You know the drill. A new power station

comes out. Some guy plugs in a haird

dryer, acts impressed, and calls it a

day. But for me, power isn't just about

convenience. When it comes to my

workflow, it means something else

entirely. As a director of photography,

my camera cart rolls out with me on

nearly every job I'm on. And what

originally started as a backup power

solution turned into the centerpiece of

my entire production workflow. So,

naturally, I started wondering, why plug

into a wall if I don't have to?

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Now, before you hit that sponsor block

button, DJI isn't sponsoring this video.

I wish they were, but they did send me

these units for review. But if you do

want to help support the channel, I just

started selling these Live Laugh Lut

patches to up your patch game on set.

So, if you're interested, check them out

down in the description. Now that we

have that out of the way, we need to

first talk about one of the most

overlooked parts of production, power.

A lot of times, I think we all end up

taking power for granted. Sort of like

Wi-Fi at a coffee shop. We expect it to

just be there without any thought of

where it comes from or how it gets

there. And for some reason, if it's not

working, everyone gets cranky. DRO is

super bulky and requires a lot of

planning. Generators are loud and it's

hard enough thinking of where to even

stage them. Block batteries are super

expensive and take forever to recharge.

And even when you're pulling from house

power, it's impossible to tell which

outlets are on the same circuit without

turning them all off. So, we always end

up having to tiptoe whenever we're

plugging in equipment. So, it's easy to

see why I absolutely love using these

power stations. For me, it makes the

concept of power easy and one less thing

I need to worry about. So, what happens

when you take everything the Power 1000

got right and double it? It has double

the AC ports, double the USB ports, and

even double the capacity at 248 watt

hours, but is only 4 in taller than the

previous 1000 to integrate into whatever

your specific use case is. It's also

important to note that one of the AC

ports is a typical RV style plug, which

got me thinking. It would be really neat

if I were able to use a twist lock

adapter to run a separate 30 amp lunch

box as a dedicated blind to power

lights, but that usually requires

three-phase power, which the power

series does not have. These power

stations obviously have a ton of utility

when you need remote power. And it still

has two SDC ports for other DJI

accessories like solar panels and drone

chargers. But these ports also turn the

power station into something much more

powerful. And this is where things get

interesting.

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This is the expansion battery 2000. It

has the same 200 watt hour capacity, but

packed into a shell of a power 1000. You

can actually stack up to 10 of these

units together for up to 22 kwatt hours,

which is basically the size of an

original BMW i3. And that's what makes

these expansion batteries so cool.

Suddenly, we have the building blocks to

design the ultimate production tool that

scales to your specific workflow. A

solution that's not only fully

self-contained, but also able to be

fully untethered, so you can still work

in super remote locations or charge

batteries during company moves.

Yeah.

So, we have highly modular, scalable

power, and when you start building your

entire workflow around it, that's when

things start to get really interesting.

So, that's exactly what I did.

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This is my production cart that comes

with me on just about every single job

I'm on. And at the heart of it is the

Power 2000 with the expansion battery

and has since replaced the Power 1000

that has been living on my cart for over

a year. That's 4,96 watt hours that just

travels with me on my cart, which is

like carrying 41 of these gold mount

batteries. The basic philosophy is that

the power station lives on the bottom

shelf and is powering a power strip up

top, which from there I can plug in just

about anything I need without having to

hunt for a free outlet. External hard

drives, quad chargers, monitors,

cameras. I can't tell you how much

easier life is by just having your

entire charging station accessible on

wheels. And the best part is is that

whenever I'm parking the cart, I only

need to worry about plugging in one 50ft

stinger. And that cable lives on the

cart permanently attached. So the power

station is not only powering my entire

cart, but also stays topped off at 100%.

So I always have a full battery whenever

I untether. Having 1,000 watt hours

readily available for camera was great.

But now I have four times that. Which

got me wondering, what if I didn't just

charge my camera batteries, but what if

I powered everything?

All right, we're about to run this

entire shoot off this battery right

here. Hey, my name is Mark. I don't know

about stuff, but that right there

is going to do something for us right

now.

A buddy of mine recently asked if I

could grab a few product shots for some

pickups he was doing. So, I ran

everything, including lighting, off of

the cart just to see what kind of

numbers we'd end up pulling. Woo! I was

powering everything from a camera with

accessories, a 17-in monitor, a

Pterodact, a quad charger, and all of my

lighting, including my trusty Airy 650

that belongs in a museum.

