Power stationsGeneratorsPower generation.No meme no larp.I just bought a Dabson 2048 over a generator as a power solution for outages.I did this because I don't know what the future price or access of gas will be. I live rurally and have very little power needs. The most I would need power for is to power a brooder plate or keep a fridge on.I can cook with propane and wood and I heat my home with wood. I plan on getting a solar panel to charge the power station in the event of weeks or months long power outages.Is there anything I'm missing or didn't think about or reasons why a power station is dumb? I have had several generators in the past and when you really need them there is always something wrong with it or you gotta go get fuel so I got a power station instead hoping it better serves my needs.Keep a fridgeCharge a phonePlug in my fan on my fireplaceLightThat's about all I'd need it for. I got the idea because in the past I used DeWalt batteries attached to an inverter to keep a brooder on during an outage.Just pinging off other people since I don't get out much.
>>2982119They're fine, but the entry price for the slightly bigger ones tends to be so high that you could /diy/ an entire solar system for a similar price, and the solar system would actually have a ROI rather than just a flat investment. You can plug panels into these, too, but they are usually low rated compared to a normal inverter, and the final problem is that if you ever want to expand the battery, you are often locked to their platform and their overpriced batteries, whereas a solar system can take anything within the voltage spec. The advantage of these units is that you don't have to spend 50 hours learning about solar, wiring, batteries, settings and another 50 hours building the actual system, and it just werks.
I have an ecoflow delta 2Segway Portable Power Station Cube 2000a 1500watt go power pure sine wave inverter with 3 100ah lifepo4 batteries.2 200 watt solar panels1 100 watt solar panel1 deep cycle lead acid battery1 3000 watt generator1 3500 watt inverter generator1 900 watt inverter generator20 gallons ethanol free gaswhatever gas is in my 3 vehicles2 100 lb propane tanks3 20 lb propane tanks2 gallons kerosene3.5 months emergency food for 2 peoplethe ability to store 200 gallons of water on short notice.all sorts of misc batteries and equipmentand the equipment to protect all this.I started acquiring stuff like this in 1999.
>>2982119>there is always something wrong with it or you gotta go get fuelproperly stored and treated ethanol free gasoline can last at least 7 years.
>>2982119>there is always something wrong with itmost problems with generators are the results of storing them with fuel in them and/or storing them with ethanol gas. always drain your generator, and run it till it stops, or drain the carb.
>>2982119If you live in California, make sure they are UL listed as they are passing a portable dolar act that can disqualify you for home builds or some Ecoflow models.
>>2982137>>2982138These are true. A generator drained of fuel will sit at the ready indefinitely, and ethanol-free gasoline with Stabil or something similar in a well-sealed metal container will store for a long time.That said, for OP's minimal power uses a power station with a small solar setup should work. I'd be mostly concerned about battery degradation from age and if it's stored in a garage or shed. One weak cell will tank the whole thing.
are these worth anything for parts?it was passed onto me not charging and blinking error codes.would i be better of trading it off to tweekers for services rendered?4th time trying to post this with captcha and lag
are these worth anything for parts?it was passed onto me not charging and blinking error codes.would i be better of trading it off to tweekers for services rendered?5th trying ti repost with captcha + lagtook my finger about 15 click attempts to highlight copy and paste and theres a horse fly biting me
are these worth anything for parts?it was passed onto me not charging and blinking error codes.would i be better of trading it off to tweekers for services rendered?5th trying ti repost with captcha + lagtook my finger about 15 click attempts to highlight copy and paste and theres a horse fly biting mecaptcha expires before picture uploads. attempt 6
>>2982155all true, but one should never rely on a single solution in time of need.
I'm buying a place after a lifetime of rentoiding and want to solar it up. My area has retarded infrastructure and we get a solid blackout every time the weather changes.My goal isn't to be totally off grid or sell power back to the grid, but I'd like to have 1-3kw of solar generation capability on my garage roof. The idea is to offset my bills a bit day to day, then be able to switch it over to a battery during an outage so I can have lights and keep my fridge cold during the next outage.What kind of gear am I looking at for this?
