EcoFlow DELTA 2 MAX - Worth the upgrade? 6 changes you need to know before buying

foreign [Music] ecoflow just released their second generation Delta Max that finally switches to lfp battery chemistry for a longer lifespan and better safety now it looks pretty much identical on the outside and has the same dimensions and layout but there are some important changes you should know about before you purchase in this video I'm going to walk through the six key changes to the Delta II Max including one that's pretty controversial I'll also compare this to competitors to see whether this redesign is good enough to unseat my favorite two kilowatt hour Power Station winner the Anker 767. before we dive into what's new let's do a quick walk through of the Delta II Max's features and Design if you want a more in-depth look at every feature and test honestly check out my original Delta max review because the inverter DC outputs USB ports are all unchanged and performed exactly the same as the previous version in the Box you get a manual and warranty card heavy duty AC charging cable car charger cable and 5521 cable if you want to connect solar panels you'll need to buy this xt60 to mc4 adapter or get an ecoflow solar panel and they'll include it in the Box if you buy the extra battery they include the battery connection cable in the Box on the front of the unit is ecoflow's high quality display that we've come to know and love below it are six high power USB ports including a pair of 100 watt USBC ports you'll notice this has no iot button since this now includes Bluetooth that means the app can Auto discover the Max and there's no need to press any buttons around backer the AC and DC inputs and outputs the top is now a solid color there's no longer any Swirls and any confusion about whether that's a defect they also move the specification label to the top which is much easier to see it has the same 2400 watt pure sine wave AC inverter which is identical to the previous generation in fact when I did an AC output test I got 1870 Watt hours which translates to 91 percent of the capacity that's identical to what I measured on the first generation it also has the same amount of standby losses which is 10 percent over a 12 hour period which translates to about 0.8 percent per hour it has the same EPS feature which is essentially a slower ups that switches in about 30 milliseconds which is a bit slow and I really wish they had upgraded it it also has a number of regulated DC outputs including an 8 Amp cigarette style port and a pair of 3 amp 5521 ports when I measure the DC capacity I pulled 1000 594 Watt hours which is about 78 percent of the capacity but keep in mind this was a very long test that took over 18 hours so actually that's a pretty good result it also has a very fast 1800 watt wall charger the Delta II Max is expandable up to six kilowatt hours with a pair of expansion batteries each battery is two kilowatt hours and is also lfp chemistry the nice thing is this is backwards compatible with the previous generation Delta Max batteries so if you have them lying around like I do you can plug them in I tested this with my previous generation Max battery and it worked flawlessly and it was really great to have six kilowatt hours total when I was backing up eight essential circuits in my home with my transfer panel you can also connect this to ecoflow Smart generator to quickly recharge it at 1800 watts alright so that's a quick description of all the things that are the same let's start our countdown of these six features that are new that you need to know about in the Delta II Max before you make a purchase let's dive in with the number one new feature the lfp battery so the new Delta 2 Max has a 2048 watt hour lfp battery now that's a big upgrade from the previous NCM battery because it's safer it won't start on fire it's also less toxic to manufacture and doesn't need scarce materials like nickel and Cobalt that are mined unsustainably the lfp battery is rated at 3 000 cycles that means you can cycle it every day for 8.2 years and still have 80 percent of the battery capacity left this is an almost three and a half times longer life span than the original Max 2000 that was rated at 800 cycles and it's a whopping six times longer than the max 1600 that was rated at 500 Cycles at 50 pounds this is less than two pounds heavier than the previous NCM version which is very impressive all right let's move on to the second thing that you need to know about the Delta II Max and that's its dual DC inputs the original Delta Max has an 800 watt solar charger that can handle up to 100 volts which is great for connecting multiple panels in series The Delta 2 max bumps the seller input to a thousand Watts but ecoflow threw us a curveball by splitting this between a pair of 500 watt charge controllers that can each handle 60 volts at 15 amps each controller basically has the same specs as the one in the smaller Delta tube so this change means that if I want to connect multiple panels they likely need to be connected in parallel which means more fuses and potentially more wire loss the more I thought about this I realized this solves one of the biggest issues I've run into with my camper van builds so you'll