solar power! $1.35/ watt

[herm0016]

100 watt for $135
80watt - $129
60watt - $80
40watt- $55

great deals on controllers and panels.

picked up 2 60 watt panels and an mppt controller for 266 with shipping.

will be much better than my ghetto solar on the camper now.

others have been happy with this site.

 

[Jen]

would like to have my whole house on solar if ever i could afford it , at least my electric is down to 55 a month again

Jen

 

[Apex]

would like to have my whole house on solar if ever i could afford it , at least my electric is down to 55 a month again

Jen

You could always do a solar lease.

 

[killster1]

if i knew anything about panels and solar id buy a bunch.. no idea if these are good or what.

 

[jalaram]

If we were planning to be at our house for a while, I would try to convince my wife about this.

Funny what 3 power outages will make you consider.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

You could always do a solar lease.

solar city

 

[Lifted]

Is it feasible to use a step-up transformer to get 110v out of these? An array of 2 or 3 could provide good power during an outage (for laptop/cellphone use and charging) without having to kick on a noisy/smelly generator.

 

[edro]

Is it feasible to use a step-up transformer to get 110v out of these? An array of 2 or 3 could provide good power during an outage (for laptop/cellphone use and charging) without having to kick on a noisy/smelly generator.

You need storage (batteries) and conversion (controller/inverter) to get usable 110v.
Solar panels are DC only and take a while to generate enough usable energy for powering a laptop.
You must store that energy in batteries for use during the power outage.

 

[herm0016]

my laptop is 60 watts. you could power quite a bit off of 4 or 5 panels and a nice battery bank. I picked up 2 60 watt panels and a charge controller for my camper.

the panels are DC. you use them with a battery bank and then use an inverter for 110 AC power.

these panels are not top of the line, but work well and are the cheapest i have ever seen them.

 

[mikeford]

Solar is still mostly an "off grid" application to be practical. Harbor Freight has a sale from time to time on a 800 watt generator for $80, not much power but it works at night and during storms etc., and with some caution will run some essentials like fridge and lights.

Solar kicks in when you don't have inexpensive access to the normal power grid and have longer term power needs. Google "off grid" and you will see what many do with solar. Typically it involves a LOT of old car batteries and a very pragmatic use of very low power consumption devices.

 

[Keeper]

Solar is still mostly an "off grid" application to be practical. Harbor Freight has a sale from time to time on a 800 watt generator for $80, not much power but it works at night and during storms etc., and with some caution will run some essentials like fridge and lights.

Solar kicks in when you don't have inexpensive access to the normal power grid and have longer term power needs. Google "off grid" and you will see what many do with solar. Typically it involves a LOT of old car batteries and a very pragmatic use of very low power consumption devices.

Caution?


What caution? Please explain as I was looking at one... I thought... Overload.... No biggie it would just not power stuff.....

 

[herm0016]

An overload will just trip the breakers. If the breaker is bad, it could fry the generator

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

 

[superHARD]

lots and lots can and will go wrong when overusing a craptastic genny ... LOL

 

[SparkyJJO]

Caution?


What caution? Please explain as I was looking at one... I thought... Overload.... No biggie it would just not power stuff.....

Think about it - how much do you really want to trust to a $80 generator? What kind of quality are you getting for only $80? Not much...

Harbor Freight and quality really don't go together. Cheap yes, but quality? Not so much.

 

[fastcuda]

The main thing for me is heat if the power is off, and I'm not sure a generator like that would be trusted on the electronics on my oil heater. What would be nice is a cheap wood stove I guess. I thought they fixed the grid to us but last year froze a couple times again....why don't they create jobs and put all those wires underground, we pay enough for it, the ceo's can drive compact cars and our power would be reliable, more jobs, oops off topic...well solar would be good too but I am clueless on what to buy and the companies selling it are fly by nights mostly so far it seems. Already heard of a few scams being shut down.

 

[Apex]

If we were planning to be at our house for a while, I would try to convince my wife about this.

Funny what 3 power outages will make you consider.

If you get a standard grid-tied system, when the grid goes down, your solar does nothing.

We have a grid-tied system at our house. So far, we're very happy with the production. The break-even point is pretty quick.

 

[RU482]

$1.18/Watt!!

 

[mikeford]

Caution?


What caution? Please explain as I was looking at one... I thought... Overload.... No biggie it would just not power stuff.....

Common sense might be a better term, but you can't use a gas powered generator, at least not an $80 like a wall outlet.

Depending on the load you may need to adjust the governor to keep the voltage in a good range. Many seem to be shipped a bit low, close to 100v which is fine for a lot of things, and not fine for some others.

Its a gas motor, don't run it in the house, but also don't leave it out open to the rain.

