Earlier this year, we called the Pecron E3600 + 240V Hub Bundle the best way to spend your money on portable power; and we still stand by that. But after months of testing this Pecron power station bundle and receiving plenty of feedback from our YouTube audience, we’ve found one frustrating limitation that buyers should know about before they pull the trigger and order it.
So, we’re going to explain what this issue is, whether or not you should still purchase this bundle, and if the E3600LFP + 240V Box is still the best deal in portable power.
When we first reviewed the x2 Pecron E3600LFP Power Station Bundle, it blew everything away. Not only is the Pecron E3600LFP Portable Power Station a very solid unit on its own, getting two of them and the ability to connect them together just doubles everything.
At the price Pecron was selling this bundle, it immediately became clear this was the best bang-for-your-buck deal in the entire portable power market.
For context:
And the price for all of this? Around $2,600 for the entire bundle, which is still cheaper than either of those other power stations for a whole lot more power. Don’t get us wrong, the DELTA Pro 3 and the Anker F3800 are both really solid units that we still recommend regularly, but the value this Pecron bundle offers is insane.
In terms of output power and storage capacity, the only real equivalent to this Pecron setup would be something like the EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra, which also offers a 7,200W inverter and 6,000Wh battery, but it’ll cost you somewhere in the region of around $4,000.
So yeah, the Pecron E3600LFP bundle is still one of the best values in portable power.
With all of that said, there’s one catch, and we worry it could be a dealbreaker for some buyers.
If you’re using solar charging, you can relax. This issue doesn’t affect you at all. But if you rely on AC power to recharge your system, either from a wall outlet or a gas generator, things get complicated.
On their own, each Pecron E3600LFP Portable Power Station is designed to charge at 120V, and each unit comes with two separate AC charging cables when you buy this bundle:
Here’s where it gets messy. When the two units are connected via the 240V Hub to output 240 volts, they refuse to charge from AC power. Both units will display a warning, which reads something like this across both display screens:
“Cannot charge when in AC output in series”
In other words, if you’re running them together to power your 240V appliances or a subpanel, you can’t charge them with AC power at the same time!
You can turn off the 240V output and charge them individually, but that means taking your system offline entirely while they recharge. The moment you disable 240V mode, they’ll both start charging again normally.
Honestly, it makes no sense, because each unit can pass 120V straight through on its own. So why not allow them to do so when they’re paired?
Let’s use Josh’s tiny home setup as an example. He currently runs a pair of EcoFlow DELTA Pro Power Stations and an EcoFlow Smart Generator, but let’s say he went with this Two Pecron E3600LFP Power Stations Bundle instead.
When running off solar panels, everything would work perfectly. The two Pecron E3600LFP units can charge all day from their DC solar input, even while outputting 240V power to the tiny home. But when the sun disappears and he would need to charge with his gas generator, things would get inconvenient fast.
He'd have to power down the entire system to let the units charge via the AC power the generator outputs, meaning no electricity in the tiny home during that time.
Now, the 30A plug does allow for a fast charge (both units can fully charge in under an hour), which certainly helps here. But it’s still not ideal in a situation where you’re depending on your Pecron power stations for continuous off-grid power, especially during the colder winter months. Whether you're talking about an off-grid tiny home, like Josh's, or whole-home backup power during a power outage, this issue could be really frustrating.
Basically, this amazing power station deal probably wouldn’t work very well as an off-grid power solution for Josh’s tiny home.
To be fair, this isn’t a completely unique problem that only impacts this particular Pecron power station setup.
Even other industry-leading power stations, like the Anker F3800 Plus and the above-mentioned EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3, can’t always input 120V AC while outputting 240V AC. However, the difference is, those units offer 240V charging options, which allows you to pass power through from a 240V gas generator.
The Pecron E3600 bundle doesn’t. That’s the real limitation here.
If you still want to work around this, there are a few creative options:
After discovering this flaw, we reached out to Pecron directly to see if a firmware update or some sort of software fix could solve it. While their answer was more technical, it basically boiled down to: “Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.”
While we were in communication with them, they did confirm that a new power station is in the works, and this one should be able to charge at 120V while outputting 240V. That’s great news for future buyers, but it doesn’t help anyone who already owns this bundle.
Even with this limitation, the Pecron E3600 + 240V Hub Bundle still offers some of the best value we've seen anywhere in the portable power world. For right around $2,600, you’re getting output power and battery capacity that rivals systems that are twice the price.
If you rely primarily on solar charging, or you can work around the AC charge limitation, we still highly recommend this setup. But if you need a system that can charge and output 240V simultaneously, you may want to consider alternatives, including the EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3, DELTA Pro Ultra, or Anker F3800 power stations that we highlighted above.
If you’re unsure what you need, you can also take our Power Station Quiz. It only takes a few minutes to fill out, but it will spit out a recommendation for a power station that we think will meet your needs and budget.
Pecron: www.Pecron.com
Shop Solar: www.ShopSolarKits.com
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