There are a lot of use ones on marketplace. I wonder what goes wrong with them first ans if it's a diy repair or if all the boards are potted in resin.
>>2982157They have LFP batteries inside that are probably all good. But 1kWh worth of them isn't exactly much money, maybe $30-40.
>>2982171If you want a proper whole-house battery UPS, with 3kWp solar and 16kWh battery, you are looking at about $4k at the absolute lowest, $8k for a decent full-/diy/, 20-30k for commercial. If you don't want whole-house UPS, you can do it for about $2k.https://rentry.co/solarshit
>>2982137>>2982138OpLast time I pulled out my gas generator the carb was gunked up I know that's my fault.Plus that's great I can store fuel with something like seafoam, but I kinda don't want 100 gallons of gas sitting around a barn or my house. I don't have like huge energy needs and I know it's a upfront cost and kind of disposable set and forget.I don't have a deep understanding of how all the solar stuff works so I just wanted an illiterate car battery I can plug a fridge onto.>>2982149I'm not but thanks. I'm kind of in an area where I could straight pipes my septic and no one would bat an eye.Edge of Appalachia.>>2982160Power is a luxury. I produce my own food and heat. I can distill water if I ever need it. I have a cistern dormant (during COVID I basically got offered to get hooked up to city water for free since everyone was doing nothing, they did like 2 miles of pipe).This is literally just so I can watch YouTube during a power outage and eat pizza rolls for a few hours or keep my fridge cold.Most my food doesn't need refrigeration. It free ranges and I take what I need.>>2982172I'm handy. I figure if it ever breaks l use it to tinker. Or try to harvest the cells for my own solar inverter? Idk I'd have to do more research.Its solar panel to....something (some box right?)....to battery to inverter right? Like I said. I wish I knew more and when I get time I'll probably learn more.
>>2982177Op again. For anyone saying you can store a gas generator indefinitely.I know.I am irresponsible and apparently can't. I enjoy battery and electric motors over engines and like I said. This is a luxury thing. In a shtf. Im all good. I'm not looking to maintain power or anything. I can live without it and probably would prefer to.
>>2982119Going a little off-topic, but what's your water source? Are you going to need power for a 200ft-deep well-pump?
>>2982208Shtf I have 2 ponds and id distill water.I currently have City.I have a old cistern. Iit leaks but I live on a hill and the crack is half way up the cistern. Rather than repair or I called the city and they said "we ain't doing shit anyway we will run water to your house" so I took them up on it.So basically. Normal life I'm on city. But I'll just distill and filter pond water on a fire if I really have to. Or open my gutters back to the cistern and pipe it with bucket like a well.But I got pumps and siphons, so idk. Id need to know the real world issue and I'd tell you my water source.But right now it's.CityCistern (rain)Pond water (distilled).I think the shtf situation is unlikely and extremely larpy. The most collapsed country in the world still has rules and leaders even if his name is BBQ and his rules are arbitrary and stupid. I don't think a real shtf situation is likely for long and if it is I'm kinda already detached.
Op hereI know I overpaid.I know a generator works better and is cheaper.I didn't feel like setting up solar right now.I guess what I'm ultimately asking is is the dabbson 2048 a decent product and will do what it says over something like the ecoflow or Anker? It was 2x power capacity for the same price. Project farm rated them pretty well but he isnt using it in real world situations. But after I placed the order I kinda was second guessing whether or not I should have went with a jackery or ecoflow at 1/2 the capacity.This is my first power station.
>>2982241Put a full load on it. If it delivers the full load with the rated capacity, it's fine. It's not like ecoflow and anker are fancy premium stuff.>but will it breakNobody knows.
>>2982241get the amps or watts for all the things you want to power and for how long. then do the math.what are you planning to power?
