I’m only half kidding. I’m a bit of a prepper and I have lots of powerbanks and devices that charge from USB but besides idling my truck I really had no other way to charge any of them in case of a long-term power outage which seemed a bit of an oversight on my part.
Not like this solves the issue. 30 watts (under ideal conditions) isn’t much but it’s a start.
im always wanted to setup solar panel in mountain to reduce hiker gone missing type stuff
You thinking about setting up a public charging spot in the wilderness? I like that.
Be careful. Those things are addicting.
That’s how I started: a little 5v, 6 watt panel I stuck in the window to charge my phone while I worked. Then I wanted to charge some other stuff, so I got a 15W panel. 15w panel was nice, but 100 watts was much better, so I bought two 100W fold-up panels like you’ve got.
Then I bought a big 1 KWh power station that could supply up to 2000 watts. I take it camping and charge it from the two 100W fold up panels.
But, sadly, the demon had its claws in me and refused to let go. So I bought 4x 200 watt panels so I could use the power station to power my homelab and refrigerator during the day.
Still, that wasn’t enough to satiate my addition. Now I’ve got 4 KW on the roof, 32 KWh of house battery, and a 10 KW inverter that is currently powering our house.
Am I satiated now? Only time will tell.
Am I satiated now? Only time will tell.
🤣
What about a neighborhood scale micro utility company/collective?
ew socialism
Idk you could charge people predatory rates I guess, especially during main grid outages. If you wanted to go that route.
Am I satiated now? Only time will tell.
I haven’t heard you say a word about your solar powered electric car…
Check back in 2-3 years when I (hope to) get an EV. I’m sure I’ll be crowing about it then 😆
In the mean time, would you like to hear about my solar powered lawn mower?
Unironically yes haha. I hope it’s just a manual lawn mower that you have your son push around.
Lol, no. And if you were expecting something clever like a goat, sorry to disappoint lol. Just a basic battery-electric push mower that I’ve charged from solar panels all season.
Could setup a solar powered desalination plant to water your garden too
I recently got a bluetti for off grid onsite work and it has awoken something in me. It’s like carrying a wall outlet around with you, absolutely incredible.
Needless to say I think I have caught the bug. Where would you point a feller who wanted to walk your path and learn more?
I’m more of a hands-on learner but that can get expensive depending on the hobby haha. For going solar, I’m still very much in progress but definitely on the path to where i want to be.
Basically the first step is to decide what your goal is. Do you want to go totally off grid? Just reduce your electric bill? Have backup power? All/some of the above?
If you only want to reduce your bill, check into what’s called grid-tied or “balcony solar”. That’s the easiest to get started with, but it requires cooperation from the electric company since you’re feeding back into the grid. I can’t do that here, so I went with a standalone/battery-based system.
Once you identify your goal(s), you’ll need to figure out what your “base” load is, and then how much your peak loads are so you know what size system to shoot for. Then you’ll need to choose an inverter that can meet those with some extra capacity for unforeseen spikes. I started with a 10KW system, but it’s also expandable up to 60 KW( 6 units in parallel). My house only has 100A service, so two inverters would actually give me more power than I can currently get from the power company lol.
For the panels, you can really only expect to get 60-80% of their rated output most of the time. The rated output is under perfect alignment with the sun, at the perfect angle, and with absolutely no obstructions. In practice, you’ll never see that. As an example, I usually only get between 3 and 3.4 KW out of my 4 KW system on the best of days. This is normal.
For batteries, they’re technically optional depending on your goals. If you just want to shave some money off your electric bill, you can forego the batteries and the inverters will happily mix PV and utility to power your loads during the day. e.g. If you’re drawing 1,000 watts and only getting 900 watts from PV, then it’ll make up the missing 100 watts from utility power.
I sized my batteries based on my average daily usage plus an extra 10 KWh. We use about 20 KWh per day, so I got two 16 KWh batteries for a total of 32 KWh. That means, if there’s no (usable) sunshine at all and we lose power, I can run the whole house for a little over a full day. Any sun hitting the panels will reduce the current draw from the batteries while also charging them if we use less than the PV is producing.
