The Jackery Explorer 240 V2 is an incredible improvement over the older Explorer V1. I’ve been using the V2 Jackery Explorer 240, and its companion Solar Saga 40 panel system for a while now, and in this article I will give a rundown of its capabilities, talk about the use cases for both prepping and other needs, and I’ll also give a bit of insight into how I have been using this unit myself for the past few months. There is also a companion video for this article, available on my YouTube channel, which you can find here. I hope this will help you decide if this is the right power station for you.
So let’s take a closer look.
Overview
The Jackery Explorer 240 comes very nicely packaged, and in the box you get the power station itself, a charging cable and a user manual. I was a little disappointed that they did not include a car or solar charging cable. Jackery sells these separately, as well as the foldable Solar Saga 40W solar panel system, although there is also the package deal to get both together. Right now, the best deal I see is $179 for the unit and $99 or the panel, or $249 if purchased together. Remember to keep an eye out for these deals on Amazon. The same sale seems to come and go every few months, so check back with the links. If you see it full price, it is best to wait a short time for the better deal.
The power station is pretty well built, made almost entirely of a hard plastic with the bright orange branding synonymous with Jackery products. It’s a very compact portable power station, certainly the smallest and lightest of the ones I’ve tested at least. It weighs in just under 8 lbs (7.94), with dimensions of 9.1 x 6.0 x 6.6 in.
It is slightly heavier than the original Jackery 240, one of which I had a couple years ago, but given the improvements that isn’t a big deal at all, and the added weight is negligible. Most of it comes from the fact that Jackery is now using a long lasting 256Wh LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery, rated for up to 3000 charge cycles and backed up with a 5 year warranty.
The Explorer 240 also now has a flat top with a folding handle, and while it would have been nice to see a wireless charging pad on top, that is something it is lacking.
Almost all of the ports and controls are around the front, only the main charging port sits on the right hand side underneath the exhaust vents.
Around the front, we can see there’s the car outlet, power button, 2 color display, button for the LED light and the LED spotlight itself.
Underneath those there’s a 15W USB-A port, a 15W USB-C port and a 100W two-way USB-C port that can also be used to charge the unit with a standard USB-C charger. There are individual buttons to turn on the DC and AC subsystems and finally we have the single 300W AC outlet.
There is a companion Jackery smartphone app that provides enhanced functionality as well as special features not available on the main unit, such as the enhanced charging which I will discuss momentarily.
Charging
The Explorer 240 can be charged by just using a standard main power supply cable – no special adapter is needed. The unit comes with a hard to lose bright orange cable, but any similar main power supply lead will work just fine.
You do need to enable Emergency Charging in the accompanying smartphone app to get the fastest speeds. However, you should only use this for true emergency reasons. Jackery doesn’t recommend using this mode regularly, and the unit will automatically switch to standard charging once the unit is charged.
Using that fast-charge feature, I was able to charge the unit from completely empty to 100% in under one hour, charging at over 300W. I’ll discuss the temperature and the noise of the unit shortly. The standard charge time is around 2 hours.
You can also charge the Jackery via the USB-C port at up to 100W. This works with any 100W USB-C Power Delivery charger and cable. I was able to top it up with a portable charger at close to 100W which takes 3-4 hours for a full charge.
Jackery also sells a car charging cable, and this option charges the power station quite slowly at around 50W with a full charge taking up to 5 hours.
Finally you can charge the unit via solar. I use the Explorer 240 specifically with their super compact 40W Solar Saga 40. This comes with a proprietary solar charging cable and a USB-C adapter.
On the perpetually sunny days I have out here in my desert southwest area of operations, I usually get around 20W from this panel. I have seen some reviewers mention that you can really only use this panel to top up the unit, saying it would take a couple of days of sunshine for a full charge, but that has not been my experience where I am. When I first tested this, I began at first light in the morning and allowed the unit to stay in camp with only occasional adjustments for the angle of the sun. Going from 20% all the way up to full charge in a single day is easily accomplished.
The panel is certainly more intended for travel, and it has corner grommets carabiners to hang it off a rucksack or wall. Something I use quite a bit when driving out in the desert areas are these small neodymium magnetic hooks. I will put them at the corners in grommet holes and then attach the panel directly to the roof of my Jeep, running the cable in through a window. That way, no matter where I am, my power station stays operating at all times, without having to draw on the vehicle.
The cable which comes from the panel also has a 12W USB-A and 15W USB-C port to charge your phone or other devices directly.
Performance
The Explorer 240 has a single 300W AC outlet with a pure sine wave output, important for sensitive electronics.
I was able to run it continuously at just over 300W, charging another power station that lets me set its maximum charging speed. I then ramped this up in 50W increments until I overloaded the Jackery at just over 470W. That’s pretty good for a little unit like this.
