I Bought Costco's CHEAPEST Solar Setup

Introduction to Costco's Cheapest Solar Generator

This is Costco's cheapest solar generator. I just bought it and I want to find out is it any good? What can it run? And should I add it to my collection or is it actually a bad deal? I was not expecting that to turn on. This one is from Ankor, which is a top brand, and they were somehow able to fit a 100 W solar panel into this box. So, they are definitely using a folding solar panel, which I already don't love because they never really seem to output that much power. But hey, I will test this solar panel. I guess this is it. I'll test it against a normal 100 W panel.

This is the solar generator kit. You got a power station. It's the C800X it's called. These are the charging cables. These are the solar charging cables. And then this binder right here is a 100 W solar panel. The power station looks standard. You can see I actually have its bigger siblings there on my shelf, the C1000. One fun thing about this model though is it has builtin lights and an extending pole that you can connect here. Could be good for camping, could be good for outages. Got the standard ports and standard outlets and then the charging ports on this side. Oh my. Whoa. Whoa. There is no way this thing outputs good power. It's portable. It's also pretty flimsy. On the back, you can see it's got these built-in stands for angling it towards the sun.

I really want to test out this solar panel, but these brands typically recommend that you wall charge the power station first. Okay, so Oh, that's higher than normal. 88% charged out of the box. Charging at a rate of 473 watts, 0.2 hours until it's full. H, that's not that fast of a charging speed for this size power station.

So, I've got the app and I'm going to see if I can update the settings. Oh, interesting. It says it's at the fastest uh battery charging speed, but it's only at 475 watts. Maybe that's because it's mostly charged or it's because the first time charging. I could turn on ultra fast charging here, but when you click on it, there's a warning. It says to protect the battery. Turn on ultra fast charging only when necessary. So, I'm just going to leave it to charge to 100% at this rate.

Initial Testing: Camping and Smaller Appliances

So, what can this size power station run? Well, we'll get to the bigger stuff like an AC unit and a TV later. Let's first start with the stuff you might bring camping. You can charge your devices, of course, but look at this. This is a 100 watt USBC port, which I love that they included because not only can it charge your devices faster, but you can run a Starlink Mini off of it if you have the USBC cable, which is way more efficient than running it off an outlet. The power draw has been bouncing around between like 20 and 50 watts, currently 21, and an estimated 16 hours of run time.

Oh, these charge in here. That makes so much sense. They're magnetized. It's like a little screw thing. You know, maybe you don't even need to bring extra lights if you have this. And I will definitely find out if this power station can run my kitchen fridge in just a sec. But first, plugging in this 12vt mini fridge. Now, the power draw is jumping around a lot, but it's been between like 50 and 100 watts. There's an estimated 9 hours remaining. Let's see what the batter is at after an hour.

And by the way, the battery is an LFP battery, which is the gold standard battery type for power stations today. And it has 768 watt hours of capacity, which don't worry, you'll get a feel for what that means in real life terms when we run more devices and appliances off of it.

Powering Larger Appliances and Blackout Scenarios

It's been an hour and before we see if this thing can replace an expensive camping stove with a cheap electric one, let's check the battery percentage. Oh, 90%. That's better than I thought. Now, I'm plugging in the electric stove, turning on the outlets, and cranking it up to max to see if this thing can run it. Ooh, I hear the fan kicking on. >> Woah, it's now using close to 1,000 watts. It's already down to 88%. >> But keep in mind, if you plug in a solar panel, that's going to extend your run time even more. And I haven't forgotten about this kit solar panel. By the way, we will be testing it out. We're just going to drain this power station a bit more. First, the two cups of water are boiling. Let's check the battery. 69%. So, it dropped by about 21% just boiling that. So, probably not going to replace a double burner camping stove with this size power station, but maybe a Jet Boil.

Now, we're getting to the bigger appliances, and we will work our way up to the really power hungry ones in just a sec. But first, let's start with a basic setup to be comfortable during a blackout. Kitchen fridge, Wi-Fi router, fan, and TV. This is not that big of a power station. I'm not even sure if it can run all this stuff. Let's check. Okay, 160 watts and 2.6 hours remaining. But even though the fridge is on, it is not yet running. So, these numbers are going to change. And I haven't mentioned it yet, but speaking of blackouts, there's a little light bar here.

