Do you guys think this is overpriced or worth the money? Link to my article (Yeti 3000X vs Yeti 3000 Lithium): bestgeneratorsolar.com/yeti-3000x-vs-yeti-3000/
Very informative video. Really shed a lot of light for me. Great job. I have the Yeti 3000x and I absolutely love it. I'm probably going to get 4 battery tanks for a super nice supply of backup power.
Your question is interesting but easy to answer on a personal level for me. YES. Thinking about the state of Texas just a few weeks ago being hit with severe cold temperatures and weather system that actually led to a power infrastructure failure across the state I'm pretty sure most people who were caught in the midst of that nightmare would say YES they only wished they could have had some back up even if all they did was limit it to keeping heat on in home to help prevent water pipes freezing. (Yes if people knew how to locate and turn off their water supply to the house it might have saved a lot of misery too along with some other things so many people just have no idea they might have done to help prevent frozen pipes.) Anyway early in January our area experienced a 1-6 day power outage up here in NW MT due to high winds. We were lucky our power was out only 11 hours. But neighbors all around some not so lucky. The next day after we had power I got on line and checked Amazon and GZ both to see if they finally had all the components in stock. They did. Amazon was about 300 dollars less? I usually buy from GZ direct and a week later they were showing same price? (Day I checked they wanted 88 dollars per battery for shipping I think it was. At 4 X per pack of 4 ouch.) We have the 4 storage tank battery set along with the other two needed items including the mini circut box. I've owned the GZ 1400 since 2018. Use the 1400 for running a Dometic 27qt freezer when camping and supply some AC and USB juice to back covered 24 foot patio with no AC available to in summers. Otherwise it's kept in storage and set up to AC year round which by the way the 1400 goes up and down in percentage charged so you could look at it one day and it's at 92 but the next it's at 100%. So we need 2 circuts here. The LP furnace and sump pump in combo as it requires the sump pump to run. All are 120. However my mistake after we had a new well put in 4 years ago I misunderstood that it was wired to our house box thinking that meant it was 120 too. OOPS no it's a 220. So now we have a problem as for medical reasons we really do need to have the well for water flow. We can skip water heaters and lights and even the garage door that GZ suggests on their site to include. Even freezers and fridges during the summer we could connect a larger Gas generator and smaller one to those items. Few people rely on AC up here except to keep home air cleaner during say Wildfire season. They you could always add a few smaller lower power air cleaner filters to help with that or keep a smaller rooms air cleaner if need be. But I have one big gripe. GOAL ZERO so needs to provide far better show and tella nd demonstrations for this system and it's installation. Not sure what they are afraid of. But as consumers and buyers we need it. Living 100 miles from nearest large town Kalispell MT coming by an electrcian isn't easy. We will hire one yes but for our own safety and understanding and in case of some kind of unforseen emergency we ourselves need to KNOW and understand EVERYTHING about it. For one I expected to keep the storage units connected and set up always the same year round but continue to use my 1400 as a portable battery during summers. Now from your video it suggests as my husband has already mentioned to me that it appears the GZ lithium solar battery is suppose to be hard wired into this set up. WHAT? NO no no...I watched earlier Todd Parkers videos on how he ran his GZ all the way across basement floor and only connects with an extention cord so definitely not hardwired or even easily plugged into the storage battery or mini circut panel. OMGosh. Yes I am also considering buying a 3000X with the idea of probably leaving it set up with the house system year round however still wanted to be able to unplug and go with it. (Sounds like I'm talking about a plug and go hot tub here....NOT.) Anyway to date the one electrcian we contacted said he knows nothing about solar and wants nothing to do with this. So we have two more possible leads but in the meantime I'm not feeling like a happy camper. Our power went out yesterday for about an hour. And we've had several surges the past week. So I'll be very frustrated if we have an outage and here we sit with 4 storage batteries and all the rest of the works in basement in boxes waiting to be installed. I'm willing to give up for now on the Well circut but hubby due to one person answering a Q/A did tell me there's a hack to install a 220 circut to this system. But GZ when I contacted them asnwered NO. However they also were very slow to respond and didn't at all for at least 3 times asking them to. So GZ needs to upgrade it's quality of response to customers and definitely upgrade video's and manuals to be clearer as to how this whole thing works and BE CLEAR is the key here. As to cost compared to in our case I compared to LP generator the smaller ones they didn't handle a 220 either turned out. Would require a stand alone LP tank or risk running through your 1000 # tank way too soon as it takes lots of LP fuel even the smaller ones, A shelter set up and cement pad and digging in the plumbing for the system too. You would easily more than double maybe triple the cost of just the Generator itself. For us it wasn't practical. So even without the Well circut covered the furance alone and adding in phone and internet would be great. (I've used Power banks and 5-7 watt Camp USB/LED lights and works well enough during even longer power outages for us.You can easily read by these lights when strung over a lamp next to your reading chair etc. So yes it's money well spent if I ever find someone to help us install and GZ improves it's communications about it. For now it's on our TO DO LIST at the top of it. By the way thank you for your video. Hubby had warned me he thought it was showing the GZ 1400 would be wired into the set up but you made this clearer to me today. Dang that...life is a learning curve these days. :)))
Very informative video. Shed a lot of light for me. Great job. I have the Yeti 3000x and absolutely love it! I'm probably going to get 4 battery tanks for a super nice supply of backup power.
