Expand Your Jackery Runtime Using Ryobi 18v One+ Batteries! No Soldering Needed. Endlessly Expand Your Jackery Capacity for Camping, RVing, & More!

So you have a Jackery and need to expand the overall capacity and runtime but don't want to pay more for the larger capacity versions or cant afford to. Lets say you also already have some Ryobi 18v One+ Power Tool Batteries (or you could use any power tool batteries with minor modifications, see last step). With this simple project you can expand your Jackery capacity as much as you wan't using the power tool batteries you already have! This is a very easy, no soldering project that will take you very little time to complete.

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Not many supplies or tools are required to get this project completed. I linked everything I used for this or a similar substitute. This project was designed to be very simple, multi-use and very easy to complete!

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Items You Will Need (Items marked with * are required):

• *Jackery 240 Portable Power Station - (This is the one I used and their cheapest one available that will work for this project, you could also get the higher capacity versions with no project change required other then max fuse size. 100w Max input power which means we will never get more then about 6amps out of the Ryobi batteries.)
• Jackery 500 Portable Power Station - (This one would be able to much much if you can afford it. If I could afford it this is the minimum I would have gone for since this one could also run a small fridge. 100w Max input power which means we will never get more then about 6amps out of the Ryobi batteries.)
• Jackery 1000 Portable Power Station - (If you have lots of money this one would provide the most potential uses and easily run things like a fridge. This one also supports more input capability so you could charge it much faster using the Ryobi Batteries then I can charge mine. 200w Max input power which means we will never get more then about 12amps out of the Ryobi batteries.)
• Jackery 1500 Portable Power Station - (If you are really loaded this one can easily run a full size fridge and lots of other things at the same time. This one also supports more input capability and dual input so you could charge it significantly faster using the Ryobi Batteries then I can charge mine. 500w Max input power across 2 inputs which means you would get a max of almost 14amp per battery (28amps total out of two) out of the Ryobi batteries. This one would let you charge faster at once using two batteries for the quickest recharge time. Also this one supports a high enough voltage range that a 40v Ryobi Battery could be used, just get a Ryobi 40v power connector (this is the only Jackery that supports 40v, it may damage the lower Jackeries without voltage reduction). If I had one of these I would test doing that but I cannot afford this large a Jackery.)
• Quick Wire Stripper Tool - (Not required but saves time I use it on any project requiring wiring, not same brand I used but should be similar in function.)
• *Wire Stripper & Crimper - (Standard style and more versatile and can do crimping.)
• Silicone Tape - (Same as I used, better then electric tape as there is no adhesive to leak out over the years, not required but is handy. You could also use Heat Shrink Tubing instead.)
• Heat Shrink Pack - (Not required but could be used in place of silicone tape to put over the crimp connectors just in case.)
• *Straight Wires Crimp Connectors - (These are used so we don't have to solder the connections. You could use other crimp connector types if you already have some lying around, these are easier to join two wires.)
• Self-Soldering Wire Connectors - (If you want to solder the wires without having to use a soldering iron this would be ideal. All you do is connect it like the crimp connectors above and apply heat with a heat gun and it will solder the wires together for you.)
• Angled Wire Cutter Set - (Similar to one I used, normal wire cutter would be fine too.)
• *Automotive Blade Fuses Assortment - (This is required to change the fuses if what it comes with is not high enough or low enough for what you need.)
• *SAE to O-Ring Connector 16AWG (2 Pack) - (This will have the O-Rings cut off for using in this project. This is made out of slightly better cables and has a full size automotive fuse. I have used these with a different project and they are better built. I recommend this or better AWG if you want to draw more amps.)
• *SAE to Jackery (and Bluetti) Adapter - (This is what I used, it turns SAE into the power plug for a Jackery (or Bluetti) and has a SAE Polarity Reverse which is also required for this.)
• Ryobi 18V Battery Power Connector Solid - (The style I used is no longer available but I have used this one in future projects and it works well.)
• In-Line Fuse Holder - (If you want to skip the whole SAE part but still want a fuse, which I strongly recommend having a fuse, then this or similar should work for you.)
• Auto-Ranging Multimeter - (This is a similar style to the one I am using, any multimeter you have should work. If you don't have one this is not required it is just to check the voltage at one point.)

I used SAE for this project so I could also use the same parts on other projects. I also used them in a future project that lets you get 12v from your 18v batteries, see it here. This also lets you get cheap solar panels with SAE or Solar to SAE adapters to plug right into your Jackery adapter as well. If you don't care about the multi use you may be able to just find a 5.5mm barrel plug that fits the Jackery and just use that instead. I recommend having a fuse on your project if you do skip the whole SAE connectors to help protect your wires and battery.

