My Bullet is being delivered this Friday and I am trying to collect everything I need to safely use it. I live in the Houston area where we are subject to frequent power outages and voltage drops due to the poor state of the grid and the increased usage resulting from very hot and very cold days. Has anyone found a decent UPS that can keep the Bullet running long enough to at least cool it down during an outage? Right now I am leaning toward an Ecoflow Delta Pro, which puts out 3,600 w and has a 3,600 wh battery, along with 6 200 w solar panels. That should be enough to finish a roast and cool the Bullet down. However, that is a pricey solutionāaround $5,000 less 26% federal tax credit, putting it just below $4K US. However, it would also allow me to roast using solar.
Those Ecoflow batteries look awesome. You could do a few roasting sessions with one for sure.
But cooldown cycle doesnāt require a lot of power. You could use a regular old computer UPS for that ($150). Just need to run the fan and drum motor for 15 minutes or soā itās the heater that eats all the power.
Search before you buy a portable power station. The add-ons can eat your $$ savings on one brand vs. another. E.g. solar charging (probably not a concern for youā¦?). Not familiar with EcoFlow but $3,700 for 3.6 kW-Hr sounds good depending on what accessories you need/want. And the ability to integrate the EcoFlow with your home power system is very appealing.
I have experience with Jackery 1000 (nominally 1 kW-Hr). The largest offering from Jackery is currently 2 kW-Hr for $2,300 (actually 2.16 kW-Hr). That should be sufficient to finish a roast which may be adequate for your backup needs. The $/kW-Hr is more expensive than EcoFlow but the total cost is significantly less. Jackery packaging is intended for hand-carry and independent use- not for integrating with your household power system. That would make it either a better or less than satisfactory solutionā¦ something youāll have to wrestle with. And I like the integrated wheels for towing the EcoFlow into position!
The numbers and the flexibility of the EcoFlow are very appealing. The only reason I mention Jackery 2000 is the āPre-order Nowā offering from EcoFlow- kinda puts me off. I tried one time to participate in a crowd-funding offering (thatās essentially what happens with āpre-orderā) and it was not successful. Yeah, I got my $$ back but now Iām gun-shy. YMMV. But the specs and broader integration flexibility of the EcoFlow is very appealing.
Bruce
ps- donāt overlook the possibility of a standby generator or even a solar-power based integration. Standby generators for home use have been around for decades and even home solar systems are well proven. Itās all about the capital investment.
I have a 3500 watt continuous inverter gas genny that is relatively quiet; however, the reason for getting the Bullet is that I need to roast in the evenings after my wife is in bed (she gets up at 4am to get ready for work). I have an Artisan 3e fluid bed air roaster, but with the loft fan and exhaust fan running, it sounds like a jet engine. In addition, it is requires 5500 w which is rarely consistently doable with our grid hereāeven if I turn off nearly everything else in the house, including the AC. To get consistency I have to wait until late at night(preferably after midnight) to roast on the 3e. I can also only get tight profiles by sticking to 2lbs of green. This is with PID control of the burner.
The issue is that our grid is so bad that when it is really hot (every day now) or really cold or we have a storm or wind over 15 mph (which happens frequently) our lights will dim and power frequently glitches off and on, sometimes several times in the span of an hour or two. We also lose power for a few hours around every three months.
Also, the Ecoflow Delta Pros are available now for fast shipping with 6 x 200 watt solar panels and all necessary connectors and wiring for around $5K total cost.
The issue with using a small UPS is that if the burner is on, it is going to trip the UPS before I can get the Bullet into cooling mode. I also like the idea of the solar panels. I roast commercially so that will let me advertise solar roasting.
The issue with using a small UPS is that if the burner is on, it is going to trip the UPS before I can get the Bullet into cooling mode.
Yeah, youād plug into the cheap UPS when the lights go out, I was thinking.
But since youāre in Texas, an Ecoflow (or two) seems a good upgrade for your house, generally.
We already have two large generatorsāloud and not inverterāand two smaller inverter generators that we use for our espresso pop-up stand. Both of the inverter generators will work, but even though they are quieter I couldnāt run them late at night. Iām thinking the Ecoflow Delta Pro is best. Probably pricier than installing an off-grid inverter, LIFEPO4 battery, and transfer switch subpanel, but far less complex. I mostly need the Bullet to do sample roasting, develop profiles, and better learn drum roasting, because once the state gets back to me regarding license type, I should have a commercial license to co-roast on a Mill City 10kg.
Sounds like a cool solution to be able to roast using solar.
The maximum power to the Bullet is 1550W when going full power. On your 3.6kWh battery you should in theory be able to do more than two hours of roasting.
For sample roasting you would be using a maximum of 1250W (while preheating).
Cooling down the Bullet only requires about 20W for the fans.