Awesome Renee! And thanks! I'm super happy you like your 3000X as well. Those tank batteries will be so nice with all that extra power! you're talking 7800Wh of battery life!!
Cant confirm this yet, as my Yeti hasnt arrived, but from what I understand, you can uninstall the wall charging module and put the Yeti Link or MPPT controller in that slot instead. Also lead acid batteries can last alot longer. Id prefer the Lithium ones too, but lead batteries aint all bad.
I have a 4 tank system attached to my 1400. The biggest let down regarding this system is that it takes 13 hours to fill one tank. You can only input a max of 150 watts through the 8 mm port in front of the link. I have yet to try one power supply on PWM and second on link. Have a tech request into GZ to make sure it’s safe for the unit. Hoping that will help fill tanks faster. So in a rolling blackout it would be difficult to ever get them filled back up in time for next blackout. I’m in Texas and it was critical to be able to quickly store energy before they cut you off again. The other downside is that in the older lithium stations you cannot keep the MPPT in to boost solar charging. Rather you have to plug in to the APP on the PWM side (I have 4x 100 panels hooked with 4:1). These AGM’s are too slow to charge to really be more than a one shot deal. Charge them after the event is over.
Thanks for sharing! With those tank batteries, it will definitely be a struggle to recharge them. It's impossible to recharge that system from the max solar panel input in a single day due to the extra tanks. But as a sidenote, there have been a couple people from Texas commenting on my videos. Was there an extended power outage that hit over there recently? If so, was it off the grid for more than a day?
Pure Power Solar with Max the Polar Vortex hit Texas on Feb 14th leading to a complete breakdown of the independent ERCOT Texas power grid. 4 million were without power and water lasting up to 5 days for some. We lost power for 36 hours. Although many experienced burst pipes we had our pool freeze over. In TX you run pump in freeze protection mode, but no power means no pump. We were outside in 0F weather and snow trying to bleed our system but it was so cold plastic valve parts were literally snapping off. It was a real debacle and an embarrassment for our state. The Yeti helped us through it but unfortunately we didn’t have it hooked into our gas furnace blowers. Probably will be investing in a gas generator just to handle higher load items. Even with 6.2 kWh of total battery storage you’re not running even low amperage furnace blowers for long. The tank system in my mind is too expensive for what it can actually do over a small gas inverter generator and 5-6 propane tanks. A basic level of power station plus solar is great though for SHTF scenarios or month long grid failure where it’s likely propane, gasoline and even natural gas (tri fuel generator or standby uses this) are hard to get.
The Goal Zero (GZ) tank. How do y oooi u recharge it? The link module has a 8mm port...but i hook it up to solar and it doesn't seem recharge it. The other solar i have charges my GZ 6000X just fine. I just cannot get the tanks to recharge. Thank you for the help.
The link is way over priced. $400. That’s 1/2 the cost of what I bought my yeti 1000 for (Costco sale). I don’t understand why goal zero would link lithium battery technology to agm batteries? One can only use 50% of it’s capacity. Why not just sell lithium expansion banks instead? And have a link to that? Goal zero use to be the leader. Now they have fallen behind IMO. I’m happy with my yeti 1000 and I like it for what it is, but I rather build my own now. There are so many easy ways to build a system for cheap with YT’s help. Ex. I just built a 1500+wh (lifepo4) with a 1000watt renogy inverter, 60a charge controller with 2 x 300w solar panels with all the misc, cables, fuses, breakers, etc for under $1000. With this build, I will have the flexibility to expand. Which I have already started doing. I am building a 2nd battery bank and planning on swapping the inverter for a 3000w one. It will add $700 to my build, but I will be able to out perform the yeti 3000x. Goal zero is too pricey for me now. I guess if u don’t want to build one, it could be right for u. It’s not right for me anymore. But I still appreciate u for sharing.