The longest power outage we had was about 29 hours, but if we typically experienced multi-day outages, I might have gone for a larger battery.
I had a much longer reply written up, but it barely scratched the surface. So hope this helps in a general sense but happy to answer any specific questions if I can.
Thank you for the primer! I find it very interesting and you’ve certainly given me plenty of things to research and learn more about.
I think my biggest goal is actually power stability but the cheaper power bill would be a welcome bonus. In my new shop the table saw seems to trip it’s little built in circuit breaker a lot more often when it is cutting thick hardwood than it did in my old shop. Unless the blade is sharp as shit resawing on the table saw is a distant memory lol.
I think it’s because the run from the road to the house main is a long run and then from the house main 60 amps is routed out to the shop which is another long run out to the shops breaker box. Then from there I use a 25 ft 12 awg extension cord to power the saw and dust collector via an automatic vacuum switch. The saw very rarely tripped at the old house when the total run from the road to the saw was less than 50 feet and I never did it any favors. But now that it is hundreds of feet away from the source I think the voltage drops off and it over heats and trips the sawstops little breaker.
I hope that made sense, I’m a carpenter not an electrician lol. What I think I need is a battery set up for the shop that acts like a giant Uninterruptible Power Supply to combat the “dirty” power and put the saw closer to the source. The ability to power a hybrid solar/dehumidifier kiln in the future from the shop without sacrificing power reliability would also be something I would want to consider.
Thank you again for the write up on your setup!
That’s a weird panel to battery ratio. Guess you’ve gotta work on that now. Got more room on your roof, preferably south-facing?
Though if there are ground systems that can aim the panels and you have room there, that could be really cool.
The usable south-facing roof area is full, unfortunately. I’ll have to do ground mount in the back yard and run a bunch of conduit if I want to add any more PV.
The 32 kWh of batteries are made of two 16 kWh batteries in parallel. Since this system is in lieu of a backup generator, I have it configured to only draw the batteries down to 50%. That leaves the bottom 16 kWH available for emergency use. Basically, for day to day usage, I treat the battery as being half the capacity it really is.
I’ve only been running this system for about 3 weeks now, but the batteries have been operating between 65% and 90% pretty consistently even running the A/C pretty heavily. They’ve been closer to low 60s this past week, but the wildfire smoke was choking out the sunlight Thursday and Friday.
I got the power station first out of necessity, but am now at the point of desperately trying to justify adding solar panels even though I don’t camp or anything. I fear it could become obsessive though.
Maybe I keep can limit myself to only as many panels as I own violins? That would be a fair number… Or at least cap it off at the number of musical instruments in the house? That would leave some room to grow, if I can count my wife’s ukulele collection!
Instead of looking at number of panels, look at the total wattage. How many watts does it take to charge your power station? 30W-100W portable solar panels like these should work well for that. You could even go a little higher than what you need because of things like inline charging and dual charging, so you can charge multiple devices at once and still keep the power station topped off. That’s a good starting point.
Next, ask yourself how much wattage you could regularly use it for on a normal day. Ignore high-wattage appliances at first, like refrigerators, a/c, heater, stove, coffee pot, hairdryer, etc. Basically anything that produces high temperatures or has a motor a motor. But what else could you power on it? Chargers, homelab, router, etc.? There’s your second expansion. Probably some larger one-off panels and a couple power stations
Lastly, ask yourself what wattage you would need to run all your necessities in the case of an emergency with a long-term power outage. That’s when you calculate the high-wattage appliances. This will probably require a full rooftop solar installation.
So no need to dive all the way in at first if you can’t afford to yet, but don’t let that discourage you from getting some smaller panels to start.
Glorious advice, thanks !
It is a nice set of things to ask oneself. Motivating a question is way better for learning.
What are inline and dual charging ? My internet query wasnt fruitful.
Also, by “power station” do you mean batteries? Because I’m curious what specs to consider, say, for a camping day vs home setup
Lol, def can become an obsession. First hand experience there.
