10,000 BTU window air conditioner, and when the compressor kicked ON, after about a minute, the surge actually blew the fuse on my watt meter, but the Max had no trouble with that surge.

Testing Delta Max

Now, I wanted to know what the surge was? So, I used a different meter and took a few measurements, and I was seeing an average surge of close to 5,000 watts. So, it can handle this big surge that lasts a brief moment, but what about 2,400 watts of ongoing power? Well, to find out, I kept the air conditioner running, I added my refrigerator, my chest freezer, my laptop, and my phone.

1. Surge Test Delta Max

And with all of this drawing power, it currently adds up to about 1200 watts. So, to help it get over 2400, I grabbed my wife’s hairdryer, and I tried a few settings. And once I turned ON, the full fan and maximum heat the output sailed past 2,400 up to 2,900 watts of output. So, the inverter is putting out a sustain 500 watts above its rating, and it ran like this for about a minute before the inverter quit and overload showed on the screen which is what I expected.

In another test, I simulated making breakfast on a 1500 watt griddle and boiling a liter of water, which is also four cups at the same time, with the griddle at the highest setting, and the kettle heating the water. The delta max had no problem running above 2400 watts for five minutes which is when the kettle shut off because the water was boiling.

Now, the kettle and the griddle are resistive loads which means they’re mainly heating elements. If I wanted to add more resistive loads, or devices, not sensitive to a drop in voltage. On top of these two, while they’re running, you can do that up to 3,400 watts, and in order to do this, you have to use a feature called x-boost, and you could turn that ON or OFF inside of the Ecoflow app.

2. X-Boost Test

Review EcoFlow Delta Max – When x-boost is enabled, and the power draw goes above 2,400 watts, the system will lower the voltage to meet the current demand. You can see here, that this time when the kettle and the griddle are running, and x-boost is ON, the voltage is lowered from 120 volts to 118 volts. And this lowered voltage will be the case across all 6 AC ports, and on the display with x-boost ON, it’s keeping the inverter from outputting more than 2,400 watts for the DC outputs.

You have a number of options below the AC outlets. There’s a 12 volts car port that can do up to 10 amps, and you can run something like a portable fridge on it, and with the supplied cable. You can use one of the 12 volts ports to run your DVD player for example. On the front, there are 2 USB-A and 2 USB-A fast-charge ports. There’s also 2 100 watt USB-C ports. So, for example, you could power your laptop directly from one of these ports.

The display is very nice looking and tells you the key information you need to know at a glance like a charge on the battery, the input-output values, the expected run time, or if it’s charging, it’ll show you how long until a full charge.

The delta max weighs about 48 pounds. So, it’s on the heavy side but with two handles, I personally don’t think it’s that much to lift into a car trunk. Say if you’re going camping, the smart battery weighs about 40 pounds, and each battery has a compartment on the top to store the connection cable. The Delta Max has built-in wi-fi, so it can communicate with the Ecoflow app, and give you a ton of information, and control.

3. Ecoflow app Test

Once you select your device, you can see the total input and output wattages. If you click on the input or output tab, you get a different screen with more information. On the input tab, it’s really neat. They’ve separated out solar versus AC charging, and if you have the extra batteries connected, down here you can monitor their power levels. On the output tab, you can see the total for all the AC outlets, the 12 volts outputs, and each individual USB port.

On the front, there’s also this awesome feature, where you can remotely turn ON and OFF. In each section under settings, you have access to some really great features. You can change the upper and lower charge ranges, say if you’re using it more like a UPS. The recommendation is to change it to 10 and 80 percent. You can change the current on the car DC input from 4 to 10 amps, perhaps my favorite in here is the ability to change the wall AC recharging speed. To change it from the default, you flip the switch on the back of the max, and then you can choose from 200 up to 1800 watts.

And in all the tests I did, the selection matched almost exactly to the meter reading, and also here, they list a smart generator. And even though it’s not out yet, this fuel generator can connect into one of the extra battery ports on the max. There’s some other functionality that gives you control over timeouts for an activity. Another important part is that firmware upgrades are easy. So, when a new one comes out, you can upgrade with a click.

4. Charging Test Delta Max

Let’s talk about charging. One of the claims in the manual is that you can charge from zero to 70% in one hour, and from zero to 100% in less than two hours. That’s incredibly fast, so I wanted to test this claim and see if it was true.

I drained the battery all the way to zero until it shut off, then I set the charge rate at the maximum of 1800 watts, and watched it go. And impressively, it did hit the 70 marks at 60 minutes, and from that point on it took another 45 minutes to go from 70 to 100%. So yes, the claim of the manual is correct, zero to 70 in an hour, and up to 100 in less than two hours.

I wanted to keep an eye on the internal temperature, and at the start of the charge, the temperature was 29 °C which is 84 °Fh, and during the charging process, near the end, the highest I had seen was 43 °C which is about 109 °Fh. I measured the heat coming out of the exhaust fans, and I was seeing higher temperatures some as high as 118 °Fh or over 47°C.

You can watch all tests on the video below.

DELTA Max

EcoFlow DELTA Max

Price: $2,099.00

If you’re looking for more power during an outage, you can connect two DELTA Pro units to the Smart Home Panel. This method gives you up to 7200W through your home circuits and provides power for 240V devices

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Final Words

Review EcoFlow Delta Max – The Delta Max test was successful. Now, what about when there’s a more extended power outage? I ran a similar test but this time I added the extra batteries and didn’t use solar. I did very similar things ran the fridge freezer, boiled water, and cooked in the instant pot, and after 15 hours of running all of that, there were about 35 left on the batteries. And with the fridge and the freezer still going, I could expect it to run another seven hours.

So, in these tests, I discovered that I can keep all the food in the house cold, and power some other things, even if the grid goes down for a long time. And I can extend that time if I can add solar and this is only one application you could use for tailgating a cabin, any off-grid travel, that you’re going to do anywhere you want a portable power source.

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