Thanks for your input Iling! This is going to hopefully help a lot of people navigate what they want to do (buy a generator or build one). I have a good feeling that I will eventually build my own system down the road. It will be a great project and will help me learn a lot for myself and the channel. It looks like you have an awesome system set u for yourself, nice work on your DIY system!! Cost-effective for sure. I think that Goal Zero eventually needs to have expandable lithium batteries with their systems because a lot of their competition is already doing that. I agree completely about the DIY help on YT. There are SO many helpful instructional videos out there!
Hey Doug! What do you mean by "why not lithium"? And yes you can connect most (if not, all) Yeti solar generators with existing solar panels. You will need an adapter though. Goal Zero's accessories page will show you your options. The MC4 to HPP cable might be what you're looking for: www.goalzero.com/shop/accessories/solar-accessories/ lmk if you have any other questions!
Goal Zero is ripping everyone off with this lead acid (car batteries!) expansion tanks. They won't last an hour under a heavy load. Why those tanks aren't lithium is beyond me--and I'm no battery expert--but there's no way I'll buy solar power stations that use AGM batteries. I was dumb enough to buy the older lead acid Yetis, and they're almost worthless now.
lead acid works perfect for this application, and they are cheap, and they are easily replaceable. yeti tanks can be found on sale at REI 3 times a year for $300. we have 10 of them lined up in the garage for our home backup. Bluetti and EcoRiver both only allow up to 2 or 3 extra connected lithium tanks, respectively. It's impossible to achieve a large kW array with them due to that limitation. you don't seem to understand how the yeti link and tank works. the "load" is put on Yeti power station, the yeti tanks refill the Yeti powerstation via the Yeti link. you are never running anything directly off the tanks
Do you guys think this is overpriced or worth the money? Link to my article (Yeti 3000X vs Yeti 3000 Lithium): bestgeneratorsolar.com/yeti-3000x-vs-yeti-3000/
Very informative video. Really shed a lot of light for me. Great job. I have the Yeti 3000x and I absolutely love it. I'm probably going to get 4 battery tanks for a super nice supply of backup power.
Your question is interesting but easy to answer on a personal level for me. YES. Thinking about the state of Texas just a few weeks ago being hit with severe cold temperatures and weather system that actually led to a power infrastructure failure across the state I'm pretty sure most people who were caught in the midst of that nightmare would say YES they only wished they could have had some back up even if all they did was limit it to keeping heat on in home to help prevent water pipes freezing. (Yes if people knew how to locate and turn off their water supply to the house it might have saved a lot of misery too along with some other things so many people just have no idea they might have done to help prevent frozen pipes.) Anyway early in January our area experienced a 1-6 day power outage up here in NW MT due to high winds. We were lucky our power was out only 11 hours. But neighbors all around some not so lucky. The next day after we had power I got on line and checked Amazon and GZ both to see if they finally had all the components in stock. They did. Amazon was about 300 dollars less? I usually buy from GZ direct and a week later they were showing same price? (Day I checked they wanted 88 dollars per battery for shipping I think it was. At 4 X per pack of 4 ouch.) We have the 4 storage tank battery set along with the other two needed items including the mini circut box. I've owned the GZ 1400 since 2018. Use the 1400 for running a Dometic 27qt freezer when camping and supply some AC and USB juice to back covered 24 foot patio with no AC available to in summers. Otherwise it's kept in storage and
set up to AC year round which by the way the 1400 goes up and down in percentage charged
so you could look at it one day and it's at 92 but the next it's at 100%. So we need 2 circuts here. The LP furnace and sump pump in combo as it requires the sump pump to run. All are 120. However my mistake after we had a new well put in 4 years ago I misunderstood that it was wired to our house box thinking that meant it was 120 too. OOPS no it's a 220. So now we have a problem as for medical reasons we really do need to have the well for water flow. We can skip water heaters and lights and even the garage door that GZ suggests on their site to include. Even freezers and fridges during the summer we could connect a larger Gas generator and smaller one to those items. Few people rely on AC up here except to keep home air cleaner during say Wildfire season. They you could always add a few smaller lower power air cleaner filters to help with that or keep a smaller rooms air cleaner if need be. But I have one big gripe. GOAL ZERO so needs to provide far better show and tella nd demonstrations for this system and it's installation. Not sure what they are afraid of. But as