I’ve wanted a whole house PV system for a long time, and this is just me finally getting around to making it happen. SO and I were talking about getting a backup generator installed, but that would have been about $7,000 for something that would only get used two or three times a year since our power doesn’t go out often (we have no heat or ability to cook when the power goes out, and it’s always in the dead of winter when we lose power). The PV system I sketched out was about $9.000, but in addition to covering us during outages, we could use it daily to reduce electric bill so, unlike the generator, this would pay for itself over time.
SO finally came around to my way of thinking, so here we are lol. My limiting factor is usable roof area. Of the roof that’s south facing, only about 14x20 feet of it is suitable for mounting panels. There’s a west-facing gable, but it’s blocked most of the time by a tree. The east-facing side of the gable is available, but it’s pretty much always foggy in the mornings here, so it wouldn’t add much to the system.
Unless I build a ground mount setup in the back yard, we’re pretty much at the limit of how many panels I can buy. I’m kind of glad for that because otherwise I’d just keep buying them.
I keep thinking about this. I can’t justify solar when I live in a northern country and pay about $0.06 USD/kWh, but the value of resilience also counts.
about $0.06 USD/kWh
😭 The per-kilowatt hour rider fees on top of my base rate per kWh are way more than that lol.
Im “lucky” enough to live in a region with abundant hydroelectric power. It’s still cheaper to heat your home with natural gas here…air source heat pumps might get close when they work.
That’s the dream though
Have you calculated how long it takes/took to pay for itself?
If you enjoy it, it already has.
I get you but it was worth the money you spent ≠ it earned back the money you spent.
Okay but for real how long
have battery system and solar since jan 2023, still love it
Time, in hours (H), equals average solar kilowatt hours per month (K), multiplied by the price of one kilowatt hour (P), divided by the total cost © of all the purchased components.
H = (K * P) / C
I’m sure if you were patient and dedicated enough, you could approximate each of those numbers using the info OP has already posted and get a general idea (weeks, months, or years).
Or I could read the comment where he said
Then do that instead of asking random people who aren’t in any position to know.
It was more of a comment on your comment
Time, in hours (H), equals average solar kilowatt hours per month (K), multiplied by the price of one kilowatt hour (P), divided by the total cost © of all the purchased components.
H = (K * P) / C
So you’re dividing the average saving per month by the total cost and expecting to get hours?
If we generously estimate a very high 3000kWh/month generated and high $0.40/kWh price and it cost OP $9000, then you formula is (3000×0.40)/9000 = 0.133 hours.
Breaking even after less than 1 hour?!??! Extraordinary!
It’s pretty easy to cry about bad math, but it’s a lot harder to figure out the right math.
Don’t worry, I’ll try to do it for you again a second time.
Power consumption varies. Use the average monthly power draw from the solar array, let’s assume for demonstration purposes 1,000 kWh/month.
Multiply that by the cost of 1 kWh from the power company, let’s say 20 cents.
In one month, that means you saved $200.
Let’s assume the solar equipment costs $1,000.
The answer is 5 months, or 5,000 kWh.
Sorry, I’ll make sure the free work I do for you is better quality next time.
Bro. Don’t act like this basic arithmetic and unit cancelation is hard. Not my fault you were so confidently incorrect.
All of the labor has been DIY, and I’ve got about $9,000 invested in the system components.
Back of the napkin math, at current electric rates, puts my ROI at just under 9 years. If electric rates keep going up, it’ll pay back even faster.
Yeah, buying peace of mind when it comes to self sufficient power generation has no price tag. Decentralization of the grid is a good thing regardless of if you “pay it off” or not.
buying peace of mind when it comes to self sufficient power generation has no price tag
$10,000? $100,000? 75% of your salary for the rest of your life?
It obviously does have a price tag at some point. If someone wanted true self-sufficiency they’d have to get a full solar setup plus a generator in case the grid went down at a time when solar power wasn’t covering the needs. (That’s likely if, for example, your power is knocked out due to wildfires, and the wildfire smoke is making the solar setup unable to produce power.)
And, you can’t really consider yourself fully self-sufficient when it comes to electrical power unless you have a n+1 setup, so you have a backup generator in case the primary one fails and needs to be repaired.