On average, I was pulling 750 watts for

about 3 and 1 half hours, which managed

to get us to around 62%. Now, keep in

mind, not only am I powering my camera,

but also charging batteries and running

all my lights completely off-rid. And

this is where the expansion battery is

so exciting for me because now I have a

lot more overhead to power a lot more

devices for a substantial amount of

time. Based off that same power draw of

750 watts with my previous Power 1000, I

would have gotten a little over an hour

of runtime. But with this new upgrade,

I'm able to get over 5 hours of run time

with big capacity. You'd think that also

comes with big downtime, but DJI had

other plans.

With over 4,000 watt hours, you'd think

charging would take all day, but that's

the wild part. It doesn't. It's not even

close. The Power 2000 by itself can

charge 0 to 80% in 55 minutes and 0 to

100% in 90 minutes, which is crazy to

think considering that that's the same

amount of time it takes to charge a

single 98watth battery. And to blow your

mind even further, just compare that

with industry standard block batteries.

Anton Bower VCLX 600 watt hours 3 and a

half hours to charge. Core Maverick and

I love Core 65 watt hours 5 hours to

charge. VCLX LII600

W hours 8 hours to charge. You do the

math. There's a switch to set your

charging speed if you prefer having a

fast charge with maximum input or a

slower charge if you're working with a

smaller circuit or just need silent

charging. The fast mode will pull at

1,800 watts for when it's the day of and

you realized you forgot to plug it in

the night before to charge it. It's also

worth noting that after every five

charges on fast mode, it'll

automatically charge using the slower

speed on the sixth cycle to help with

battery maintenance and overall

longevity. Speaking of longevity, these

power stations use lithium ferof

phosphate cells, which basically means

that they have a much longer life cycle

compared to traditional lithium ion

batteries. though. You can charge these

4,000 times until it reduces to 80%

capacity. That's over 10 years of

lifespan if you charge it every single

day from 0 to 100%.

You've been keeping your camera on the

ground, huh? Next to the vent.

It's rough out there. It's rough out

there. Too much too much fire. All the

ashes get in the camera.

All right. So, we have capacity. We have

quick charge times. But here's the wild

part. 99% of the time, this thing is

completely silent. That's obviously a

big deal when you're running sound. And

for me, this is massive considering how

hot it gets during summer Vegas months.

I've had other power stations that I

simply can't use because the fans would

kick on in a moderately warm room. And

the only time I've ever heard DJI's fan

spin up are when I'm running at max

load. And that's exactly where this

power station shines. The Power 2000 can

draw 3,000 watts sustained until the

battery reaches zero. And in most

instances, I don't even come close to

that. But I will say that after draining

the battery at 3000 watts sustained, I

did have to wait a while for temps to

cool down before I could actually charge

the unit again. All right, so speaking

of fans, this is what they actually

sound like. The only time you'll ever

hear them is when you're running them at

max capacity like this, right at 3,000

watts. Right now, I'm currently running

a Hudson Mozzy, a Dino 1200, a 650, a

400 watt panel light, and a 600D. all at

100%. And this is what the fans sound

like.

There's a new DJI Home app that lets you

see current battery status and also

makes it way easier to update firmware,

but it doesn't really bear much

functionality beyond that. One thing I

would love to see implemented is a time

of use scheduling option, so I can

schedule charging times. It's not a huge

deal, but if I happen to plug this thing

in during peak hours, it would cost me a

whopping $2 to fully charge versus 25

during off peak hours. So, it would be

nice to have some sort of automated cut

off, but something like that would be

pretty easy to implement via software. I

also noticed that you do have to go into

the app each time to enable the full

18800 watt fast charging. Otherwise,

your default charging speed is basically

1500 watts. I'm not sure if this is a

feature or a bug, but it would be nice

to enable this without always having to

go into the app. If you want to use the

Power 1000 with the new app, there's a

new SACE module that might be worth

picking up just for the firmware updates

alone, but functionality is still a

little limited. Speaking of limiting,

this thing is pretty heavy. The Power

2000 by itself is about 50 lb, and once

you add the expansion battery, you're

nearing 90 lb total. It's not a huge

deal for me since my setup is

semi-permanent on the cart, but you

might want to consider getting a little

hand truck to lug this thing around or

just go to the gym. I mean, let's face

it, you're a filmmaker. You're probably

not going to the gym. I cannot tell you

how many times these power stations have

brought tremendous value to all of my

sets, whether I'm using them as a

charging hub for all my batteries or

even just having portable power whenever

there's no power available. But it

didn't just start here. If you want to

see where all of this began, you can see

my original review of the Power 1000,

which you can click on right here.

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