consumers and buyers we need it. Living 100 miles from nearest large town Kalispell MT coming by an electrcian isn't easy. We will hire one yes but for our own safety and understanding and in case of some kind of unforseen emergency we ourselves need to KNOW and understand EVERYTHING about it. For one I expected to keep the storage units connected and set up always the same year round but continue to use my 1400 as a portable battery during summers. Now from your video it suggests as my husband has already mentioned to me that it appears the GZ lithium solar battery is suppose to be hard wired into this set up. WHAT? NO no no...I watched earlier Todd Parkers videos on how he ran his GZ all the way across basement floor and only connects with an extention cord so definitely not hardwired or even easily plugged into the storage battery or mini circut panel. OMGosh. Yes I am also considering buying a 3000X with the idea of probably leaving it set up with the house system year round however still wanted to be able to unplug and go with it. (Sounds like I'm talking about a plug and go hot tub here....NOT.) Anyway to date the one electrcian we contacted said he knows nothing about solar and wants nothing to do with this. So we have two more possible leads but in the meantime I'm not feeling like a happy camper. Our power went out yesterday for about an hour. And we've had several surges the past week. So I'll be very frustrated if we have an outage and here we sit with 4 storage batteries and all the rest of the works in basement in boxes waiting to be installed. I'm willing to give up for now on the Well circut but hubby due to one person answering a Q/A did tell me there's a hack to install a 220 circut to this system. But GZ when I contacted them asnwered NO. However they also were very slow to respond and didn't at all for at least 3 times asking them to. So GZ needs to upgrade it's quality of response to customers and definitely upgrade video's and manuals to be clearer as to how this whole thing works and BE CLEAR is the key here. As to cost compared to in our case I compared to LP generator the smaller ones they didn't handle a 220 either turned out. Would require a stand alone LP tank or risk running through your 1000 # tank way too soon as it takes lots of LP fuel even the smaller ones, A shelter set up and cement pad and digging in the plumbing for the system too. You would easily more than double maybe triple the cost of just the Generator itself. For us it wasn't practical. So even without the Well circut covered the furance alone and adding in phone and internet would be great. (I've used Power banks and 5-7 watt Camp USB/LED lights and works well enough during even longer power outages for us.You can easily read by these lights when strung over a lamp next to your reading chair etc. So yes it's money well spent if I ever find someone to help us install and GZ improves it's communications about it. For now it's on our TO DO LIST at the top of it. By the way thank you for your video. Hubby had warned me he thought it was showing the GZ 1400 would be wired into the set up but you made this clearer to me today. Dang that...life is a learning curve these days. :)))
Very informative video. Shed a lot of light for me. Great job. I have the Yeti 3000x and absolutely love it! I'm probably going to get 4 battery tanks for a super nice supply of backup power.
Awesome Renee! And thanks! I'm super happy you like your 3000X as well. Those tank batteries will be so nice with all that extra power! you're talking 7800Wh of battery life!!
Cant confirm this yet, as my Yeti hasnt arrived, but from what I understand, you can uninstall the wall charging module and put the Yeti Link or MPPT controller in that slot instead.
Also lead acid batteries can last alot longer.
Id prefer the Lithium ones too, but lead batteries aint all bad.
I have a 4 tank system attached to my 1400. The biggest let down regarding this system is that it takes 13 hours to fill one tank. You can only input a max of 150 watts through the 8 mm port in front of the link. I have yet to try one power supply on PWM and second on link. Have a tech request into GZ to make sure it’s safe for the unit. Hoping that will help fill tanks faster. So in a rolling blackout it would be difficult to ever get them filled back up in time for next blackout. I’m in Texas and it was critical to be able to quickly store energy before they cut you off again. The other downside is that in the older lithium stations you cannot keep the MPPT in to boost solar charging. Rather you have to plug in to the APP on the PWM side (I have 4x 100 panels hooked with 4:1). These AGM’s are too slow to charge to really be more than a one shot deal. Charge them after the event is over.
Thanks for sharing! With those tank batteries, it will definitely be a struggle to recharge them. It's impossible to recharge that system from the max solar panel input in a single day due to the extra tanks. But as a sidenote, there have been a couple people from Texas commenting on my videos. Was there an extended power outage that hit over there recently? If so, was it off the grid for more than a day?