Sure if you want to be hyperbolic about it, but in my experience with people that argue like that, they will also say dumb things such as government owned entities such as schools, public transport, postal service or water access needing to make profit or its just all bad …
A hobby pays itself just by enjoying it. I’ve never calculated how long it will take to pay off my gaming rig
UNLIMITED POWER!
I’ve been looking to get a so-called “Chinese diesel heater” to my shed to keep it warm over the coldest days in winter when electricity is very expensive and the two small radiators designed to only keep it above freezing can no longer keep up. However, those run off 12V DC and power supplies seem to be surprisingly hard to come by. Easiest solution would be a car battery and a trickle charger but I’ve thought about just setting up a tiny solar system instead because then I would have a kind of off-grid location to fall back to. My house doesn’t have a fireplace either but the shed does (sauna). This would also allow me to charge all my tool batteries that require a standard outlet.
For heating, I’ve been wanting to try a solar collector. Not sure if you’ve come across Greenhill Forge on YouTube or anywhere that covers his projects, but he does all sorts of off-grid stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cPuVZjnbi4
That’s where he builds and tests several different styles of solar collectors for solar heating. The collectors are pretty inexpensive to build so that may be an option if you just want to (help) keep a shed warm.
Jokes on you when they nuke the sky
LOL “…but we know it was us who blacked the sky.”
—Morpheus (And not the Timothée Chalamet version)
also not the Highlander 2: The Quickening version where they blacked out the sky to stop global warming
Nice! I’m gonna have to go back and watch that… either I’ve never seen that version or I’d completely forgotten about that detail.
And I even watched the TV show ;-)
It’s probably the worst of the Highlanders. There was an updated version called The Renegade Cut that might be better.
I had no clue they had made so many. Thanks for the bonus tip… was it just bad-bad or cheesy bad? Because I feel like a large part of the appeal for me is the vague cheesiness of the whole series.
Edit: Got a Standard directors cut, and the renegade version… But in the process, I rediscovered that I recently downloaded Hot to Trot because it was on somebody’s list of worst movies ever. So I’m gonna have to watch that first 😝
Highlander 2 just makes no sense in general. They bring in some crazy shit about the immortals being aliens from the planet “Zeist” and ridiculous stuff like MacCloud riding a flying hoverboard happens.
It’s still worth watching at least once though
Oh man… it’s coming back to me now. Was there some kind of weird council of space-elders or something like that? I kinda vaguely remember a scene where MacCloud testifying and lights going on like campfire ghost stories when each person talks?
IDK, I might be mixing in some Dr. Who 🤓
At least that was just a shield you could disable by throwing an immortal alien through.
That’s why I skipped solar panels and went straight to human bioenergy pods
I bought the Jackery Explorer 100 and am coupling it with a 45W panel. I figured the Jackery would be better for solar than an average power bank, because they already package it in a bundle with their own panel. BUT since both USB C ports on the Jackery can do both power in/out, I think the Jackery can actually get confused about whether it’s supposed to be charging or discharging, when the panel is running at very low output… … at least, that’s how I interpret having returned to it and seeing it discharged when connected to the panel.
Out of curiosity, I’ve been wanting to get a jackery for camp trips an such, how is the 100w model? I keep eyeing the 2000w version but the price of it is absurd.
Honestly, I have a Jackery Home power 3600. The electronics have been buggy and unreliable. The battery can discharge itself through connected solar panels. It’s a known issue. The inverter overheats due to its discharging. The panels desynch from the battery while charging regularly. The USB C output is entirely inconsistent. Sometimes delivering minimal charge and other times rapid charging. My little brother has an Eco Flow. He hasn’t had issues with that system the same way that I have with the Junkery. Beware.
The battery can discharge itself through connected solar panels. It’s a known issue
Oh, I hadn’t heard about it anywhere else. Do you remember where you heard this?
I spoke with Jackery’s customer service and tech support several times. I was depleting charge while leaving panels plugged in in full sunlight. They’d informed that the power feed can back flow to the panel, and that it is a known issue.