Run the carb dry and drain the fuel before storing.

Let it cool before refilling with fuel.

Read the manual.

Test anything you buy with a short warranty period right away.

That sort of caution.

Oh, and overload may result in LOW voltage and some devices are damaged by too low of a voltage.

 

[Lifted]

You need storage (batteries) and conversion (controller/inverter) to get usable 110v.
Solar panels are DC only and take a while to generate enough usable energy for powering a laptop.
You must store that energy in batteries for use during the power outage.

Wouldn't something like this do the trick?

http://www.powerbright.com/pw400-12.html

$31 on amazon.

300W should be able to power a few laptops, charge phones, and power radios. Maybe charge some batteries as well. Storing the power would be good for night use, but in an extended outage I'd be less concerned with running laptops at night.

 

[ElFenix]

my laptop is 60 watts. you could power quite a bit off of 4 or 5 panels and a nice battery bank. I picked up 2 60 watt panels and a charge controller for my camper.

the panels are DC. you use them with a battery bank and then use an inverter for 110 AC power.

these panels are not top of the line, but work well and are the cheapest i have ever seen them.

so in a laptop we'd be doing DC -> AC -> DC?

i know provisioning 110 AC would be nice and all, but we've got so much crap that runs on DC you'd think we could get a standard DC source.

 

[herm0016]

so in a laptop we'd be doing DC -> AC -> DC?

i know provisioning 110 AC would be nice and all, but we've got so much crap that runs on DC you'd think we could get a standard DC source.

you can get 12v dc to dc converters, or just build a simple voltage converter/regulator.

someday when I am totally off grid my home will have 12V dc plugs and 110V ac. all of the lighting will be DC.

 

[mikeford]

Wouldn't something like this do the trick?

http://www.powerbright.com/pw400-12.html

$31 on amazon.

300W should be able to power a few laptops, charge phones, and power radios. Maybe charge some batteries as well. Storing the power would be good for night use, but in an extended outage I'd be less concerned with running laptops at night.

I have a Cobra 400/800 watt inverter, but you need to shop for quality, some are NOT very good. HF I tried would only do 105v and some stuff didn't like it.

A fully charged normal 12v car battery might last 2 to 4 hours since it takes more than 25 amps to supply 300 watts. Small generator might last twice as long on a gallon of gas, and my car has 1 battery and 15 gallons of gas.

One problem with 12v outlets, many 12v devices totally suck for efficiency and use things like resistor banks to drop the voltage down or series regulators. Other big problem is that "optimal" drive voltages are all over the range of 2v to maybe 24v or more.

Living off grid does sound kind of fun, sort of a techy adventure.

 

[Lifted]

Does the amperage remain constant when put through a power inverter? If you have 100w @ 12v from the solar panel, and use an inverter to raise it to 110v, will you end up 900w @ 110v? I can't imagine amperage would change, other than possible loss from the inverter.

 

[marvdmartian]

You know, I was looking at running my plant lights (due to the hellish temps this summer, I decided to try to grow some veggies inside this winter) off of solar. Currently, I have 4 clamp-on reflector style lights, with screw-in CFL "daylight" light bulbs, plus two 24" fluorescent tube grow lights I picked up from Walmart.

I figured the total wattage is ~110, if I have all lights on, per hour. Even if I round up to 125w/hour, it's still only going to cost me 750w/day, since I'm running the lights about 6 hours a day. At my current electric rate of 9-cents per kilowatt-hour, that means I'm spending $0.0675 a day in electricity, to run those lights.

I realize that solar power is pretty much a one-time cost, and once everything is paid for.....but geez, how long would I have to run a system designed to give me the power I need for my grow lights, at my current usage? Consider, too, that my largest use of power (for the grow lights) is going to be during the winter, when we're only getting 8-10 hours of sunlight a day (my plants are sitting in front of my 5' tall x 6' wide southern exposure window). Come summertime, sun exposure through that window should give me all the grow time I need.

Pretty much the same problem I ran into when I was checking out solar power leases for my whole house electricity use. Total savings? ZERO, at my present electricity rate (which is locked in for 24 months). All I'd get out of it would be more maintenance to do (on the solar panels), and a warm, fuzzy feeling, because I'm being all "green". :\

 

[herm0016]

Does the amperage remain constant when put through a power inverter? If you have 100w @ 12v from the solar panel, and use an inverter to raise it to 110v, will you end up 900w @ 110v? I can't imagine amperage would change, other than possible loss from the inverter.

that's not how electricity works. V=IR and W=VA

so 100 watts in = 100 watts out

your voltage is increased and your current is decreased.

first law: you can not get something from nothing.


solar is great for maintaining a battery that is used with things that are not grid connected, like a camper.