Portable Power Source

Does anyone have any experience with portable rechargeable power sources? These are essentially compact L/I battery banks that you can charge/recharge at home, via your car or remotely with a compatible solar panel.

Looking specifically at the Jackery Explorer 290 (and possibly the Jackery Solar Saga 100W portable Solar Panel to accompany it)

Doing a sleeper trip to LOTW with my 11 and 13-year-old boys in Feb. They love fishing but will also need some distractions from time to time, it would mainly be for keeping phones and tablets/laptop charged for movies, etc. But we’ll likely have to charge flasher batteries once or twice, plus my boys like to mess around with the GoPro and that needs frequent recharging. These also look like they would be VERY handy for camping or just having around the house to run/charge bare necessities in-case of a lengthy power outage, etc.

A gas generator would be useful but overkill for most situations I encounter, plus this is quiet if I choose to throw it in the ice sled, etc.

Would love to hear of anyone’s experience with these or similar brands like NetZero, etc. It’s a $500 investment with the panel so trying to gather all intel before taking the plunge.

A generator is going to be your cheapest option. Between Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, and Slickdeals, you should be able to fine one for <400. It can do so much more than a solar setup you would be willing to bring. Remember, that panel is rated at 100W max, and you don’t get that many hours of full sun, so I am betting you can count on less than 500 W*H of power per day. Run your 2KW generator for 15 minutes and you get the same. You can also run a heater, a heating pad, a corded drill for making holes, or your corded electric knife for filleting if you need to. Home Depot has several less than $400.
Another option is a big battery- I bought a LiPO4 trolling motor battery for the boat I paid about $700.- it weighs 28 lb, and holds 1300 W*H of energy. That is a lot more than you could ever use charging things up, and you could run an inverter to service all of your chargers.

A third option is to use tool batteries. If you have several, there are adapters for most brands that have USB sockets, and would charge all your 5V needs. I connect my Garmin sonar to them directly, and always have a spare if needed.

I bought the Jackery 290 this winter. I really like it so far. I ran an electric blanket on it for nearly 9 hours before the battery was completely drained. I’ve also used it in my fish house and have run my tv on it. The most I ran the tv was 3 hours. It only lost 18% of its charge. I do have a generator, but it’s really nice to run low wattage devices on it because it’s so quiet. One other thing I like about the Jackery 290 is it fits into a 5 gallon bucket.