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.
This can power a Steam Deck. Good choice.
Can it charge up enough batteries to run a typical Factorio session? So until sunrise where you can start charging the accumulators again.
If you weren’t using your Steam Deck all-out during the day then probably. Steam Decks draw about 29W max (the LCD models I have at least).
Factorio GPU demands are fairly low, CPU will be maxed out by late game though…
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.
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.
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 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!
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 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!
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.
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
When I said inline I meant like charging a powerbank while another device is charging from it. And by dual charging I mean if it has two or more outputs it can charge multiple devices at once. In either case, each device you add to the load is going to require more wattage (or it’ll just charge slower)
And yeah, a power station is like a powerbank but larger. A powerbank might have 10,000mAh and fits in your pocket, can probably charge a phone 3 or 4 times on one charge. A power station is like the size of a lunchbox or a small cooler, might have 30,000mAh or more, and could probably charge a phone a dozen times on one charge. They usually have more output options too, instead of just USB. Some even have an A/C adapter.
Still not enough to run a whole house on, but great for camping and power outages. If you wanted to run appliances on it you’d be looking at larger home batteries designed for rooftop solar, or even upcycled EV batteries.
The main specs you want to look at are input wattage (will tell you what size solar panels are required to charge it), output wattage (will tell you what’s safe to plug in where), and milliamp-hours (mAh, basically how much juice it can hold at full charge)
Have you calculated how long it takes/took to pay for itself?
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
If you enjoy it, it already has.
Okay but for real how long
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.
have battery system and solar since jan 2023, still love it
I get you but it was worth the money you spent ≠ it earned back the money you spent.
Am I satiated now? Only time will tell.
🤣
UNLIMITED POWER!
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.
That’s the dream though
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.
Judging by the comment section, this is also the secret solarpunk forum.
I’m getting solar panels and a battery later this month. It’s mostly to keep the bills cheap and the house green, but power outages are always in the back of my mind. There’s just so many ways they can happen
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.
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.
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!
How much did you pay for that? I might be interested in something similar.
30W is plenty for a smartphone or powerbank. I usually charge mine at sub-20W as not to stress the batteries too much. The phone still charges to full (or 95% to be precise) in an hour. I’m in no rush.
Now if it could do 60W - perfect for all mobile devices. Everything from a smartphone to a laptop or a big handheld console.
It was only 30 euros
can it run my mitsubishu wand?
In a situation where you don’t have constant access to abundant electricity, you would naturally reduce your use of electronics quite a bit. An e-reader battery lasts a long time, so load it up with a bunch of good and useful books and that panel will be able to power it indefinitely. Winter is tricky, still it would probably be enough to keep it going with sparse use. Or you could rig up a bike-alternator-car battery set up. But you need to think about how much power you can reasonably generate and base your planned consumption off of that. This makes me sound like a big prepper, I’m not, but I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Wonder why…
An e-reader battery lasts a long time, so load it up with a bunch of good and useful books and that panel will be able to power it indefinitely
Paper books require neither and are almost equally waterproof. But i suppose if you already own both anyway that’s a solid tip.
A standard E-Book can store the entire Wikipedia, OSM DB, Wikisource and Wikibook contents on a single $4 128 GB (~1 million books) SD card, also having a good IPX8 waterproof class.
Paper books are fucking HEAVY and bulky. They’re only practical if you don’t ever need to take more than one or two anywhere. If you gotta be on the move, the extra equipment to manage the battery is much lighter than the books you would need to carry otherwise.
Another advantage to an e-reader is that I can remove the battery and it’s completely waterproof, as long I completely dry it before the battery goes back in, it can get as wet as I need it to, no problem. Books don’t have that option.
So in your head (or your internal plans) you see yourself running to the hills with your powerbank and e-reader, lol…that’s silly and not in the least practical.
Folks with actual plans, like me, have a library, a home that’s defensible and productive with food, water and resources. We have community and a long-term prep scenario.
If I’m falling back and fleeing my home I’m taking 2 or 3 books to help BUT that’s not a prep strategy, it’s video game zombie show fantasy.
Books are far superior.
I didn’t say that at all. I said an e-reader is a better choice for people on the move, and books are a better choice for people who intend to stay put.
I didn’t say anything about whether moving or staying is a better choice because that would be an ignorant statement. Without knowing the exact scenario that will occur, it’s impossible to say whether leaving or staying would give the greater chance of survival.
I didn’t say anything about whether books or an e-reader is “superior” overall because that would be an ignorant statement. Like everything else in this world, each choice has pros, cons, and tradeoffs that make one better in certain circumstances, and the other better in different circumstances.
But if making shit up about what people say is what it takes for you to “win” arguments on the internet, more power to you; that reflects a lot more about you than it does me.