It’s been fine, except for the issue I already described. The build quality is decent, but nothing special. There’s a ridge down the middle that’s a bit wider than it should be. The display button recedes a bit far into the case and so can get a little annoying to push. It’s got some nice rubber feet, and the orange might make it easier to spot in a dark tent. I haven’t put it through heavy or methodical testing though. Just mentioning things that I haven’t seen mentioned in reviews. It’s a heavy item for a backpack, so might be worth reconsidering if it’s overkill for your needs anyway.
I’m not who you asked but… I’ve never heard much good about jackery and they’re comparatively super expensive. Though, admittedly I haven’t price compared in several years. When I was looking, jackery was still using lipo batteries instead of the lifepo4, while being more expensive, so it was easy to discard them. Surely they’re using the newer chemistries now…
You might check into ecoflow or bluetti.
Edit: I have quite a bit of bluetti stuff and haven’t had any problems except with a folding 220w solar panel that was “free” with a battery purchase. It works, but not remotely close to spec even in ideal circumstances… Might be a reason they were giving them away : )
The batteries/inverters have all done well though the passive drain is significant.
Jackery is using lifepo4 now, but their quality control is bottom barrel poor. I’d advise you avoid unless it’s free.
I kinda want to get some solar for USB power, largely phones/tablets. But it doesn’t really make much sense to for me currently. Just getting another battery is a better choice and something I actually use. Solar would only make sense if I planned to need to keep recharging for an extended duration.
But at the same time solar is pretty cool… What else can I power to make use of it. Of course full home solar makes sense. But small portable stuff seems cool and affordable. Just don’t really seem like it makes sense.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty situational. I go to a lot of festivals and travel somewhat often, so it’d be useful for me. I also don’t have a permanent home (some day… <Sigh>)
I got one of those Anker Solix boxes, and a couple hundred watts worth of solar panels. I kinda want it rather than a generator for power outages. I’ve tested it, on battery alone it’ll power my fridge for about ten hours, with the panels I have the practical limit is about 24. And I’m not at the limit of number of panels I can install.
But, it has an interesting thing about it: It has a Time of Use feature. So if you’ve got peak power billing, you can set it to run whatever’s attached to it on battery during peak time and recharge during off-peak or discount hours. So it may get attached to my fridge for that purpose, with or without solar.
See that is where I find they ca get more useful. When you have a non emergency use for them as well.
I haven’t had a powercut for more than 5 minutes in my entire life. Have wondered if power at my allotment shed is worth setting up but not super keen on spending many hundreds/thousands it would take for any garden power tools and a generator would probably be a better option.
Lower power things might not be so bad. Though I really hate how modern powertools use proprietary batteries and each brand uses a different one. A powertool battery charger could be a modest size solar/battery setup.
I have a backyard shed that serves as a small but competent woodworking shop. It is connected to the house via a single 20A circuit. Running table saws, routers, planers, jointers plus lighting and dust collection can get to be a lot on one circuit, so I can haul the battery bank out there for more.
Just recharging power tool batteries and things like that, you could get away with a smaller unit. 1kWh or lower, with one, maybe 2 100W panels?
Depends on tool usage. My thinking was my strimmer at my allotment. Its used for an hour a month at most.
I would kinda like a battery that could provide mains so I don’t need to worry about different proprietary batteries for all sorts of garden tools tbh. But those kinds of battery can cost a lot if you want a jackery battery with 2kW output.
Maybe DIY is something to look at. But generally seems like pretty expensive stuff. Or just reject technology and use a grass hook instead. If I can find where I left it.
I assume you’re in the UK (who else has “allotments”) and I assume I’m from the US (planers and jointers?). That’ll matter when talking about the power grid; The US and UK grids, and appliances that plug into them, are engineered differently.
So to keep confusion down, I’m going to call Jackery-type devices “power stations” and the lithium power packs you plug into power tools “drill batteries.”