The fridge started running after about 10 minutes, but when it did, the wattage only jumped up to around 220 watts, which was way less than I was expecting because this fridge is rated to a max of nearly 1,000 watts. And I noticed when I opened the fridge door, the wattage immediately jumped up to 320 W. But interestingly enough, when I opened the freezer door, the wattage only jumped up to around 260 watts. That is not what I would have guessed.

All right, everything's been running for an hour and the power station has been completely quiet this entire time and everything's been running fine and we are now at 33% battery.

Advanced Features and Pushing the Power Limits

There's just one more thing I want to show you guys before we push this thing to its limits. This unit does have pass through charging. So now everything is being run off of grid power that's being passed through by the power station and the unit is being charged at the same time. And like most units of this size, it does have a built-in UPS feature. So, when I unplug it, it immediately switches over to running everything off of battery power in 20 milliseconds or less, which is fast enough for most devices to keep running uninterrupted as everything here just did.

So, what's the limit then? What can't this power station run? And I think once we find that out, it'll be a good time to test out the solar panel. This power station can output up to,200 W of continuous power. So, can it run a 5,000 BTU window AC unit? This has a rated power draw of 450 W. So, you would think, of course, but when these start their cooling cycle, they can draw a surge of power. So, let's find out. Okay, turned on. Oh, wow. It's already cooling. Oh, it's drawing 360 watts. All right, that started up no problem. Must a pass.

This power station also has a surge output of 1,600 watts, but it says in the fine print that it's best for devices that generate heat, and that's typical of power stations and their surge power output modes. So, I've got a 1500 W space heater that I'm going to turn on and crank up all the way to the max heat setting. All right, it's turning on. It's heating up fast. Ooh, this power station is making some noise now. 1500. All right, I'm going to let it run for a minute. This is hot. It is really hot. I'm going to move away. It says.1 hours remaining. Throttled the power down to 12,200 W. All right. I'd say it's been about a minute, so I'm going to turn this off. Wow. Well, we didn't overload it.

So, what happens when you throw something insanely powerful at it, like a circular saw that I know from past experience draws over 2200 watts on startup. I was not expecting that to turn on. I didn't even put an ear protection. Wait, that actually worked. What? That was very surprising. I was fully expecting the outlets to overload.

Solar Panel Testing and Performance

All right, finally the battery is pretty low. We got a mostly sunny day. Let's test out this very questionable solar panel. First challenge is how do I prop this thing up? Oh, there's Velcro that's got to go here. This is weird. So, I've got to unbutton both of these in order to reveal a Velcro strap that I velcro to this patch here. That's not how it goes. Maybe it's just the other way. This is how you do it. Oh my gosh, it's coming unvel. This is why I hate these things. Not even going to mess with it. This is confusing as heck. This is the best I'm going to do.

Testing the Included 100W Panel

And then as far as cables, it comes with uh some extension cables. These are maybe 10 ft, which is a nice touch. And then a little adapter cable. First, I'm going to plug the extension cables into the MC4 connectors on the corner of the panel here. Then I'm going to connect the adapter cable to these connectors. And then finally, I'm going to plug the solar charging cable in to the solar charging port on the power station. Starting to charge. 31 watts. 45 60. Keep going. Come on. 71. Maxing out at 71 watts for 9.2 hours to a full charge. That's pretty average power output from a 100 W panel, but I'll leave it here for an hour so we can see how much it charges the battery by.

And afterward, we'll see how it compares to my favorite 100 W budget panel. and we will test its solar charging limit with these two 200 W panels. All right, the panel has been charging for 1 hour. I wonder where we are with the battery. 32% only 7% charge and 59 watts from the solar panel right now.