I ordered the solar generator and solar panels last night. Should be in next week. Iāll post an update after Iāve used it for a few roasts. With the Bullet coming in this Friday I will have to be very careful doing the seasoning roasts. I can monitor the state of the Texas grid and avoid roasting during storms until I get the solar generator. At this stage it is way too hot to roast outsideāor perhaps I could just put the roaster in the sun, put the beans in the drum, turn the drum on and get roasted coffee without using the burner 
I have been looking in to the EcoFlow Delta Pro for my mobile cafĆ© cuz I wonāt need any noisy generators and have also considered making it in to a mobile cafe/roastery since they came out with a another system.
Will be very interesting to know how it all works out for you!
Cheers!
Hello All, I moved to a 120 year old house last year with 3 outlets and ancient wiring. I roast in the back yard outside, and thereās zero outlets and running an extension only brings me non-steady power (the bullet needs stable output!) so I hunted around for a power supply and ended up with a Lion Energy SAFARI ME DELUXE KIT. I can do at least 8 back-to-back roasts with this setup and it comes with an expansion battery and solar panels. It was an expensive investment but itās worked out for my āthis old houseā rental situation, and I get the bonus of having backup power for everything in my house with our frequent power outages in California. Hopefully this is helpful to someone.
Good to know you can get that many roasts with that kit. Iāve learned more while waiting for the Delta Pro to come in. First, if it is plugged into AC it is automatically in charge/passthrough mode, which means you are using mains power, not battery or solar. This means that if I want to use only solar so that I can indicate solar power roasted coffee on my bags, I have to keep the unit unplugged. Another issue for those of us in the US is that the federal tax credit (26% in 2022) only applies to batteries that are charged no less than 75% from solarāanother reason not to use mains AC. Finally, for me it is better to use the Delta Pro strictly for business, not personal and business, because that allows me to get both the tax credit and still depreciate the remaining cost of the unit. We will be putting in a larger solar array and hybrid system on our main house panel, so this works for us.
Good point about passthrough, the Lion works similarly: if used while charging from mains or solar youāll get the passthrough power. This is important to keep in mind, because while the battery power is āpure sine waveā power and works well with the bullet, the passthrough power is not. I found this out because on occasion I try to get out just one more roast and most of the time when I connect to mains or solar during a roast, the bullet will throw a power related error and go to P0.
That sounds like the board is heated up and shut down to protect itself. I was going to ask where in CA are you to roast outside 8 back-to-back batches and if you were getting the the IGBT1 warning. I get it here in MA roasting inside until I placed a fan at the bottom of the roaster. Just curious how large is each of your batches. Iāve been trying to figure out what is a safe number of BAC roasting before I run into trouble.
Iām in northern california and Iāve not received that error, it was an A-04, sometimes I can recover live but more often than not the amout of heat put out changes enough to where I get inconsistent results. Iāve been roasting 8-14 batches per session for a few years now, have not had temperature issues. That sounds like a drag.
Iāve naturally standardized on 800 gram batches over the past couple of years just because it always works. I took Mortenās class from Coffeemind and we tried āsizingā the roaster with full 1 kg batches. It was interesting to see the difference between the 220v and the 110v systems. Clearly for 110v and the kind of power I have, 800 grams is the sweet spot.
Good to know you were able to get 8 to 14 batches. I havenāt had the Bullet shutdown on me yet (keeping my fingers crossed!), but have had the IGBT1 go to āyellowā warning before. In another recent thread we discussed placement of an external fan to cool the belly of the roaster and placing the fan on the right side made a big difference for those of us hitting that warning. Iāve been roasting 3 batches of 1kg BAC and so far so good. I am a bit leery about roasting more when the ambient temps in MA right now is in the 90s even though I have the a/c on in the house since I roast inside with the kitchen window open for increased ventilation with my range hood vent. I may try to a 4th or even 5th 1kg roast when the outside temp is cooler in the fall/winter.
Update: The EcoFlow Delta Pro is here and Iāve got three solar panels temporarily connected. One concern I had is that the UPS feature of the Delta Pro can take up to 40ms to switch over to battery/solar when the power goes out. As a result, EcoFlow does not recommend it for use as a UPS on computers. I tested the UPS featrue with the R1 by putting the R1 is preheat mode then unplugging the Delta Pro from the wall: the R1 didnāt glitch at all. I did the test in a few more R1 modes. All of them worked fine with absolutely no noticeable disruption to the R1. I will be mostly roasting from battery/solar, but this was a good test for anyone just wanting to use a Delta Pro as a UPS for the R1.
The 400 watt portable were super pricey and I will eventually permanently mount the panels for this. I went with 6 200 watt Rich Solar panels, but I didnāt realize that all 6 will bump up to 150 volt limit of the solar input on the Delta Pro. That would work now in Houston since it is 85+ when the sun is shining, but if the temp drops much the Voc will increase to more than 150 volts and could fry the Delta Pro. So I am limited to 5 of these panels, building in a margin of error for low winter temps I donāt think this area has ever seen.