The power station I have is an Anker-Solix C2000 Gen 2, it has a 2048 watt-hour battery and an inverter that will sustain 2400 watts and peak to 4800. It’ll not only run, but START, my 13 inch DeWalt thickness planer, and it’ll take 800 watts of solar DC in. It cost $900 plus a few hundred in solar power and I’m not even maxxed out on it.
If you want a little unit you can install on your shed with a solar panel on the roof to just recharge the occasional drill battery, that’s WAY overkill. You probably don’t even need one that can deliver full standard wall socket power. A typical American wall outlet puts out 1800 watts, my drill battery charger uses a small fraction of that. I bet you could get away with a power station in the 300-500 watt range with a 50-100 watt solar panel. I would double check by putting a meter on your tool battery charger to see how much power they take. Do they make Kill-A-Watts in fish-and-chips flavor or only cheeseburger flavor?
Maybe I wasn’t clear, the idea was to use it to power plug in garden tools instead of ones that have their own battery. To use that as an alternative to each power tool using a different proprietary battery that sometimes can’t even be bought separately.
240vAC is standardised in a way that power tool batteries are not and probably never will be. I suppose 2-3kW output may be excessive but I don’t want to get one that may need to be replaced if I was to get a new tool that uses more.
Capacity could be far lower than the jackery style power stations come with, its output wattage that is needed with a comparably low capacity.
Oh you want to go with CORDED tools. There I couldn’t give you direct guidance because the difference in voltage/current standards, I don’t know what kind of amperage or wattage your collection of tools would require, especially since you haven’t bought them yet.
I don’t have the problem you’re facing though with non-standard batteries; I have a pretty large collection of cordless tools that all take the same batteries. From a chainsaw and lawnmower to a miter saw and palm router. I’ve got like 10 of the batteries in various sizes and about 20 tools. The weirdest one in my collection is a drill battery powered soldering iron.
An ENTIRE 30w?
Oh wow, you must be an engineer to need soooooo much power.
That will checks notes barely charge a phone.
You just here to throw mud or was there a point to this comment?
what a smug sense of accomplishment!
I’m surprised you have the time to comment with all the superior dicks you have to suck to become so accomplished.
I can’t believe that we get the opportunity to interact with someone of your caliber that’s responsible for, checks notes, sucking the jizz out of dozens of flacid wrinkled penises.
The more solar the better. As much as is safe, reasonable, and affordable. A lot of little things add up. Great work dude!
The material and electronics are not neutral though. Usually it’s more efficient to have a big shared solar plant than having everyone build their own systems. It’s not just about the source being renewable.
There is value in decentralization and redundancy though.
I have stockpiled an absolutely MASSIVE amounts of manure. That shit is going to be worth a fortune in the future. Every paycheck, I dump at least 10% of it into buying the freshest cow pie I can find. The neighbors hate me, but we’ll see who gets the last laugh when they sell their in-laws into indentured servitude to afford a bag of my brown gold!
I didnt know the meaning of “manure” but it became clear by the end of the paragraph
Doesn’t it have a limited shelf life? Do you need to maintain it?
Well, I keep it fresh by urinating on it. I collect all my family’s urine in a bathtub so we can have an extra sanitary bath once a week, together, and then I dump the leftover on the pile with this big crane I rigged up outta grocery carts.
I’m gonna give this warning: I have a panel of that type but much larger. It’s rated at ~200 watts. I’ve never seen it make more than 80. I don’t think it’s a great idea to make large, flexible solar panels, I bet something internal is cracked in it. It’s…virtually impossible to handle gently. It has kick stands on 3 of its 4 panels and you CANNOT stop that one inner panel from twisting. So…I am going to avoid that style of panel if it’s larger than, say, a book. OP’s 30 watt panel is probably fine but if you’re dealing in the hundreds of watts honestly my glass panels are easier to deal with.
I don’t think this is able to reach the full 30 watts either. Probably closer to 20 under ideal conditions.
The panels themselves aren’t flexible - just the “hinges” between them. I don’t think the portability makes much sense with larger panels than this. Better just go with a proper setup at that point.
Yeah I have 100 watt panels that make 70 or 80 most of the time; those ratings are for “ideal conditions” which I take to mean “perfectly aligned, in space.”