The Jackery 240 can only draw a max of 100w from the power input which would be about 6Amps. With the 20% extra recommended for fuse sizing you would only need a 7.5Amp. 10 Amp provides a little extra in case it draws a bit more then expected. In reality it draws less then this as you will see later but its better to have extra just in case. If you have a Jackery 1000 you would draw up to 12Amps so 15Amp would be your closest with the 20% extra. I would probably put in a 20Amp just to be safe. And if you have the Jackery 1500 you can do the exact same as above since it has two inputs and just build two of these battery chargers instead instead. If you plan on pulling a lot of amps constantly you will want to check the max your Ryobi battery can handle and size your wires appropriately. For less then 10 amps all the wires I used should be fine. If I had a Jackery 1000 or higher I would be going with higher AWG gauge wires all around.

Using wire cutters (normal ones would work) or the end of your wire strippers (mine is too worn to be used) cut the O-Ring ends off of your SAE O-Ring cable. It goes without saying but if you put a Ryobi battery into the Ryobi battery connector unplug it before cutting and stripping wires.

Now that you have the O-Rings removed strip the two wires on the previously SAE to O-Ring cable and the two wires on the Ryobi 18v connectors. You only need to strip maybe 1/4th an inch or so. I use the quick wire strippers which are very handy but not required.

Slide on the straight wire crimp connectors and crimp the red positive wires together. If you are going with heat shrink tubing instead of silicone tape (which would look cleaner) insert those before you put the connectors on.

Slide on the straight wire crimp connectors and crimp the black negative wires together. If you are going with heat shrink tubing instead of silicone tape (which would look cleaner) insert those before you put the connectors on.

Just to be extra sure the wires never slide out of the connectors I apply a strip of silicone tape to both sides and then across both to hold them together. If you are using heat shrink tubing slide it down over the connectors and shrink it with heat instead. You could also do electric tape if you wanted. This is just to ensure the wires don't accidentally pull out of the crimp connectors if the wire gets pulled a bit too much. This is hard to photograph as you need both hands, but the basic is cut off a strip of silicone tape and then wrap one end under tension around the cable once, then keep pulling so its under tension and wrap it around the rest still keeping it under tension the whole time. Silicone tape sticks to itself only when it under tension. You can also use heat to some degree to make the last little bit stick. I didn't have to apply heat at the end so that is not pictured.

With the Ryobi battery connector now connected to the SAE connector lets test it for a current. If you have nothing check your crimps, check your battery, and check the Ryobi battery connector terminals. If you don't have a multimeter this step is not required it is just to double check everything is good. Once you are sure it works unplug the Ryobi battery for the final few steps.

I wired the Ryobi battery connector to the SAE connector with red to red and black to black. However this makes the SAE cable connector ends unable to plug into the Jackery SAE adapter. This is not a problem because the Jackery SAE connector included a SAE polarity reversing adapter. We simply plug that in between the cables and its good to go. You can see in the pictures that the red cable on the left connects to the red cable on the right after the polarity reversing adapter is installed. Always make sure the same colors are connected to the same colors if you wired it this same way or you may damage your Jackery.

Alternative to the SAE Polarity Reverse Adapter: If you don't have one of these polarity reverse adapters and just want it to work, you can reverse the wires between the Ryobi battery connector and SAE connector so red goes to black and black goes to red. If you do this however be sure to cover up the red wire completely with something like electric tape and mark the black wire in some way so you know its positive so you don't accidentally mix this up later. Also on the SAE connector end I would put a mark of a plus and minus on the correct sides and scrape off whats already on there, if these connectors even have that. I have done this on a past 12v battery project and it works fine but be sure you mark those wires or you might accidentally mess it up in the future and damage something potentially. If you do this and never plan to unplug your Jackery SAE cable you can just put some silicone tape or electric tape between the two SAE connectors so it doesn't come unplugged. That way you wouldn't have to worry about it, but I would still mark the wires in some way so you know the colors are reversed on the Ryobi battery connector side of the SAE cable.

Plug the Jackery connector into the barrel plug for Bluetti of the SAE to Jackery adapter cable. I connected the Ryobi battery to the Ryobi battery connector for the pictures but I would wait till after its plugged into the Jackery. Check the specs on the bottom of your Jackery and the Ryobi Battery before you connect them together. On the Jackery you can see that it supports on DC Input: 19V 3.42A (Supports 12-30V). Then on the Ryobi you will see 18V at whatever the Amp hour rating is for your battery. As long as your Jackery range supports 16-20V which is roughly the range of your Ryobi battery, and mine does so it should not cause a problem. Also the 4Ah (Amp Hours) Ryobi Battery have a max of 72Wh (Watt Hours) and the Jackery 240 has 16.7Ah (Amp Hours) and 241Wh (Watt Hours). So ideally, but not what you will actually get, if your Jackery 240 is at 0% you will need four 4Ah Ryobi Batteries to fully charge it or three 4Ah batteries and a 2Ah battery. You simply divide the max Watt Hours of your Jackery by the max Watt Hours of your Ryobi batteries to find out how many you need for this. I know the watt hours printed on the batteries are not exactly what you will get out of them due to age of batteries, losses, heat, etc but it gives you an rough idea. This is a DC to DC system so the losses should not be too high to begin with. That being said it would be a good idea to half the total capacity of your Ryobi batteries for a more realistic capacity and would cause less charge cycle wear to your Ryobi batteries.