Comparing with Other Solar Panels

Will my favorite budget 100 W panel do better? Let's make sure I got the angles right. This is saying 26. Now this one is 27. There we go. Okay, now it's 26. And one more power output check before I switch this to the new panel. 56 watt. So I'll disconnect these solar charging cables. I can just plug them right into this third party solar panel. I know for a fact this one is compatible. Should start charging. 31 47 55 56. Oh wow. The exact same output. It is quite rare actually that two panels, even if they're rated for the same wattage, output the same amount of power. So, it's a good thing for this panel. It's outputting more power than I was expecting it to honestly. Uh because I know this panel has good output for a 100 W panel. But I mentioned that this one is a budget panel. We will talk about the cost of this one in just a sec.

And before it gets too late here, I want to test the solar charging limits of the power station first with a 200 W solar panel. Lights fading fast and we're only getting 110 watts from this 200 W panel. So, I am quickly going to connect these two in series. This way, I can connect 400 W of solar panels to the power station. So, I've definitely connected more than the 300 watts max solar charging limit, but it's so late in the afternoon. We are not going to be getting close to that with these panels. I got to wait for this cloud to pass. All right, the cloud is starting to pass. It's creeping up. 67 73 90 Oh, 130. Ooh, 154 217. Looks like it's maxing out. Maxing out at 222 W, which puts it at 2.4 hours until it's fully charged.

Cost Analysis and Final Verdict

Now, before you get too excited about this solar generator kit, because yeah, the solar panel, it surprised me. It did. I'll admit it. Uh, I think it's finally time that we talk about cost. And while we're doing that, I am actually going to test out the ultra fast charging speed to see how long it takes to charge up to full from 36%. Turning on ultra fast charging. I'll go ahead and start the timer. Wo. Okay. 1,000 plus watts charging speed in an estimated.5 hours until it's full.

So, Ankor doesn't even sell this particular panel by itself, but the 100 W panel they do sell is currently $200. And the 100 W budget panel that I used is currently on Amazon for $80. And sure, it folds up nicely. It's portable, whatever. But you can get a folding 100 W solar panel on Amazon for a little over $100. So any way you look at it, this is an overpriced panel, which begs the question, is this solar generator kit from Costco, the land of good deals, is it actually a bad deal?

5 minutes of ultra fast charging and the battery has already charged by 11%. This solar generator kit cost me $768 from Costco. It's not cheap. And if I went through Amazon and bought similar parts and used the budget panel instead of the expensive one, it would cost me, I kid you not, $767, essentially the exact same price. So, at first, you might think this is a good deal. You get a little bit of a nicer solar panel for essentially the same price. But we have to put it all into context.

You could buy the bigger sibling, the C1000, for $429 currently. And there's a new version of this. It's called the C1000 Gen 2, which is currently $449. No, it doesn't make sense. These are bigger, more powerful power stations with bigger batteries for cheaper. And the full setup with this bigger power station would cost me nearly $200 less than what I paid for all this. This makes Costco's cheapest solar generator a bad deal in my eyes. So, I will put links down below where you can get all these individual parts as well as this bigger one on Amazon and save a ton of money. But to be able to use cheaper third party solar panels, you need to know how to pick ones that are compatible with your power station. So, I'll put a link to a video here that will teach you how to do that. And I recommend watching it because it could potentially save you hundreds of dollars on your solar equipment. But now, I've got to go to Costco because I've got a return to make. Just finished fast charging.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is the Costco Anker C800X solar generator kit a good deal? A: Despite being sold at Costco, the Anker C800X solar generator kit is considered a "bad deal" based on its price. At $768, it costs roughly the same as assembling similar components from Amazon using a budget solar panel. Furthermore, more powerful and larger capacity Anker models, such as the C1000 Gen 2, are available for significantly less (e.g., $449), offering better value.

Q: What type of battery does the Anker C800X power station use and what is its capacity? A: The Anker C800X power station utilizes an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery, which is recognized as the "gold standard battery type for power stations today." It boasts a capacity of 768 watt-hours.

Q: How efficient is the included 100W folding solar panel for charging the Anker C800X? A: In test conditions, the included 100W folding solar panel typically achieved a maximum output of about 71 watts. At this rate, it was estimated to take 9.2 hours to fully charge the power station. A 1-hour charging test with the panel only increased the battery percentage by 7% (from 25% to 32%).