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.
All i need is a gun to kill the local prepper and I’m set.
A looter - finally!
- That local prepper, probably
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. “Why should I only use that solar power two or three times a year?” the voice said. 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 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.
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.
Edit: Depending on how you look at it, ROI could be in as few as 1.5 to 2 years. This system is in lieu of a whole house generator that would have cost us about $7,000. Had we gone with that instead, it would never have paid for itself (other than peace of mind) and we would have been perfectly content. So if I’m only considering the price difference between this and the generator, it’d only have to pay back $2,000.
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.
Also be careful storing powerbanks at full charge, charge them at 80% or ideally around half for maximum longevity
It also saves a lot of money to do this. I’ve found it takes almost as much power to go from 80 to 100 as it does to go from 0 to 80.
In the event of an apocalypse basically nothing that you can charge is going to be of any use other than flashlights.
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?
Can you repair it if it breaks?
Most of it. I rebuilt the well system when I bought the house. I installed the backup system from various components. It wasn’t a pre-built system. I COULD conserve power by shutting off the UV filter. I could probably run the pump for over a month on a single charge.
If something blows in the charge unit in the battery pack, and I can’t find a replacement part, then no. If the batteries fail, I can hack together a replacement if I can get batteries. I have various solar panels and charge controllers around and a 12k panel system on the roof I could tap into and convert if the grid stops. The well system can also run on a propane generator, but as we learned in Fiona, when the entire island (PEI) was dark for 11 days, propane supplies go quick. I had 8 full tanks so I was fine.
But that’s the same for anything in a house. If the world goes to shit, something happens and I break my toilet, and can’t find a replacement, then I’m shitting in the woods.
I think if it gets down to it, you’re not going to worry too much about your shiny toys when you haven’t eaten in three days.
Why wouldn’t I have eaten in three days?
How do you define apocalypse? You’re just larping, friend.
You’re just larping, friend.
Please elaborate. I have nothing against larping but that doesn’t seem to carry utility beyond the enjoyment gained from the act itself. A small solar panel, however, seems useful for any scenario ranging from a few day power outage to full societal collapse and zombies. It’s a genuine functional panel - not a prop.
How will a solar panel help against full societal collapse? I am on tenterhooks.
I can charge my flashlights/lanterns, powerbanks, tool batteries, a phone with offline maps and offline wikipedia …
OK buddy, good luck.
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.