If you want a rough idea of how much you expanded your Jackery capacity add up the watt hours printed on the bottom of all the Ryobi batteries you are going to bring with you and you will have a rough idea. So ideally if I brought four 4Ah Ryobi batteries I would have about 288Wh in extra capacity on top of my Jackery's 241Wh. Then I would have a total capacity of roughly 529Wh if I charge all these batteries to full before I head out so I doubled my Jackery capacity! But in reality and to cause less wear to the Ryobi batteries of more full charge cycles I will half it. So at half I have 144Wh in extra capacity on top of my Jackery 241Wh so the total capacity would now be around 385Wh. Which is still not bad, its 1.5x the capacity of the Jackery alone, especially if you already have the Ryobi batteries! The Jackery is nice too since you can plug in the input while output is being used, so it can charge it while you use it. If you want more real world numbers check out the last step which I will put them as I run a few tests.

I start out testing the final item by recharging my Jackery from about 93% back up to 100% though for the first 10 minutes or so I had a DC item plugged in, if you are wondering it was a portable 12v Ryobi 18v charger, that I used to drain the Jackery a bit and charge my 1.5Ah Ryobi batteries that have no battery level gauge on them. Once I removed this load the Jackery was able to charge again since that drew more out then was being put in by the Ryobi battery.

I have removed the outgoing load so now it is able to just charge the Jackery. You can tell from the input watts that as the Jackery approaches 100% charge it starts drawing less wattage. The longest charging time is going from 99% to 100% charged on the Jackery as it drops below 40w input charge. It does this regardless of input source so this is not because of the Ryobi batteries. It does it on solar, AC, or 12v car DC inputs. It got to 98% pretty quick from 93% once the load was removed I think this is maybe 20 or so minutes maybe less.

I knew the last percent or two takes awhile so I left it for about an hour and came back to have it fully charged and my Ryobi battery still at 3 bars out of 4. So to top back up a Jackery even a 1Ah Ryobi battery could probably take it from 90% to 100%.

This is roughly what your completed Ryobi 18v to Jackery charger should look like. Which you know this now means with this project the Jackery 240 is now part of the Ryobi 18v One+ line up of 225+ tools! Joking aside you now can easily expand the capacity of your Jackery now using Ryobi batteries which can be gotten pretty cheap for lithium batteries during sales. This project can easily be modified to fit many other power tool battery systems. You could easily have it work for any 12v, 18v, 20v, 24v, etc power tool batteries. As long as the fully charged battery input is below the 30v max the Jackery should be able to handle it. If you want to use another power tool battery instead of Ryobi simply type in the brand of your power tool plus battery connector into amazon here. That link will take you right to a search of power tool battery connector on Amazon. You can see them for all sorts of brands such as DeWalt, Milwaukee, Porter Cable, Kobalt, Black & Decker, etc. That's just from the first page there are a lot more brands too and it doesn't matter if its a stem type or rail type battery there is almost always an adapter you can find. So any type of power tool battery, just about, that you have already or can get for cheap could be used to expand your Jackery. This is also why I went for SAE then you only have to buy the Jackery SAE adapter once and can use it on as many batteries as you want and the SAE O-Ring cable was a 3 pack! The SAE adapter I used and linked also seems to support Bluetti so you could use it on those as well if you have one. I do not and can't afford one or I would try this out on one. Enjoy your endless capacity upgrades!

I have done more tests with a Ryobi 18v 4Ah Battery and the results are in the attached graph and as follows:

• Advertised = 72Wh
• First Charge = 50.61Wh (21% Jackery Charged from 0%, 70.29% of Advertised)
• Second Charge = 43.38Wh (18% Jackery Charged from 21%, 60.25% of Advertised)
• Third Charge = 45.79Wh (19% Jackery Charged from 39%, 63.60% of Advertised)

So far having done more tests charging a Jackery 240 with Ryobi 18V 4Ah Batteries I have noticed a few things. First the part that gets hottest in this project charger is the SAE polarity reverse adapter. Not too hot but it is the warmest part to the touch I have noticed. I would say based on that if you are going to be drawing more amps you may want to get a higher quality SAE polarity reverse adapter. Second, The closer to full the Jackery gets the less capacity you seem to get from the battery which could also be the Ryobi charger doesn't charge to the exact same level each time. Last, It seems you will consistently get around 60% to 70% of the printed amount on the bottom of the battery based on the last few tests I ran. So halving your capacity like I thought you may have to do does look like the best to have more realistic expectations.

If you would like to support me in making these projects you can do so here.