remember that I have a Pacifica minivan that I've converted into a part-time camper and last summer I swapped out the Goal Zero Yeti that I was using in that for the Delta Max and as soon as I did that I realized that there's a really serious limitation because that has just a single DC input which meant that I can't connect both the rooftop solar that I had and the car charger at the same time as far as I could tell there's no workaround for this and it's a really big limitation that meant that I had to manually swap between solar or car charging and honestly what ended up happening is I just left the solar Plugged In which meant that for all the hours I was driving I wasn't taking advantage of the alternator so the change to dual inputs make this perfect for a camper van that can handle both solar and car charging simultaneously and this ability to have two inputs is actually fairly rare in the power station so having this in such a compact unit is a real game changer now on the flip side this change makes it less ideal for a whole home backup where you might want to attach a large array of residential solar panels in series the third new feature you need to know about is all the powerful charging automation that ecoflow's added in the app so this has a built-in 1800 watt internal charger no need for a power brick so that works just like the original Delta Max in my test this would charge from zero to eighty percent in 70 minutes and all the way to 100 in just 90 minutes which is very very fast you can dual charge with AC and solar at the same time or from solar in the smart generator for even faster charge times but the real features happen in the app they added new settings so you can choose how much of the battery should be charged from AC versus solar as a simple way to prioritize renewable energy or you can set specific times during the day where you'd like to charge from AC or solar I set mine up to charge from solar from 7am to 7 PM so I'm really prioritizing renewable energy over AC wall charging I then set the AC wall charger to only kick on from 2 to 5 AM when electricity is cheapest I ran my full-size fridge for a week like this and it worked flawlessly so this is a really great way to save money on your electrical bills because you can essentially run an appliance like a fridge off-grid and just dip into AC power if solar can't keep up you can also schedule when you want a c and DC discharging to happen and it will automatically turn the ports on and off for you for example you could schedule this to turn on the AC power for an hour or two in the morning when you be using appliances like a coffee maker then automatically turn off so you don't accidentally leave the inverter on lastly there's an always-on mode if you're powering an AC load and the Delta 2 max runs out of power and shuts down in the morning when the sun comes up and solar starts flowing energy into the unit it will wake back up and automatically turn the inverter back on for you there's also a low battery reminder that will send you a notification when the battery is low in the unit this is really important to know if you have a camper or a grid down situation you can go out there and swap out the batter or maybe turn on your generator the fourth feature that you need to know about is ecoflow has dramatically improved the fans and Cooling in the Delta II Max for comparison and I lined up both generations of the Max and added the Delta II in Anchor 767 I plugged each into the wall charger and measure the noise level at one meter so the original Delta Max was 45 decibels at one meter but the Delta 2 max is 39 decibels which is a full six decibels quieter both of those are significantly quieter than the Delta II that came out at 55 decibels a full 16 decibels louder so that unit is quite a bit noisier the anchor 767 was only 33 decibels which is whisper quiet so that still holds the title as the quietest large power station on the market the fifth feature is they have extended the warranty from three years on the original Delta Max to five years with the Delta II Max this is because they've switched to lfp batteries and they just last longer the sixth and final thing you need to know is ecoflow's actually made the Delta II Max significantly more affordable it comes in at a retail price of 1 899 which is 200 cheaper than the 2099 dollars for the original Delta Max it's always good when you have an updated product with new features and better capabilities for a lower price to save even more click the link in the description and use my code to get an extra eight percent off Delta 2 Max and Delta 2 max solar generator bundles or you can choose to get two free 110 watt solar panels when you buy a Delta 2 Max from May 25th to June 4th with my code all right let's talk about competition for a two kilowatt hour Power Station the top choices right now are the Delta II Max the Anker 767 the blue Eddie ac200 Max and the jackery 2000 Pro so which ones did you choose well right off the top I'm honestly going to remove the jackery 2000 Pro because even though it has a slightly larger battery at 2160 Watt hours and a wireless charger and unfortunately uses an NCM battery so it has a very low cycle count it's not expandable