Using an energy monitoring smartplug tool, I checked the real capacity of the fully charged 256Wh LFP battery running various devices via the AC port until the unit shut off. I took the time the unit ran and I measured an average total for power usage of 194.6Wh. That’s only a 75% efficiency when running off AC.This is partly due to the parasitic drain of the AC inverter, something all such units deal with. Measuring this drain with the AC inverter on and nothing plugged in, the Explorer 240 lost about 4% of its capacity per hour which is okay, but not great. If you accidentally leave the AC inverter on, you would find yourself with a dead battery after just one day.
Make sure to keep the Energy Saving mode turned on most of the time, but even still, this little device is sufficient for running very low powered devices off AC. Something I am often using it for in the field is to power my Surface PC when I am out and about, and for this it works fine.
I’ve also tested the power station running off DC, both with devices and using a load tester. When running the tests I managed an efficiency of about 85%. That’s pretty good, in my opinion.
Together with the far smaller parasitic drain of the DC subsystem, you’re better off running devices that can be run on DC whenever possible.
I would typically use a small power station like this for charging my laptop, phone, cameras and drones. For this it has performed very well, and using three batteries with my DJI Mini Pro 4 Drone, I can usually cycle quite well for all day flying.
The AC outlet is useful for devices with relatively low power requirements like my Surface laptop for example, and it also provides a useful UPS backup function.
The Explorer 240 also supports passthrough charging, so you can charge the power station while you’re using its outputs, and that is an important feature, especially to keep the solar input coming while you are working.
To test noise levels and check for any overheating issues, I charged the unit at full speed and ran the AC outlet at just over its maximum output. You wouldn’t want to sleep right next to it with the fans at full power, but it’s pretty quiet in general use. And it doesn’t get hot at all – even fully loaded and out in my dessert environment. I measured a max of 105 degrees fahrenheit at full load just the other day out in the 94 degree heat. Definitely keep it in the shade, but that goes for all electronics, really.
The Jackery has a useful selection of USB ports. The legacy USB-A port supports up to 15W, as does the left USB-C port but both these ports don’t support any fast charging standards, only 5V at up to 3A. Fortunately the two-way 100W USB-C port does support fast charging via USB Power Delivery. For keeping up with the needs of power-hungry devices like drones, this works very well.
The 5cm display on the Jackery is on the small side but sharp and clear, at least indoors, and shows the battery level and the current total input and output power. You also get a useful estimate of the remaining charge time when it’s charging and run time when it’s powering your devices, both adjusted in real time.
The Jackery smartphone app also shows this information and lets you remotely control the unit too. And it’s a lot easier viewing your smartphone outdoors. It has Bluetooth for a direct local connection, but it also has WiFi so if you connect it to your local WiFi network, you can monitor and control the unit anywhere. And you can configure the unit. You can change the screen display timeout, toggle Emergency Charging as I mentioned earlier, configure the Energy saving mode and update the firmware. You can change some of these settings via the unit itself with various button combinations but it’s easier doing all this via the app.
The only other feature of note I’ve not mentioned is the LED spotlight which also has an SOS mode. A lamp is not so common on smaller units like this and it could be handy. I have not yet tested how long the SOS light function would last, but I’m going to say it is a significant amount of time. Something like this could become very useful in a rescue situation.
Conclusion
The Jackery Explorer 240 V2 has pretty much every feature you’d want in a compact portable power station. And together with its long lasting LFP battery, 5 year warranty, USB-C charging and easy to use app it’s competitively priced – especially when it’s discounted.
A wireless charging pad would have been nice, and I would have preferred a second USB-C port with fast charging and at least 30W of output for charging my phone, drones and action cameras. But all in all this is a very handy unit for the size.
It performed well in most of my tests, apart from the usable capacity with an AC load and the parasitic draw of the AC inverter.
Durability has so far been amazing, and for the last few months this things has pretty much lived in my Jeep, banging around the desert with me and getting constantly exposed to extreme heat, dust, and shock. I’ve dropped it a few times, off the table and even out the Jeep door once, but there has been no effect to it. Likewise the solar panel has held up very well to being constantly out in the scorching desert sun.
I really can’t say enough good things about this little device. I am usually pretty hard on gear, especially in the Mojave desert environment I spend most of my time in, and I end up breaking a lot of stuff. I have a disassembled EcoFlow somewhere that can attest to this… But the Jackery Explorer 240 has held up very well to the abuse I have put it through, and I can certainly recommend the product.
I do want to mention, as a final note, that this article is not sponsored in any way by Jackery, and this is a unit that was actually purchased by me independently. The links I provide for it are part of an affiliate program with Amazon, so if you do use them to buy the product, or even just to view it, I do get a small commission at no cost to you. this makes it a great way to support Wasteland By Wednesday without having to come out of pocket. I always appreciate the support I do get, keeps the project running and means a lot.
Jackery Explorer 240 V2 Available here.
Jackery Solar Saga 40 Available here.
Combo Package with Explorer 240 and The Solar Saga 40 Available here.
Black Swivel Magnetic Hooks Available here.
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