I love spending a week or two on the road living out of my vehicle. It’s the best way to see New Zealand, but one thing I’ve always struggled with is keeping my laptop charged. So I decided to try find solid power bank with an AC outlet. I wanted to be able to recharge from the wall socket at home, the vehicle cigarette lighter while on the move or via solar panels when I’m parked up.

When you don’t know much about power banks or solar panels the internet can be mighty confusing. I spent 3 days researching and worked out a couple of key features that I wanted. After going down a lot of nerd-tech rabbit holes online, I discovered the iForway 154WH portable solar generator. 

I really wanted something that produced pure sine wave power. A lot of inverters and power banks produce modified sine wave which can damage delicate electronic equipment. Pure sine wave is what you get from your AC outlet at home and the last thing I want is to fry my laptop on the road, so pure sine is the way to go. The iForway systems were one of the only ones I found that produced pure sine wave power that weren’t crazy expensive. 

I needed a compact system. I looked at getting something hardwired into my vehicle but I’m planning on upgrading soon and also often do trips in other vehicles, so something small and easy to transport is ideal. The iForway 154WH comes in a nice little carry case and can easily fit under the car seat when you’re not using it. 

I was a bit confused as to what solar panel to pair with it. On the iFroway website they recommended using a solar panel under 40W, but they don’t sell a 40W panel and I really wanted to pair with the same brand to make sure the electronics all got along plus I’m really OCD and I like my gear to match lol. I messaged iForway and they said the 60W panel will be fine as after energy loss and conversion factor it would end up producing around 40W power, so I went with the iForway 60W foldable solar panel. The solar panel plugs straight into the DC input on the power bank plus the solar panel also has a couple of USB outputs and sometimes I use it to directly charge my phone or smaller USB power banks.  

A lot of the powerbanks I looked at were only for 110V with American AC sockets and in NZ we run 220V, so I was stoked that iForway offer both options with a universal socket. Most of the other similar sized and priced power banks were around 20,000mAh which after some research would probably not charge my MacBook Pro to full power, the iForway 154WH is 41,600mAh which should give me enough juice for an evening of editing. My Macbook Pro has a 60W charger so with 120W output the iForway power bank has more than enough wattage for that and most other electronics or small appliances like my camera and drone batteries. 

Although the iForway 145WH has a DC input, it doesn’t come with a cigarette lighter adapter. The DC socket is 19V/2A and I was struggling to find a suitable adapter online, so I messaged iForway for advice and they offered to make me an adapter and included it for me. I suggested making this a stock feature, so hopefully they will add an adapter in the future. In the meantime you could try your luck and message them like I did. 

I’m really happy with the iForway 145WH, it’s made me even more self sufficient while on the road and keeps my cameras, laptop and phone fully juiced up at all times.

I got my IForway 154WH portable solar generator here.
I got my iForway 60W foldable solarpanel here.