>>2982245All good. If it breaks I'll try to refund it and if I can't I'll harvest the batteries for projects.So dabbsson doesn't really have a reputstion or isn't well known yet?>>2982247Fridge.... And maybe an incubator or brooder plate if it's winter.Charge my phone.My demands are minimalist. If it's just a standard power outage I might watch YouTube on a tv, so a router+tv if it works but primarily it's exclusively to keep a fridge/incubator going for a few hours.
>>2982175I don't. Just want a car battery that I can plug a 120v into for a few hours when I need to.
>>2982269Buy a car battery and a cheapo inverter then? Car battery + inverter that can handle ~2kW of solar panels + 2kWp of solar panels is in a very half-assed spot. There are some decent ultra-cheap all-in-one 12V inverters that are roughly in that power ballpark, but the 2-3kWp of panels is going to be wasted on a pure backup-only system.The destitute car battery + any cheap inverter has the advantage of being ultra-cheap (<$200), at the cost of reliability and everything else.Adding 2kW of solar to that with an AiO inverter gives you ~$600 total cost for a system on a garbage battery.$1k gets you to 24V LFP or very low end 48V LFP, and at this level you could actually attach devices to it permanently to reduce power bills.
>>2982270I raise birds and build houses. I can do general electric commercial and residential wiring butNone of the words you used are in the Bible.I'd love to eventually get solar. But I don't have the disposable time ATM or attitude to fuss with it.
>>2982270Aio?Lipo?3kwp?Brother I'm in da woods and 40+.
>>2982272>>2982273Yeah you're fine with your solar generator, >>2982175 and >>2982270 were targeted towards this guy >>2982171
>>2982280Got ya. Thanks.
I use my ecoflow as a UPS for my cable modem and router. I get quick (<2 sec) power cuts occasionally and this keeps my laptop from getting disconnected in the middle of work. It works good but the fan does kick on a few times an hour when the device tops itself off. Allegedly you can prevent this from happening if you connect your devices direct to the DC ports but I haven't tried figuring that out.
>>2982119>Keep a fridge300W for about an hour a day.>Charge a phone20W solar panel for 2-4hrs in peak sunlightHonestly 1 to 3 100W solar panels feeding your power station would be enough.
>>2982171You want as large a solar system as you can get away with. An inverter and battery. Look into ready made systems like Alpha and Solis but it is much cheaper to build it yourself with some learning.I dunno about mutt land but in the Uk for 3 months I worked installing batteries n shit and the savings all come from arbitrage where you take a variable power rate and use the battery and solar to offset the high times. If you get a heat pump they work well together and you heat the home and water during the cheap times then minimise power during the dayBut in the UK we have so much wind when a storm hits we get free power
>>2982269Dont get a car battery you can get lipos for £150 dollar now for 12v 100 amp hours. 2 of those is a big wack of power
Op here. Been doing a lot of reading and playing. I use about 100 watts continuously running all my stuff. I didn't realize how little energy we actually use vs wht a panel can produce. I filled the dabbsson and basically lived my entire day off it.I was so impressed I bought a Anker c1000 gen 2.Again I know I'm overpaying for pre built units. But if I can just drop a extra 200$ for plug and play I'm willing.A Anker c1000 runs my fridge and freezer all day. The dabbsson runs everything else I use in a day. I could very easily live off a 400 watt panel and these batteries.Obviously I'd have to consider things like cloudy days or under productive panels and wear. All that jazz. But basically my entire life eats about 220 watts a hour....bro that ain't much. Even if the 400 watt panel produces only 260 watts im in the green.My electric bill as if stands before I was doing this was like 110$ a month between my house and barn so this is me just playing. Just from the 2 power stations I bought it be 2 years before they paid the selves off and that's if my bill went to zero, which i won't cause my wife likes hot water.Unironically having the Anker yesterday when I was trying to vacuum something up felt 1000x better than stretching a 100 foot extension cord.Catch me walking around with my blower and this nigga in a backpack. Just long enough to blow out the shed.
>>2984019When it's cloudy, a 400W panel produces about 40-50W. Also you might want to consider that the sun does not shine at night.
