Aferiy P210 Power Station

2048 Watt Hours 

The Aferiy P210 is a 2048 watt hour LiFePO4 power station that will supply up to 2400 watts peak power. This power station will also double as a UPS.

Aferiy P120 from Amazon

To charge the power station all you have to do is plug the unit into a standard 115 volt wall outlet. The power station will charge on either 50 or 60 cycle. When first plugged in the cycle status will change from 50 hz to 60 hz. By default the power station will charge consuming 1100 watts. Once the batteries reach the 80% level the charge rate will drop to 500 watts until they are fully charged. On the right hand side of the power station is a button that is used to turn on the 6 AC power outlets. By holding this button on for 10 seconds the power station will go into the charge setup mode. This will allow you to choose your charging power level. You can select from the following choices: 300, 500, 700, 900 or the 1100 watt level. There are three ways to charge the power station. One way is by the AC input, the second way is by solar panels and the third way is by a vehicle’s cigarette lighter type power outlet. Charging via solar panel or from your car, the input to the power station is via an XT90 socket. The cables needed to charge via a solar panel are supplied with the unit. The car charging cable is an option. I purchased my Aferiy last week. Today I received an email from Aferiy and they thanked me for registering my power station and said they are going to send me the car charging cable for free. OK by me !

If you charge via solar panels do not exceed 50 volts or exceed 500 watts. You will damage the power station and the warranty does not cover this. When charging from your car, the power station senses the lower charge voltage and will only charge at a rate of 110 watts. That comes to about an 8.5 amp current drain off of your car’s electrical system. Once you increase the charge voltage to over 15 volts, the unit will charge at a much higher rate and draw over 16 amps of current off of the charging source. Warning….Some vehicles already have an AC power outlet for powering laptops and other low current drain items. DO NOT plug the Aferiy into one of these outlets. Most of these outlets are rated at 150 watts or less. Since the Areriy draws 1100 watts while charging, you will overload the car’s AC power outlet. The power station can be charged over 3000 times. LiFePO4 batteries usually last 10 years or more if not abused.

The power station has 6 each AC power outlets on the right hand side of the unit, as shown below. The button just above the outlet cover is used to turn on the outlets. You may notice two cooling fans just above the push button, behind the grate. They are used to cool the inverter and are thermally controlled. When you first turn the unit on they will cycle on for about 10 seconds.

Some inverters will produce a square wave, some will produce a modified sign wave, but the Aferiy produces a pure and clean sign wave. The Aferiy outputs 110 volts. I plugged two heat guns into the power station, turned them on and it loaded the power station down to 1850 watts. I checked the output voltage and it remained at 110 volts. While using the Aferiy to power my portable station I did not notice any RFI issues. In other words, no interference was noted on any of my radios.

As mentioned above, the power station can be used as a UPS. Plug the unit into an AC outlet, turn on the Aferiy via the power button near the top right hand corner of the display, plug in what you are supplying power to and then push the button on the right hand side of the until, just above the 6 AC outlets, to turn on the AC power out sockets. The unit puts the internal batteries in bypass. If power to the supply is dropped the unit will supply power from the internal batteries within 10 ms. In UPS mode the station will supply a continuous power level of up to 1100 watts while in the bypass mode. Once you exceed 1100 watts, you will at that point be drawing power off of the internal power station's batteries.

The display is packed with useful information. The center of the display shows the charge status of the internal batteries. The top left corner will show the amount of time left to charge the batteries. The bottom left shows how much time is left until the batteries are discharged. The bottom right hand side of the display shows how much power drain is being consumed at that time and the top right hand side shows how many watts is being supplied to charge the power station.

Starting at the top right hand corner of the panel, you will see the power button for powering up the power station. Under that is a button to turn the light on which is just below the lights on / off switch.

On the top left hand side of the panel is a button for turning on the DC outlets. Under that button is the cigarette lighter style 13.8 volt at 10 amp DC socket. Under that are two 13.8 volt at 3 amp coaxial type sockets. They will accept 5.5 mm by 2.1 mm plugs. On the bottom left hand side of the panel is the XT60 male power outlet. This socket will supply 13.8 volts up to 25 amps. The XT60 plugs do not come with the unit. They can be found on Ebay or Amazon and are very inexpensive.

On the bottom of the panel, just under the display, are numerous types of USB sockets. There is a button just to the right of the last USB socket for turning on that part of the power station. I think I should mention that you can turn on all of the power outlets at one time if needed. I did notice that some of the smaller power stations I researched limited you to only one type of power outlet that can be turned on while others will remain off. On the Aferiy you can turn on every power outlet and use all of them at the same time, including the light on the front of the unit. You can also charge the power station at the same time.

