EcoFlow’s alternator charger is a device that mounts in your pickup truck, van, or RV and charges the giant power plant you bring to keep all your gear running.
The alternator charger can produce up to 800W of power when your vehicle is started. That’s about eight times more power than you’d normally get from a 12V cigarette lighter socket, and enough to charge EcoFlow’s new 1kWh Delta 3 from zero to full in just over an hour of driving. If you travel with EcoFlow’s larger 4kWh Delta Pro 3, it’ll take five hours.
It’s also smart enough to reverse the flow of electrons, using a power station to maintain the starting battery or get it restarted via trickle charging. When you’re home from the job site or on vacation, these large portable batteries can be connected to EcoFlow’s $200 balcony solar kit to help offset your electric bill and provide emergency power during a power outage.
Far from being an industry first, EcoFlow’s alternator charger uses a proprietary connector that only works with Ecoflow’s own batteries. But the company brings simplicity, elegance and a superior user experience to a product typically designed for electricians and mechanics.
After 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) of testing, I can say that the $599 alternator charger could be a game-changer for many people. This summer, my wife and I can live and work carefree in a Sprinter van, enjoying all the modern conveniences that come with so much on-demand power.
It’s fairly common for RV manufacturers to install aftermarket DC-to-DC chargers on the vehicle’s alternator. They’re great at charging stacks of leisure batteries, powering off-grid luxuries like e-bikes, projectors, 3-in-1 refrigerators with ice makers, coffee makers and air conditioners. Some basic chargers cost less than the EcoFlow, while some are more capable, especially when built around an auxiliary alternator, but these chargers offer fewer features and require professional installation.
To avoid overloading the vehicle’s alternator, EcoFlow’s charger self-regulates so that only Remaining The power may be less than 800W and is sent to the power station. (Alternator chargers can draw up to 76 amps.) As far as I’m concerned, the Sprinter’s powerful alternator has enough capacity to easily provide nearly 800W continuous power.
I also installed a 420W solar panel on the roof of the car for travel to provide extra power, and the actual simultaneous charging power was a little over 1,100W when driving on a sunny day. This combo would also work if I needed the Sprinter to act as an emergency diesel generator when the truck is parked and idling.
Install
For many, the installation of EcoFlow can be a DIY project edge In my case though, readers, I turned to an expert for help: Fabian vanDoeselaar, who has outfitted my van with his Solo interior and previously helped me review the EcoFlow power kit.
EcoFlow has some helpful videos showing the alternator charger installed on a Ford F150 pickup truck, and another video showing it installed on a vintage Sprinter RV.
Installing the alternator charger requires connecting it back to the starting battery, not the alternator itself. The exact steps will vary for each car, but in the case of my Sprinter, we connected 16 feet (5 meters) of thick cable to the bus bars in the auxiliary battery fuse box, which meant removing the driver’s seat . The cable is long enough to reach the alternator charger box mounted in the back cabinet where I manage the power.
My Sprinter van is designed to be powered by any portable solar generator, which is just a large power station that includes an MPPT charge controller for the solar panels. For this review, we connected my van’s circuit to EcoFlow’s original Delta Pro, then connected it to an alternator charger using proprietary EcoFlow cables and adapters.
The Delta Pro charges my laptop, phone, drone and headphones, in addition to powering my Starlink internet, lights, refrigerator, water pump, induction cooker and roof ventilation, as well as EcoFlow’s Wave 2 air conditioner and heater combo. review. So having a reliable way to charge is crucial this summer because I want to live and work as remotely as possible.
Performance
After simple installation, the alternator charger can be configured within the excellent EcoFlow app, which makes monitoring performance fun and addictive.
The alternator charger supplies power to the power station only after two conditions are met. First, the charger must be turned on using the button on the device itself or via the “Start Work” switch in the EcoFlow app. The voltage measured by the starter battery must then exceed the “Start Voltage” threshold you set in the EcoFlow app. If left on, it should automatically charge the connected power station while driving – but this didn’t quite work with my setup.
I initially used the app’s default startup voltage of 13.0V. Starting the van causes the starter battery’s voltage to jump from about 12.6V – 12.8V to over 14V, triggering the 800W charging process. But my van is equipped with a smart alternator, which causes the voltage to fluctuate over time, sometimes going below the 13.0V threshold. This causes the alternator charger to cycle off and on, slowing down the Delta Pro’s charging speed.
To “fix” this problem, I lowered the charger’s starting voltage to 12.5V in the app (limited to 0.5V adjustment), which had a predictable side effect – when I reached and turned off the motor, the alternator charged The monitor is starting to drain my van’s battery and will continue to do so until it reaches the 12.5V threshold and stops.
That’s not the end of the world, but it’s below the healthy 12.6V quiescent threshold for lead-acid starting batteries. EcoFlow does make it easy to manually move stored energy from the Delta Pro’s battery back to the Sprinter’s battery by switching the alternator charger into reverse charging or 100W battery maintenance mode, but it’s far from ideal.
Ideally this would all work automatically so that every time I drive I know that 800W is being fed back to my power station and I don’t have to worry about the health of the starting battery after I park. Lacking these guarantees, I decided to err on the side of caution and leave the starting voltage at 12.5V, but manually toggle the “Start Work” switch in the app each time I started and stopped driving.
Still, after testing EcoFlow’s alternator charger, I can tell you that $599 is a small price to pay for giving me peace of mind rain or shine for two months this summer. Get all the power. Unfortunately, in my case it had to be turned on and off manually, and could only use EcoFlow’s own batteries.
EcoFlow’s products are often on sale year-round, and they also offer bundle discounts. The $848 package, which includes an alternator charger and the new Delta 3 Plus for $649, looks very attractive for a 1kWh solar generator that can grow with your needs.
All photos by Thomas Ricker/The Verge