>>2982175I saved this to read through. Thanks.
>>2984021I sleep most the night and my energy usage goes down to 0.That's what I'm talking about tho with the low wattage on cloudy days, I never used solar before so idk alot about it.2 cloudy days and id be without power for sure. But just on average I could play rimworld and watch tv basically free.
>>2984021The general idea was to use around 220 watts during the day and hopefully produce 300 or so. That would keep the batteries topped off for the evening while giving me free energy during the day.In a ideal sunny day. Right? Or is that still too idealistic?I'm not being unrealistic right?
>>2984031Here's how it works:If you have FULL sunlight, it will usually be close to 400W all the time. Note that FULL also includes perfect angle relative to sun, so you can assume that the panel, if ideally placed, will give you 400W for about 4 hours in midday, and the rest is on a curve.If you have ANY clouds, then each time a cloud covers the panel even just a bit, you drop to 100W at best (thin clouds), 10W at worst (thick clouds). So in clear weather you can assume you will be getting 400W every hour. As soon as it gets cloudy, it will very likely be well below half power. So in ideal sunny weather, you are using 220W, charging the battery with ~150W.
>>2984101This is how light cloudy weather looks like. Whenever a cloud clears, jumps to full power, whenever cloud is above, drops to 20-30%. Full cloud would just be sitting at 20% the entire day.
>>2984102>>2984101Thank you. Do the shade panels solve this? Or is there a gimmick?I think they are called shade resistant panels? I appreciate you taking the time on this. I'm not trying to be unrealistic, again, just kinda playing at this point. The Anker c1000 solved my "generator" thing. It runs both my fridge and freezer for 18 hours.We get rolling blackouts because we live rurally and on old infrastructure and that works fine as a ups.I didn't know I was looking for a ups till I learned what a ups was.I'm rambling. Again. Thanks for taking the time to give me a better real world perspective. If you wouldn't mind. Do the shade stopper or shade tolerant panels work? Are they worth it? Is it a gimmick or scam?I live in a crazy windy and bad weather area. But I live on a hill and get direct sunlight all day. I planned on seeing what wattage I could get if I just hang them off the side of my deck (second story). I get such a greenhouse effect in the winter i don't even start a fire till it's below freezing.Tldr:How do you feel about shade resistant panels?How would hanging a panel off the side of my deck rail work out? How much does direction affect it? Setting dunncs riding. South/North facing vs east/wesIf you get a 600 watt panel, would it produce more with the same space/sun?If you hook a 1000watt panel to a power Bank that can only take 600 watts max solar. Does it self regulate?
>>2984107Setting sun vs rising sun***
>>2984107Shade resistant is for an entirely different thing. "Shade resistance" means PARTIAL shading resistance.If you have a solar panel and you cover up 10% of it, depending on which 10% you cover, you can lose up to 90-100% of its performance. This is due to electrical nerd things but it's just how it is. So the shade resistant panels sort-of solve this problem by changing electrical whatever things inside. This ONLY solves this issue, shade resistant panels do NOT work better in cloudy weather. Only if you have a panel that, say, gets partial shade from a tree during some parts of the day, then the shade resistant one will work better. >hanging a panelSince you aim to have very few panels, you should try to get the angle right. Being out of angle again reduces your production. But if you have a lot of space and don't mind getting more panels, then hanging can work (provided the panels are properly secured, I do not mean literally hanging them by a rope). >how much does angle affecthttps://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.htmlPick your location, enter slope and azimuth, see how it changes numbers. It changes numbers a lot. >600W panelIt produces proportionally more, but not "in the same space", a 600W panel is invariably bigger than a 400W panel. >hook 1000W to a thing that can only take 600W maxThey usually self-regulate, so you get better output in shaded conditions but in full sun you only get 600W instead of 1000W. But you must match voltage and amp spec of the device.
>>2984111Got the general gist as I learn more about it.Yes I saw the units have voltage ranges. Thanks a lot!
