BMPRO has entered the portable lithium battery space. It was bound to happen – this company has been developing 12V gear for RVs, 4WDs and camping for years, from battery management systems to DC-DC chargers. Adding a portable lithium power station to its range of offerings seemed inevitable, especially given how useful these devices are.
When 12V Guru David Bayliss offered me a loaner BMPRO Power Station to test, I jumped at the chance. I’m building a little beach house on Victoria’s Ninety Mile Beach, which lately has been requiring me to camp down there to attend to some jobs. I tell you what, having the BMPRO unit for my latest trip down there was a godsend. Not having to idle my car just to charge my phone, and being able to run my old Waeco fridge, which I used in my even older 80 Series, was brilliant. The fridge alone saved me multiple trips to the general store.
BMPRO POWER STATION SPECS
The battery features a built-in 1600W inverter. Before leaving home, I fully charged the battery – on AC, it’ll charge to 80 per cent in 2.5 hours – and cycled my toaster (drawing about 780W) 10 separate times, bringing the state of charge down to about 70 per cent.
From there, I was able to run my camp fridge almost constantly for a couple of days, charge phones and even my laptop, and use the toaster a couple more times – all before it was time to pack up and head home.
Now, this battery has a capacity of 116Ah or 1536W. It comes with four individual AC outlets, meaning you can run up to four 240V-powered appliances at once (provided the combined total of each appliance doesn’t exceed the capacity of the inverter), there are four 1.5A USB-A outlets, and two 5A USB-C outlets, along with one cigarette-style outlet.
The high-contrast LCD screen provides information regarding the battery state of charge, any load on the battery (displayed in watts), any power input (in watts) and time remaining. It’s straightforward and easy to understand.
Naturally, the battery has a connection for a solar panel, too – there’s an MPPT solar regulator built in.
One of the things that BMPRO says sets this battery apart is the fact it can be charged off a DC outlet in the car during transport. Before departing for home, I plugged it into the car to see what sort of charge rate I’d get. The battery was on 20 per cent state of charge before departure and, in the 2.5 hours it took to get home, the battery had recharged to 35 per cent, charging at about 117W or roughly similar to what you might get from a solar panel in decent sun.
It certainly appears to be a robust product, too. The casing is made of ABS plastic. Is good and solid, and at no stage did I feel like I was handling something delicate. But at 16kg, it is a little hefty. I was easily able to wield it around my campsite, but you’d want to factor it into your payload calculations, if applicable.
According to BMPRO, this battery is good for up to 2000 cycles in which the battery is discharged to 0 per cent state of charge. That’s eight times the lifecycle of a standard lead-acid battery. So while this battery is absolutely more expensive than a lead-acid deep-cycle battery, it’s important to factor in a) the fact that this battery will last significantly longer; b) the inverter is already built-in, so you don’t need to buy one separately; and c) the convenience of having it as an all-in-one unit complete with separate 12V outlets. That last point alone makes these units worth their weight in gold, especially when camping and the last thing you need is to go digging around for an adaptor or the leads to connect an inverter.
Overall, it was difficult not to be impressed. The BMPRO Power Station does everything it says on the box, and I couldn’t argue with the battery performance. The results of this test aren’t particularly scientific, but based on my real-world experience with the Power Station, I would happily recommend it to anyone who needs easy, reliable access to power when off-grid.
More information: www.teambmpro.com