My point being that running to the hills to escape the zombies and jackboots is a far less practical scenario than supply chain disruption, infrastructure breaking down and societal services collapsing, which is already happening and has occurred recently.
Having back up resources and information electronically is hardly a primary use case, in my experience.
You complaining that books are too heavy is feeding into fantasy scenarios whereas functional systems that have been in place for millennia is far more practical and resilient.
I mean… after society collapses, you can just raid a library for good old-fashioned paper books. Provided the idiots haven’t burned them for warmth.
Have you ever carried a backpack full of books? They’re heavy af. Probably easier to just take over the library and move everything else there.
Solid plan… until I drop my eyeglasses 😉
Well, my eyesight isn’t really that bad…
All i need is a gun to kill the local prepper and I’m set.
Be sure to check your local raid boss’s tier now before the content releases. A lot of them you’ll be able to solo with the right load out, but if you’re unlucky you’ll need to start putting together your party roster now because they aren’t all made to be soloed.
A looter - finally!
- That local prepper, probably
The prepper will likely be camped and there will be signs someone’s been in the area recently, the looter or looters would have a pretty big advantage.
Doesn’t the defending side in a war usually suffer fewer casualties?
If you’re talking about an entrenched battle. A looter would have the element of surprise, which in a 1v1 is basically an instant win.
See preppers camp, setup in some shrubs, wait, pew pew, now you have the preppers stuff.
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.
Yay! I hope it comes in handy.
I don’t have solar yet, but I have a small portable power station that lets us avoid the manually started gas generator 90% of the time we have an outage. It’s important people prepare for smaller, more common events too.
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.
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.
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.
In the event of an apocalypse basically nothing that you can charge is going to be of any use other than flashlights.
You underestimate the amount of digital hoarders out there.
Or maybe hoarders overestimate how much and how long they can rely on their digital stuff.
Once you let go of heating and cooling, larger temperature variations are going to do a number on you consumer grade electrical devices. Your solar panels are one heavy hails storm away from destruction, and if we assume climate change is the cause of the apocalypse, you can count on those.
The best way to survive an apocalypse is to rebuild communities with a wide set of skills, and still dramatically lower our quality-of-life AND HEALTH expectations.
You know, you can charge your house? With a large enough battery and enoug PV power you can operate a heat pump off the grid to control the climate of your home.
The feasibility varies a bit, depending on where exactly you live, but there are definitely useful things you can do with solar power and batteries.
Nothing that a 30W panel can manage though. And I definitely agree to your point about rebuilding communities.
Yeah while home battery systems and a portable 30W panel are a bit different haha.
I’ve got solar with a 42kWh home battery system, with a petrol generator backup that can power the whole house via a change-over switch, but even that in an apocalypse isn’t gonna do much - especially when, like in a blackout now, I’m the only house on the street with lights on.
Ofc, that’s on a whole different level.
Your 42 kWh is huge. Pair that with an approriately sized roof solar panel, and you won’t need a grid much. Seriously, look into that. Not even for living off the grid, but for financial reasons.
Though yeah, having the lights on and appliances running, might paint a target on your house in an apocalyptic scenario. But nobody’s forcing you to use the lights, and a heat pump with ground water or earth collector as a source is pretty stealthy. So you can sit in a dark, but warm, house.
devices with offline knowledge. you can download wikipedia to your device.
also gaming consoles against the boredom and to maybe connect to the neighbor for fun?
Hmm. So let’s talk resilience; lighting, battery power tools, refrigeration, Mobility (mountain eBikes, with solar recharging would make for great post apocalyptic transportation), and many more things.
Laughing with mp3-player.
And meshtastic or meshcore to communicate
Intriguing. Go on…
There are small devices for off-grid text communication based on radio frequencies. It’s uses LoRa and it requires no Internet after setting up(you may need to download the app). Be aware that Line of sight is a bit factor and that buildings, tress and other stuff might affect it.
You can buy a device or build one on your own (you need to buy first chip and battery) and install/flash mesh on it.
Be careful though, do not get hyped from what you read or see, because in the end might not suit you. Here in Europe it has grown up a lot, lots of people use it, especially when traveling in another country l.I just gave you a basic explanation, for more information visit the meshtastic community
https://mander.xyz/c/meshtasticMeshtastic and meshcore websites https://meshtastic.org// https://meshcore.io/
Wow, okay, so this is way better and longer-range than Bluetooth. Cool. Thanks for sharing!
Depends on tge apocolypse, but Refrigeration… HVAC… Power tools… Could go on.