There are two handles on the top of the power station that makes it easy to carry. The Aferiy is not lightweight. It weighs 48.5 pounds. There is also a little storage compartment, with a lid, on top of the Aferiy for storing your power cables. The Aferiy uses LiFe PO4 batteries with a built in BMS (battery management system). You can not over charge the batteries nor can you deplete them to a point that the batteries would be damaged. The unit is also protected from short circuits or overloads via circuit breakers and is thermally protected.

So why did I purchase the Afetiy P210? One reason was I needed something to keep the lights on in my house overnight during power outages. For daytime power outages I use my Honda EU2000. The last thing I want to do is use the Honda generator unattended overnight. The second reason was ham radio related, which is the reason for this article in the club’s newsletter.

I enjoy activating POTA from any of the local state parks. I usually operate with either 5 watts, 40 watts or 80 watts. My 20 amp hour LiFePO4 battery can run my radio and computer, in the park, with up to 100 watts out for the time I set aside to operate. But how about running my POTA station at 400 watts out? Doing a little math and trying to find a balance of a power station that is big enough to handle the job but not so big as to break my back and supply enough power to operate my station for a reasonable amount of time, I found the Areriy P210. When I activate a POTA station by myself, I usually operate from inside of my van. So I loaded up my van and off to Lake Nockamixon I went.

I set the gear up inside of the van and started to operate. I used my digital voice recorder to call CQ and hammered away like I was in a major contest.

The radio is a Yaesu FT-710 with the FH-2 remote keypad for triggering the DVR. To the left is my Windows laptop that uses Log4OM for logging. I use my cell phone as a WiFi hotspot. The solid state amplifier is an Elecraft KPA500. Since I only use matched resonant antennas, no ATU is required.

The power station is placed on the floor next to the rear door. Shown below is the Aferiy with the power cable for the radio plugged into the XT60 socket on the front and the SS amp’s plug on the right hand side of the power station. The laptop uses 12 volts. I use an Anderson Power Pole Y connector that shares power from the DC power cable going to the radio.

So how did the power station hold up? The answer is, “better then I every imagined”! After one hour of heavy use the battery level was only down by 12%. After three hours of continuous use the batteries were at the 66% level. I took a very short lunch break and then back at it. My total operating time, including my short lunch break, was 4 hours. I got on the air at 0815 hours and stopped at 1215 hours. At the end, the battery level was at 59%. That means that I could have kept operating for four more hours and then some.

Before I sat up at the park I made a quick test at home. I put the station together on my work bench. I keyed the radio in the RTTY mode at 400 watts out of the KPA500 and the station drew 850 watts of power off of the power station. The capacity of the power station is rated at 2048 watt hours. I figured this was good for a tad over 2 hours of operating. Since SSB with audio compression is rated around a 50% duty cycle, I thought the most I would get out the power station would be around 4 hours and that was plenty for me. What I forgot to add to the equation was receiving and logging time. I’m not drawing high current off of the power station while logging. To be able to keep a POTA activation going for eight hours at 400 watts out with use use of a box of batteries that only weighs 48.5 pounds. is simply amazing!

Need more operating time? Just plug in your solar panels and you will charge the power station while you operate. Here’s a trick I found by experimenting. I have two 20 amp hour LiFePO4 batteries in a plastic carry case. I plugged them into the XT90 charging connector and I was able to charge the power station at 110 watts off of the external batteries. I checked the current drain off of the external battery pack and it drew 8.5 amps. What this equates to is a four hour charge at 110 watts per hour. For me that would add another 2 hours of operating time to my eight hours.

I purchased mine off of Amazon. The link it too long to print so just go to Amazon.com and search, “Aferiy P210.” It lists for $1399. Click on the coupon and get $400 off. I watched numerous YouTube video and one video by Amily Clark said, “enter my name until Sept 9 and get another 10% off of the list price.” Darn….Sept 19, I missed it by 10 days. So I began to process my order and figured why not enter Emily Clark in the window anyway. I did and it actually applied the additional 10% off. Made me a happy camper. It took about 7 days to receive the power station.

The above power station is usually too big and heavy for most POTA stations. Very few if any are running 400 watts like I was. The hams that use power stations usually purchase power stations in the range of 250 to 350 watt hours. There is only one downside to these types of power stations. The most DC current you can draw off of them is 10 amps. This will limit you to how much output power you can operate with from your HF radio. In order to run your 100 watt HF radio at its rated output power, you would have to use a DC power supply. What this means is, you first start off drawing DC power off of the battery in your power station. That DC power goes through the power station’s DC to AC converter. These converters are not 100% efficient. They are usually in the 90% range or even less. Next you plug in you AC to DC power supply. Again you run into an efficiency issue. Bottom line is you are loosing anywhere from 20% or more power loss due to the efficiencies of the DC to AC and AC to DC converters. In this case, you are better off purchasing a LiFePO4 battery to power your radio. Now there is no efficiency losses to deal with.

LiFePO4 battery choices to fit your needs.