Wattage, Voltage and Amp
Wattage, Voltage en Ampère
Our products typically use three different units of power: watts, volts, and amperes. Basically these units stand for:
- Wattage stands for how much energy the device consumes, or how much energy is in the Power Station.
- Volt indicates the voltage at which the current comes out. For example, car batteries work on 12 Volts, mains power in Europe on 230 Volts.
- Ampere indicates the power consumption of the device. At the same voltage, a more powerful device consumes more amps than a lighter device.
Energy: (milli)ampere-hour
The amount of energy of power banks is often indicated with mAh (milliampere/hour). This indicates how many milliamps can be used if the power bank is empty in an hour.
For example, our Sherpa 100AC has 25,600mAh, the maximum amount you can take in your hand luggage. The USB-A ports operate at a maximum of 2.4 amps, so that you have used up all the energy with one USB-A port after 10.7 hours.
On the other hand, you can charge a 4500mAh phone 5.7 times until the Sherpa 100AC is empty. Please note that while charging or discharging there is always a small loss of power.
ENERGY: (KILO)WATT HOURS
The amount of energy can also be indicated with (kilo) Watt-hours. Larger devices such as power stations often use Watt-hours. Power banks use (milli)ampere-hours. Where Watt indicates how much power a device currently consumes, Watt-hour indicates how much energy is (consumed) per hour.
Take the Yeti1500X as an example. This has 1516 Watt-hours (15 kWh) of energy capacity. If we were to connect a refrigerator to it that draws an average of 20 Watts, it would have consumed 20 Watt hours after one hour. In theory, for example, you could let this refrigerator cool for 75.8 hours before the Yeti is finished. In practice, you always have to take into account the energy loss of an inverter, plus the fact that refrigerators are variable in their consumption. But with this calculation you can provide insight into your consumption in order to choose the right Yeti for your specific energy needs.