Pure Power Solar with Max the Polar Vortex hit Texas on Feb 14th leading to a complete breakdown of the independent ERCOT Texas power grid. 4 million were without power and water lasting up to 5 days for some. We lost power for 36 hours. Although many experienced burst pipes we had our pool freeze over. In TX you run pump in freeze protection mode, but no power means no pump. We were outside in 0F weather and snow trying to bleed our system but it was so cold plastic valve parts were literally snapping off. It was a real debacle and an embarrassment for our state. The Yeti helped us through it but unfortunately we didn’t have it hooked into our gas furnace blowers. Probably will be investing in a gas generator just to handle higher load items. Even with 6.2 kWh of total battery storage you’re not running even low amperage furnace blowers for long. The tank system in my mind is too expensive for what it can actually do over a small gas inverter generator and 5-6 propane tanks. A basic level of power station plus solar is great though for SHTF scenarios or month long grid failure where it’s likely propane, gasoline and even natural gas (tri fuel generator or standby uses this) are hard to get.
The Goal Zero (GZ) tank. How do y oooi u recharge it? The link module has a 8mm port...but i hook it up to solar and it doesn't seem recharge it.
The other solar i have charges my GZ 6000X just fine. I just cannot get the tanks to recharge. Thank you for the help.
Do you know how many volts and amps your solar panel setup is outputting into the 8mm port? Its range is 14-22V, 10A (150W max)
goal zero yeti 6000x lithium portable power station. 200W solar 3 plants goal zero
The link is way over priced. $400. That’s 1/2 the cost of what I bought my yeti 1000 for (Costco sale). I don’t understand why goal zero would link lithium battery technology to agm batteries? One can only use 50% of it’s capacity. Why not just sell lithium expansion banks instead? And have a link to that? Goal zero use to be the leader. Now they have fallen behind IMO. I’m happy with my yeti 1000 and I like it for what it is, but I rather build my own now. There are so many easy ways to build a system for cheap with YT’s help. Ex. I just built a 1500+wh (lifepo4) with a 1000watt renogy inverter, 60a charge controller with 2 x 300w solar panels with all the misc, cables, fuses, breakers, etc for under $1000. With this build, I will have the flexibility to expand. Which I have already started doing. I am building a 2nd battery bank and planning on swapping the inverter for a 3000w one. It will add $700 to my build, but I will be able to out perform the yeti 3000x. Goal zero is too pricey for me now. I guess if u don’t want to build one, it could be right for u. It’s not right for me anymore. But I still appreciate u for sharing.
Thanks for your input Iling! This is going to hopefully help a lot of people navigate what they want to do (buy a generator or build one). I have a good feeling that I will eventually build my own system down the road. It will be a great project and will help me learn a lot for myself and the channel. It looks like you have an awesome system set u for yourself, nice work on your DIY system!! Cost-effective for sure. I think that Goal Zero eventually needs to have expandable lithium batteries with their systems because a lot of their competition is already doing that. I agree completely about the DIY help on YT. There are SO many helpful instructional videos out there!
Why not lithium, can it be connected to existing solar panels
Hey Doug! What do you mean by "why not lithium"? And yes you can connect most (if not, all) Yeti solar generators with existing solar panels. You will need an adapter though. Goal Zero's accessories page will show you your options. The MC4 to HPP cable might be what you're looking for: www.goalzero.com/shop/accessories/solar-accessories/ lmk if you have any other questions!
Goal Zero is ripping everyone off with this lead acid (car batteries!) expansion tanks. They won't last an hour under a heavy load. Why those tanks aren't lithium is beyond me--and I'm no battery expert--but there's no way I'll buy solar power stations that use AGM batteries. I was dumb enough to buy the older lead acid Yetis, and they're almost worthless now.
lead acid works perfect for this application, and they are cheap, and they are easily replaceable. yeti tanks can be found on sale at REI 3 times a year for $300. we have 10 of them lined up in the garage for our home backup. Bluetti and EcoRiver both only allow up to 2 or 3 extra connected lithium tanks, respectively. It's impossible to achieve a large kW array with them due to that limitation. you don't seem to understand how the yeti link and tank works. the "load" is put on Yeti power station, the yeti tanks refill the Yeti powerstation via the Yeti link. you are never running anything directly off the tanks