As to the rigidity: It is a little flexible, compared to glass and aluminum. I bet it’s perfectly serviceable at smaller sizes, but when it’s 7 feet (2.13 Celsius) long:
the damn thing sags under its own weight. They shouldn’t be made this big. Those glass panels together have the same rating and they actually work worth a damn.
Not sure why this is in the “pics” community. Yes, technically it’s a picture of something, but it’s not a good picture, or an original picture, or a well composed picture.
I’ve been scheming to install panels on my garage roof for a year or so. My biggest hurtle is needing to make space for an inverter next to the circuit panel, but first my hot water tank is installed too close to the panel so it can’t pass an inspection until I move it. Which means a ton of new plumbing before u even get to the new stuff. Ugggh
please share a link if you have one to offer up
Look up Project Farm on YouTube. They’ve done several episodes on solar panels and power banks. Data sheets with their test results are linked in the description of every video.
thank you!!
Doesn’t really make much of a difference which one you get. They all do the same thing and perform more or less the same. I happened to get a good deal on this one as it was only 30 euros so 1€/W though I doubt it’ll do full 30 watts even under ideal conditions. The brand is FlexSolar.
thank you!
You’re already doing better than most by testing your gear and knowing what it can do BEFORE you have to rely on it, so good work.
I would suggest investing in a charge controller if your panel or power bank doesn’t have one built in. The power delivery from a panel fluctuates with the amount of light it receives. A charge controller will ensure your connected devices receive clean, constant current, which will greatly extend their lifespan.
Depending on your setup, I might also suggest exploring some kind of mechanical backup, like a hand crank or a modified bicycle to get you through overcast days.
Solar is a lot of fun to tinker with.
I got a good deal on a 30000mAh fire-hazard for 16 euros that I’m charging with it and I then charge my devices off that. The panel just has a standard USB outlet.
Nice, that’s a good deal. If the panel just has a single USB, I would guess there’s no internal regulator; it seems to be one of those panels that just gives you the juice and relies on you to manage it. With the price point of that power bank, it doesn’t seem like it would have one either. I’m sure the spec sheet or manual will tell you for sure.
If you don’t care about that cheap power bank, then you can abuse it until it misbehaves then replace it. If you want to protect it, prepare for a bigger bank, or just tinker with your setup, a charge controller for a system your size should be around half the price of your power bank.
Those big Jackery boxes and others claim to not need one. But they’re also like $2,000. A charge controller is like $10. To me, it seems worth the $10, even if it does ultimately do “nothing”.
I have wondered if a good cost effective setup would be one of those solar power stations, get the smallest battery unit that can take the solar input you plan for. Then use the battery to charge USB power banks for your extra power capacity as they cost less per Wh. But the more expensive battery contains all your inverters that you need. Then just an extension lead and as many USB plugs as you like.
If the “apocalypse” happens it would be more appropriate to be concerned with food growing and preservation and not USB devices (other than maybe flashlights or shortwave/Ham radio) or other electronics that have no real purpose.
As far as longer-term power outages go these power banks aren’t too bad, but you gotta consider the food situation again and keeping it safe to eat. A rotating set of banks and a good peltier cooler will help keeping some food cool, but not cold enough for long term. I’m sure you have water filters, chlorine tabs, etc. to keep drinking water safe.
The problem most preppers experience is that the apocalypse is gradual, not sudden. Or, they prepared for the wrong apocalypse. Or, other people are not treating the apocalypse the way they expected / should.
If things get so bad that urban / suburban dwellers are concerned with growing food, things are already pretty messed up. If supermarkets and/or emergency food relief aren’t keeping people fed, then people are going to get desperate. At that point, the people who are OK aren’t the ones who have solar panels, food stores, weapons, and so-on. The people who are OK are the ones who are willing and able to use violence against other people to take their solar panels, food stores, weapons, and so-on. IMO even preppers who own guns and train to use them will often not have the ruthlessness to actually kill someone when push comes to shove, not unless they’ve been trained / brainwashed / traumatized into being able to do that.
