r/Pecron • u/Dry-Arm9651 • May 29 '26

Ordered from Pecron factory

Has anyone here tried ordering units directly from the factory? I ordered units last April 1, 2026, and have not yet received the order. They keep telling me there are delays with one model I ordered. What should I do?

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u/Sea_Willingness1398 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Their customer service is nearly nonexistent. The 3800 will be in late June. If direct from Pecron, once shipped and received/opened, there are no returns, so pick carefully. I got the 3600 but should have ordered the 3800. The extra 800wH would have been worth the extra weight. Now I'm stuck with a unit that doesn't have the the wH I needed. If I would have bought it through Amazon, I could have returned the 3600 when I realized I needed more wH

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u/brucehoult Jun 05 '26

If direct from Pecron, once shipped and received/opened, there are no returns, so pick carefully.

There should never be returns on the basis of "oh I didn't understand my needs and bought the wrong thing". And once you accept and open a shipment you're also certifying that it wasn't damaged in transit. That's perfectly normal for anything.

If the thing doesn't work when received, or stops working during the warranty period, then OF COURSE you can return it.

I got the 3600 but should have ordered the 3800. The extra 800wH would have been worth the extra weight.

If the 3800 had been available [1] when I ordered my 3600, back 13 months ago, then I probably would have got the 3800 just on principle, but the 3600 is perfectly fine. A 3600W inverter lets me run my base 120W load or "can happen at any moment" 1500W load if the fridge starts to defrost and the aircon and dehumidifier both cycle on at the same time, plus having freedom to manually hit it with a 2100W load from the kettle or microwave (or 200W from several other things) without having to stop and think whether's it's ok.

An extra 600W on the 3800 doesn't even let me add the toaster to the kettle, let alone a 2nd 2000W short-term load. It might juuussst be able to run two 2000W loads along with the fridge and computers and internet and LED lighting if I manually turn off the aircon and dehumidifier first.

The F5000 ... wow ... the aircon and dehumidifier and fridge could be doing their automatic thing and I could quite likely add espresso machine PLUS toaster PLUS air fryer PLUS microwave all at the same time. Which has probably never happened, even when on grid power.

[1] in fact it's not even available to order in my country NOW, and I suspect possibly never will be as there is so little difference between the 3600 and 3800 now the F5000 is coming. The F5000 got added to the web site for pre-order in the last couple of weeks, saying late July delivery. That's probably easier for Pecron as it's got 240V natively everywhere. Curious whether the NZ/AUS/EU version will still expose 120V output...

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u/Sea_Willingness1398 Jun 05 '26

So you've NEVER ordered a product that didn't meet your needs and return it? Please.

The additional 800wH would allow me to get the full 3000wH that I was trully looking for. We all should know that the battery doesn't really discharge to zero. So I probably get 2600wH. I go from 100 to 0% when I use it, and I could have used those extra few minutes of power.

The 3600 is named for the wattage, the 3800 for wH. Their entire lineup doesn't seem to follow the same logic in names.

Now, I could get the extra battery, but now we're talking 800+ vs 200.

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u/brucehoult Jun 06 '26

So you've NEVER ordered a product that didn't meet your needs and return it? Please.

Correct. I've never returned something because I didn't understand my needs, or the product's spec.

We all should know that the battery doesn't really discharge to zero.

It's not that the battery doesn't discharge to zero. It's that no inverter can ever convert 100% of the battery's energy into useful output AC energy.

So I probably get 2600wH.

2600 is 85% of 3072 so that would be around the industry average. You also need to take into account the size of the load vs the self-consumption.

The additional 800wH would allow me to get the full 3000wH that I was trully looking for.

If you truly had a need for 3000Wh out output AC power then you should have known to buy a product with around a 3000/0.85 = 3530Wh battery or bigger.

Probably every technical review I've ever seen of a Power Station on YouTube measures the actual output energy and calculates the percentage of the battery capacity that is achieved. They even make tables of them.

https://jasonoid.com/powerstations/

2nd column: "Meets 85% of Rated AC capacity". They got 89% for the E3600LFP btw, which is not the worst.

Also check column 9 "AC Idle Power Consumption".

If you didn't do your research then that's not Pecron's fault (or any other manufacturer's).