there's no app there's no UPS feature and somehow it's 200 more expensive than the Delta II Max the value just isn't there so we're going to eliminate that from the list next let's talk about the Blue Yeti ac200 Max this also has a 30 amp RV plug on it it also includes dual wireless chargers and it has the best expansion batteries in the business because they've included solar chargers USB and DC outputs this can be expanded up to six kilowatt hours just like the max but if you step up to their B300 batteries you can expand this to an eight kilowatt hour system now the Achilles heel with this unit is its loud slow 500 watt power brick that's three times slower than the Max's it only has 900 watts of solar but it has a higher 145 volt DC input it is a slightly smaller 2200 watt AC inverter no UPS feature it's certainly noisier it's 20 percent larger heavier it also only has a two year warranty versus five with the Max and somewhat questionable support this comes in at sixty dollars more at 1959 the Acura 767 has a really nice design and a premium build quality it is quieter when charging and discharging and has a slightly more efficient DC output it also includes a 30 amp RV plug and an extra 100 watt USBC output it has a light wheels and handle and I prefer the design with all the outputs on the front panel it's just a lot easier to work with on the downsides it has a slower 1440 watt input it only has a single solar input that's basically the same as one of the two in the max it's 17 pounds heavier 29 percent larger and has a slightly less efficient inverter and larger standby losses it only has a single expansion battery so this can only be expanded to four kilowatt hours versus six with the max it also is a hundred dollars more expensive at one thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars all right let's wrap up my thoughts on the Delta 2 Max on the pros it is the lightest and most compact lfp two kilowatt hour power station on the market it's expandable up to six kilowatt hours and backwards compatible to the older batteries it is super quiet and very efficient I really appreciate the Dual AC and solar charging because that's perfect for camper vans the new automation features in the app to prioritize solar and restart the inverter and warn you of low battery charge are really great features I really appreciate the five year warranty and their excellent support and lastly it's the lowest price and best value on the con side of things the 60 volt solar input is going to be very limiting if you're trying to do a large array for home backup it doesn't include a 30 or 50 amp outlet the expansion batteries are very limited because there's no input or output they can only be charged and discharged through the primary unit there's no wireless charger and overall I prefer having all the outputs on the front like the 767 I really don't like reaching around back to plug in the DC and AC and lastly the UPS or technically EPS feature should be much faster than 30 milliseconds I was hoping that would be closer to 10 to 20. so in the end I think this comes down to priorities if you want the most powerful Compact and scalable system the Delta 2 max is the Clear Choice if you want the quietest system with more bells and whistles like a light an extra USBC a 30 amp plug and wheels the Anker 767 is still a great option but it's a lot larger heavier and more expensive and less expandable so which one do you think is the best two kilowatt hour Power Station let me know in the comments now I'll admit that when I saw the new Delta II specs other than the move to lfp I was a little disappointed because it felt like a very small bump rather than a full redesign but now I feel like these changes have made the max much better optimized for the camper van Market by supporting dual Chargers and focusing on being as light Compact and quiet as possible this makes it a slam dunk for people who are looking to build out a scalable electrical system that's Plug and Play and I'll definitely be using this in my camper going forward Now by doing this it's going to be a bit less ideal for a whole home backup because you can't connect large solar arrays but it can still run critical appliances in a grid down situation and has a decent UPS feature to make the switchover pretty seamless now I think this is probably the right move because it makes the distinction between the Max and the pro clear because they're targeted to different users if you want to power your entire home during an outage you should really step up to the Delta Pro since it's expandable up to 25 kilowatt hours handles large residential solar arrays up to 150 volts or 1600 watts can support dual phase 240 volt appliances and works with the smart home panel to seamlessly switch over during an outage I feel like this clarifies ecofload products targeted at specific use cases rather than just offering progressively larger batteries and inverters all right everyone thanks for watching until next time

Channel: Todd Parker

Views: 48,847

Keywords: EcoFlow, SolarGenerator, Ecoflow delta 2 max, delta 2 max expansion battery, anker 767, Jackery 2000 pro, BestPortablePowerStation

Id: p7oU37XmXzo

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023