Maybe even your phone if you’ve downloaded books/manuals/maps needed to rebuild before hand
What is 30 watts going to do for any of those? I don’t think people here know how weak a 30 W panel is.
do you have somewhere to be? if the power goes down long enough, it’s not like you’re going to be in a hurry. but yes 30w is pretty small. you can buy a 450w solar panel for under 200 bucks. add a inverter and 100ah battery and you’re laughing. most shit you can run on dc like lighting and small devices.
The argument was that: “basically nothing that you can charge is going to be of any use other than flashlights” not that 30 watts is sufficient for long term.
The one statement I replied to gave examples like refrigeration and HVAC that a 30w panel will not run. I made no commentary on what use can be made outside of flashlights.
That being said, as someone who runs 100w panels on my trailer parked on some land, 100w is not much other then topping off a deep cycle battery to then run lights and a propane furnace and fridge. Not that it is not useful at anything, just that those rollup ones are generally used to charge a power bank for phones, lights, and such. One of the better uses I have seen is hooking up one to a car to keep it topped up while sitting. But if you are going to use a panel you need a battery and at that point why not go with a non flexable 100w panel that is about the same size or smaller?
are generally used to charge a power bank for phones, lights, and such.
That’s exactly the use case I bought it for. In the picture I’m charging a powerbank. I’m intending to play around with a small-scale solar setup on my shed at some point but for now this is the one cheap investment that enables me to keep critical small electronics running indefinitely.
You just get to learn to be VERY patient.
My strimmer battery charger takes 65w. So 8 hours of 30w to charge a battery is almost 4 hours charging the strimmer battery which would probably fill it’s small battery a few times over. If you are not depleting the strimmer battery multiple times a day, that is more than enough power.
You of course do need a battery to store it so many hours of solar are used in several minute short time loads.
A 30W solar panel is likely going to charge at about 5W, given the inefficiency.
I was getting around 12 watts during the sunset when I was testing it. It can probably reach around 20 watts under ideal conditions.
Highly doubtful. ~30% efficiency is already pushing the limit of solar panels. No way you’d get over 65%.
There is some inefficiency in charging a battery but not that much. Main losses would be that the solar panel isn’t actually outputting 30w as you won’t be getting ideal conditions all day.
But it doesn’t necessarily matter either. 65w to charge a battery but you only need it once a week for an hour can easily be managed by 5w all day for a week.
Though planning for an apocalypse is kinda pointless anyway. Preparing for a disaster is more reasonable, such as a storm knocking out power for a while.
The inefficiency isn’t the battery, it’s the panel. They run at about 20-25% efficiency at best.
The rated wattage should take that into consideration.
Person I was responding to said nothing that can be charged, not specifically charged by 30 W. People live comfortably off grid these days with panels and batteries to store. Nothing perfect, but the right setup could matter if things went bad
We’re not talking about a whole off grid home here lol. We’re talking about a guy with a 30W solar panel.
You’re moving the goalposts. You said nothing rechargeable besides flashlights isn’t going to be of any use in the apocalypse which is an obviously false statement as demonstrated by the pushback you’re getting. The size of the solar system wasn’t part of the argument you made.
Interesting, because I said this
nothing that you can charge
“you” is you, the OP, the one showcasing his 30W solar panel.
You’d still be falsely assuming that I’m limited by the output wattage of the panel itself despite it enabling me to charge a powerbank that can output 150 watts.
I don’t really understand exactly what you’re doing here anyway. Like, do you just find people who get excited about things and then go piss all over it because that’s fun or something?
30w can charge a battery bank like a Jackery, and those can put out 1000w continously. It would take ages to charge, but it’s more than nothing.
It might be better than nothing for some things, but providing enough power to run heaters as needed when it’s -20F outside over the next week ain’t going to happen. And while it would work for an LP furnace for a while, that tank WILL go empty, and then where do you get more fuel?
I don’t think a high wattage battery is something that could keep you warm. I was talking more like creature comforts. Not something you would want on-the-go because of the weight, but if you were hunkered down you might at least have lights or some amount of entertainment. Shit, it could even power a tablet, router, and NAS, and give you something to watch in dark times. That’s a good thing to have on solar power if you are staying put.
It will keep you warm for a little while, but not for long.
If things hit the fan, lights can be a cheerful thing to have. But if it’s a widespread power outage that lasts, the internet goes down, and cell service follows pretty quickly. Maybe a Game Boy is usable, but your tablet will be a paperweight, and forget the NAS. On the upside, there just won’t be much you are going to need electricity to run at that point.
Burning wood seems like the obvious solution to keeping warm in the winter. There’s much better uses for the little solar power there is available then.
Ehh, disagree. We have a battery backup system (they charge from the electric lines) for our house because we have a well instead of septic lines, so when the power goes out we don’t have water. Our next big purchase will be panels to charge the batteries as further backup.
Interesting. Where do you live?