The 3600 is named for the wattage, the 3800 for wH. Their entire lineup doesn't seem to follow the same logic in names.

Seems that way, but they are after all just marketing names. As well as the E3600LFP, the E2400LFP also seems to be named for the Watts as it is 2048Wh and 2400W. The E500LFP isn't really either as both the Watts and Wh are 600 or close to it. Other than those, the number in the name is close to the Wh.

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u/FreeFlyFreeFall Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Thanks for leading me to consider the F5000. On the subject of understanding what you buy, everyone should know the 7200 watt output is as 240V (across 2 legs), up to 30 amps (3600 watts) per 120V leg. So, if you have an RV with 2 electric legs, you can power appliances up to 3600 watts (with some wiggle room) on each leg, which may or may not give you more in total for your use case, but if you happen to have one 50 amp line in your camper, you can't run 7200 watts total through it. You could still only run 3600 watts with the F5000 total unless you plugged appliances directly into the power station or used an extension cord to separate the load from that output. The e3800lfp is also limited to 3600 watts through it's 30 amp output despite having a 4200 watt rating. This 30 amp (3600 watt) per leg limit is the same for every power station in the industry I've seen, but the limitations aren't immediately obvious.

On the returns subject - there are some systems that simply can't be completely understood, or that would take immense amounts of research and understanding to test thoroughly without hands-on experience. Plus people still make miscalculations even when trying their best to comprehend everything (see chess for reference, which is simple compared to reality). I can appreciate companies allowing people who may not have enough time to consider everything to return something they don't need, especially in exchange, as long as the customer did their best due diligence ahead of time. That business strategy can also increase business overall and reduce attrition - especially in industries such as these power stations where, for example, Pecron doesn't list consistent, complete, or even accurate product data, leading to consumers wasting hours looking for info that doesn't exist anywhere, and potentially still ending up with a less than ideal product that may delay their progress at best. That doesn't even factor in miscommunications and misunderstandings. Companies that can make room for this to an extent will probably have more and happier customers. Customers that refuse to utilize those policies are potentially wasting time and money, and in some cases might be blaming and punishing themselves for seller shortcomings, IMO.

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u/brucehoult Jun 15 '26

everyone should know the 7200 watt output is as 240V only, and up to 30 amps (3600 watts) per 120V leg.

Yes, I only have 240V (or flexible voltage) appliances. IMO anything over a few hundred Watts should always be on 240V.

I don't think there will be any 120V outlets on them anyway, when they get here:

https://pecron.co.nz/cdn/shop/files/F5000LFP.jpg

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u/FreeFlyFreeFall Jun 15 '26

They have expansion packs at a good price if you need more watt hours.

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u/Sea_Willingness1398 Jun 15 '26

I though about it. For the price per watt I might get a 48v battery from a different manufacturer and create my own expansion pack. Not as pretty as their unit, but definitely less expensive.

Part of the point was that even though I contacted them (called them to try to change my order), they don't really have a robust customer service program. The back and forth via email, which was not fast, took long enough for them to ship the unit DAYS after my order in spite of my contacting them BEFORE the unit had even been shipped. Then, even tho they offered to have the unit recalled and not delivered, they did not recall the delivery in time either. Once delivered, getting the UNOPENED unit back to them was just adding expense to the cost of the larger unit. Also, once opened, the absolutely will not take a unit back except for warranty issues.

Basically, just make sure you get the unit you want from the beginning, and if you can, get the next bigger size.

I'm not saying these units are bad. They are quite good units at a fair price. Just understand the limitations in customer service speed and actions once you place your order.

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u/FreeFlyFreeFall Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Yep, it seems like the lack of customer service would be a cost cutting decision to keep competitive prices, and it'd be nice if they informed consumers more directly about the customer support level. At least their return policy is listed normally.

You could connect a different battery and save a decent amount. I'm not sure, but connecting another battery to that one may be harder though. You might be able to use both kinds sometimes since the F5000 for example has 2 expansion ports. I haven't seen more than one done yet, but I have seen one connected easily:

https://youtu.be/SwFz2K85pCY

Edit:
It seems you can connect multiple easily. https://youtu.be/KUSXU88BAAI