So, for me, I keep enough food and drink for a few days. If there’s a situation that lasts longer than that, I also have friends, and will go stay with them if things are better for them. I want enough power so I can keep from getting bored for a few days. I don’t need to be able to run heavy appliances. If civilization collapses, I’m not fooling myself into thinking I can survive that. I’m not a warlord, I don’t know anybody who would become a warlord, I don’t think I could make myself useful to a warlord, and I don’t think I could fight off a warlord and their gang.
Full apocalypse is silly to prepare for.
But interruptions are totally a valid thing. Power outage for a week following a storm for example.
In that case I would probably end up cooking over a wood fire if I am still hungry after devouring the entire content of my freezer. Not letting the ice cream go to waste!
I’ve got enough food stocked up to last me months. I just don’t want to be eating my rice and beans in the dark.
productive gardens and food sources > than deep pantry
I have both and can replenish and scale, shift my intake strategies as resources become harder to allocate.
My focus is on casual prepping as a hobby that in the worst case can one day turn out to have been useful. Actual self-reliance is a full-time job. The vast majority of people have virtually nothing stocked up. Someone who has intentionally put aside supplies for even a week is ahead of 99% of people. It takes surprisingly little to cover one’s basics and anything extra is a luxury.
Being able to hunker down the first week or two is critical. Fist-fighting at the gas station is not what one wants to be doing during the early days of collapse.
Vast majority of people do not own enough land to grow even close to all their own food.
I focus on the higher valued things instead. Mostly anyway. Along with experimenting with what I can get to thrive in my area.
I have just over an acre of highly productive riverfront land. I have multiple garden, orchards, chickens and can add a pair of goats readily.
The native landscape and wildlife that borders my property and is within walking distance is wildly abundant. Knowing what to forage, the native plants that are edible and medicinal is paramount to long term and situational survival, bridging the gap. Knowing where to fish and hunt and becoming familiar with the critters in my region is also hugely valuable.
You’d be surprised on how much one can grow using permaculture and understanding the seasons and capabilities in your region.
just over an acre of highly productive riverfront land
Nice, but that is truly vast compared to most of us. I have about 40m² of usable growing space in the back garden and maybe 5m² in the front.
Also don’t have a river. Everything that isn’t drought resistant is already dead.
As for foraging, sure its fun to do. But if it became required there are now almost 100k people to compete with such a small amount of foragable land. Not going to work.
Being able to recover after the apocalypse is also good, and having a useful cross-section of humanity’s knowledge would help with that.
There is no recovery after actual apocalypse unless you are fully capable of maintaining an essentially fully off-grid village full of the skills, tools, and stock needed in pre-1850-ish America. If actual supply chain collapse occurs there is nothing left to restart modern civilization once all the people with knowledge and skill starve and the ability to replace parts vanishes thanks to global manufacturing and resource extraction being so compartmentalized. Digital media will become difficult if not impossible to access, and picking up books to learn how to live after it’s already collapsed will also be difficult as libraries are few and far between, and even those will have a limited how-to section for a manual skill survival society.
Being able to sustain oneself safely after an acute natural disaster is the goal.
Natural disaster, or even just illness and you can’t go to the shops for a few days.
I have heard of people that routinely don’t have even enough food for a weekend in their house.
This seems quite big for a 30W 😅.
If that’s really an usb A port on the side, my own 25W is basically the size of one of your panels. But mine is 5V only. In theory, it is 2 15W ports (5V3A), but in reality it is more 10W (5V2A) each, when both are used, in ideal conditions.
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/aw/d/B0DMNY4HWV
Got another one which delivers 60W (45W using the PD USBC port), with integrated stand.
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/aw/d/B0DQ8PY91X
(Links are not sponsored)
I also tested for Amazon Vime multiple solar pannel, but my biggest grief with all of them is that they lies about their IP rating. They simply gives the pannel own rating, wich doesn’t applies to the connection box. That’s not respecting the specs, which requires the whole item to be rated, not only part of it. If one follow that logic, my e-bike is IP68 too (if you take the chassis only and not the electronic bits).
