DeWALT DCB1800B Portable Power Station (Bare Tool) Expired

True regarding the "clean sinewave"-- this does explicitly state you get a modified sinewave. I meant clean in the sense of no generator exhaust or noise. For folks doing some work in areas without electricity or need a quick and convenient power source, this is the bee's knees.

And my neighbor is one of those guys who over the years has helped me with 1000 tasks and let me borrow 100 various tools. We were just talking about how much we both wanted this exact tool. This deal arrived right on time & will be one of those gifts of diplomacy for a decade more of good neighborliness.

This unit is no joke. I have one with 4 9ah batteries and it pumps out some serious juice. I run my demolition hammer for hours, no problem. It is a modified sine wave so using it with sensitive electronics is not a good idea. I have torn it down for a YouTube video and it has HIGH quality internals and is built to take a drop (fiberglass reinforced circuit boards).

A $50 Walmart battery is going to have a reserve capacity of 80 which converts to roughly 400wh and weigh 50lb. It's also not going to charge nearly as fast as Li-on batteries charge. I'd also be skeptical at how well a $50 car battery is able to provide high amps continuously. CCA ratings are only good for 30 seconds. With a hobbled together inverter + car battery solution you're also sacrificing safety circuitry which prevents pesky things like the battery blowing up because too many amps are being drawn from it for extended periods of time whereas this tool and the batteries it expects have safety circuits to prevent such events.

Your idea is cheaper though so I'll give you that.

$50 battery + $115 inverter + $50 charger + $30 cables = $245

vs.

$194 Dewalt inverter + 4x 5ah batteries (from ebay, not retail store) at around $215 = $415

Ultimately the big cost differential simply comes down to the difference between a $50 lead acid battery and $200 of Li-on batteries. Are Li-on battery 4 times better than lead acid? Well they weigh significantly less at 1.4lbs each so under 6lbs vs 50lbs. When you're already lugging a bunch of other tools that is meaningful. Additionally the Dewalt tool holds the batteries that it is using so you have one thing with a handle to carry rather than the combination of inverter, cables, and car battery. Of course, the Dewalt batteries are also good for all the cordless tools that they have whereas the car battery will only ever have the one purpose.

Bottom line is that the car battery solution is definitely not more capable but it is cheaper so it depends what you're after. This is really geared towards people who are going to want it because it complements all the other tools they have whereas your solution is going to be stand alone.