Around here (Germany), most people get solar power first and THEN buy a battery, when they realize it’s financially more feasible to use as much of the energy the generated themselves instead of using grid power.
We live in the US (Maryland). We’re kind of rural, but not really that far out. A lot of folks in rural areas of the US have gasoline generators; this is just an alternative to that. The trees around here take out the power lines somewhat frequently and well… the state of the country makes us anxious. Around the time we bought the system, some right wing groups were floating ideas about shooting up electrical substations.
Anyway, if we were making the transition just for economics, we would also have gone in the reverse order. But we have two small kids, so we were worried about preparedness.
yeah, I get it. I know very few people who really have to make similar considerations, so naturally the thought process is different. Germany is fairly densely populated and even in more rural areas, like the one I live in, the power grid is pretty reliable. I can count the amont of power outages I experienced in my few decades of lifetime with my fingers, and when there is one it usually only lasts a few minutes to hours.
Nothing, a healthy person with a few supplies can’t bridge easily.
Look: I plan solar panels, batteries, and a small TV set, so during the apocalypse, I will have my Netflix shows! And with the right EV, I will be one of the few who can still go to Costco!
You see: I’m ready!!
Why wouldn’t you just get Amazon delivery? Come on now!
That’s a pretty ignorant thing to say.
Nah, those electric shoe polishers? All eight of them? Why did you get so many of them?
Those I can live without. I can just have people polish my shoes by hand for exchange to letting them charge their devices using my solar panel.
Yeah, light in the dark is totally useless.
I feel like you must have stopped reading my comment half way through to say that……
It wasn’t worth finishing.
It was, because I specifically said flashlights you peanut.
A 30W panel isn’t charging much else’s.
Idk I use mine to charge tool batteries as well. Thanks for calling me a delicious and useful nut, accurate.
Electric fire starter. Mesh nodes. Walkie talkies. Small computer with offline Wikipedia and Google maps. GPS may still be working for a while, so that would be useful to charge and use. Portable fans. MP3 player or other entertainment device. Camera. Small power tool batteries…
Yeah, in an apocalypse, a small about of electricity would be a luxury.
30W panel ain’t gonna do that.
Wrong!
https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/seeed-studio/sensecap/solar-node/
Runs on a 5W panel… So yes, a 30W panel can certainly do that.
That’s one of the half a dozen things you listed lol. You gonna power a computer off a 30W solar panel that realistically will give you about 6W? Power tool batteries?
Sure, a very small one, with a battery. My smartphone will charge off 5W.
I’ve got a mini Dremel that will charge off 5W USB. It ain’t gonna be fast, but it will definitely work.
You’re batting 0/3, still want to keep trying?
Strange how you ignored the example of yours that I specifically pointed out in the comment on just replied to - a pc.
Strange that you think “computer” must only mean “PC”.
Still 0/3 btw. Why don’t you quit while you are only this far behind?
gasmask, radiation tablets and suits, a working moter bike and a ton of gas are higher on my list.
How long does gasoline keep?
2 or so year, but that long enough to get you to where you need to, if it take over 2 years of driving to get what you need and you can’t find any more, sorry but you were probubly fucked from the get go
That is where a diesel bike and maybe a diesel truck as well would come in handy. You can continue making biodiesel long term, and use the engine for generator power in a pinch. You can even go with mechanically controlled engines and not have problems with EMP to be extra prepared.
In the event of an apocalypse basically nothing that you can charge is going to be of any use other than flashlights.
My house is quite rural and I have a water well with a battery backup for the pump and UV filter. The battery lasts for about 5-6 days depending on use. I can charge the battery from the grid or with solar.
If the cities get nuked, my well system will still function.
Can you repair it if it breaks?
There are power tools that run on batteries these days. I don’t know about you, but a chainsaw seems pretty useful to me.
At 30watts max I guess you can cut a log or two every once and a while sure.
I get water from 800ft underground. Not a long term solution but being able to drink, cook, and bathe for a few weeks or months is going to be important. It is useful to be able to power the pump with batteries charged by the sun until enough people have died so I can migrate to a more tolerant climate without having to mad max it.
Gonna need a lot more than a 30W portable panel for that.
That’s a massive panel for so little wattage.
Look up 25% next time, they maximize the area! N-type’s are also great for enduring high temps and weathering high uv.
Yeah it’s a lot of panel for 30W.
Is 25% the brand name?
Refers to the efficiency. 25% needs less area to generate the same amount of power. The efficiency has been steadily rising from 18% now to 25%.
Nuclear war is followed by nuclear winter, which, among other things is caused by thick clouds, sorry!
Is OP prepping for nuclear war though?
We’re not going to nuke each other. Everyone is gonna die of dysentery from Texas’ lettuce-borne ass plague.
