Official Solar Generator / Portable Power Station Thread

**Emptymag** · December 12th, 2024, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by Daycrawler

Better not derail the OP's thread, you will piss him off!

True. LOL

I already found and completely read the most recent generator thread and will be bumping that one with questions soon!

**JaySmith** · December 12th, 2024, 06:42 PM

A solar generator is a misnomer. It doesn't generate anything. It stores electricity, then inverts dc to ac when you plug in a thing. It's a battery. The generating part is the solar panels.

watts is volts * amps, it's that simple. You have a 600w power supply, at 110v is 5.5a of draw.

What you're actually looking for is wh, or kwh. 2000wh or 2kwh is how many hours you can supply power at 1 watt. So if you have 2000wh and a 200w device, you can power it for 10 hours, or 2000wh / 200w = 10a.

Fridges and freezers dont' draw a constant amount of power. My freezer is drawing 110w right now, or 1a at 110v. It will do that for a bit, then when it gets to it's desired temp, it will shut off.

The inverter on a portable power station/battery is probably the least of your worriees, you want to look at the WH rating, or watts at hours. My freezer can run off a 2kwh battery overnight until morning when the sun comes up again, for 8 month sout of hte year. 4 of those months, the power off solar is not enough.

Battery tech. Not all batteries are the same. Some use lithium, some use lifepo4. The ones that use lithium, the same as cars which go woosh, have a fire hazard, so I would recommend finding one that specifically says it's using lifepo4.

I just bought a second power station that's 2048wh or 2kwh with a 2000w inverter, or ~18a to plug stuff into. It was $600 off temu. It's the UPS for my office. And it uses lifepo4 cells.

That's all I have to say about that.

**Emptymag** · December 12th, 2024, 07:25 PM

I'll read your post another ten times or so, and see if I can make myself understand it.
LOL

And I agree about the "generator" wording. That's as bad as calling something made from nuts "milk".

Absent plugging it into a solar panel, it's just a huge, overpriced battery pack.

**Walleye Hunter** · December 12th, 2024, 08:04 PM

Solar generator, sound good to brainwashed masses.

**JaySmith** · December 12th, 2024, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by Emptymag

I'll read your post another ten times or so, and see if I can make myself understand it.
LOL

And I agree about the "generator" wording. That's as bad as calling something made from nuts "milk".

Absent plugging it into a solar panel, it's just a huge, overpriced battery pack.

These are some complicated concepts, without a background in electronics, they can be tricky because a lot of it is pure memorization.

They are a bit *more* than an overpriced battery pack. A battery on it's own is 12v, or 48v, or whatever.

But this also has mulitple inverters, allowing it to convert the pack's dc voltage to AC, which allows you to plug in regular household things. It also has a dc to dc inverter to supply 12v, since most of hte packs are 48v.

And it has a battery charger, so you can plug strait wall power in and charge the battery.

And I've seen your back deck EM, you could easily put 2x 250w solar panels just on the table pointing south, and get plenty of juice to power one of these things. That would keep you going pretty well in a power out scenario, at least during the day time. I'd wager you can get them for about $20 a pop.