frugal portable solar power kits inventory thought process for community

  • frugal portable solar power kits inventory thought process for community

    Posted by gods-child on February 1, 2023 at 10:09 pm

    please let me know if i a missing anything and or your thought process and or experience i really appreciate it

    this can be done in any community worldwide

    to install in folks homes for medical-aids and-such

    minimum fuss needs for install and be as easy as is possible

    use extendable curtain rods [spring loaded] to install solar-panel in windows

    1. 50w ~ 200w minimum wattage solar panels [depends on physical size for size of window and equipment needs] can run cables to other windows for extra panels if required
    2. extendable curtain rods
    3. charge controllers
    4. inverters [pure sine-wave] preferable
    5. wires/cables [gauged accordingly]
    6. wire/cable connectors [various] [gauged accordingly]
    7. 12v car battery connectors
    8. switches 240v and 12v
    9. 12v voltmeter if non display on charge-controller or inverter
    10. 12v car batteries [keep costs down get them from breakers-scrap yards]
    11. <font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>containers i.e. tool-boxes or other suitable </font>receptacles

    optional

    1. wind turbines

    try and source as many components as you can second-hand albeit working from breakers/scrap yards freebie sites such-as freegle freecycle craigslist facebook market-place kerbside and-such

    get help by donors sponsors or community pay-it-forward what they can afford crowd-fund or

    that is all i can think of at this moment as i am overtired and brain is fried

    thank you in advance for any help suggestions advice etc that you provide

    BiggKidd replied 1 year, 11 months ago 3 Members · 7 Replies
  • 7 Replies
  • Hippocrates_Garden

    Member
    February 2, 2023 at 1:53 am

    sounds easy, but there area a whole lot of “it depends” in there. Everything from maintaining the batteries, using “car batteries” inside the house (off-gassing, potentially explosive gasses), and a lot more.
    To be honest, if using components, it needs to be tailored to the specific end use. under sizing can cause as many problems as oversizing.

    Without more specific information about what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s hard to give any constructive criticism. Is this something that is dropped off during an emergency for a short period of time, something that would be in the house for unspecified lengths of time, what is it intended to power and for how long, under what circumstances (a cpap used only at night is quite a different story from an oxygen generator that needs to run 24/7 and more).

    Wind is only worth it in specific areas.

    The best solution, depends on the proposed end use.. simplest, easiest to use and support etc, might be a bulk order of say Anker power stations and solar panels (if the location and weather makes that even useful).

    • gods-child

      Member
      February 2, 2023 at 9:18 pm

      sounds easy, but there area a whole lot of “it depends” in there. Everything from maintaining the batteries, using “car batteries” inside the house (off-gassing, potentially explosive gasses), and a lot more.
      To be honest, if using components, it needs to be tailored to the specific end use. under sizing can cause as many problems as oversizing.

      “depends” really refers to size of panel and battery [bank] for the intended use thus the kit would have to be made according to end use as well as maintenance and-such as you kindly mention


      Without more specific information about what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s hard to give any constructive criticism. Is this something that is dropped off during an emergency for a short period of time, something that would be in the house for unspecified lengths of time, what is it intended to power and for how long, under what circumstances (a cpap used only at night is quite a different story from an oxygen generator that needs to run 24/7 and more).

      <i style=””>the end goal is to provide a source of power for emergency situations for running medical-equipment and or refrigeration for medications that will be dropped off at folks homes and could be in their homes for unspecified lengths of time if required

      <i style=””>

      <i style=””>that is why each kit will need to be tailored to suit end use

      <i style=””>

      • The best solution, depends on the proposed end use.. simplest, easiest to use and support etc, might be a bulk order of say Anker power stations and solar panels (if the location and weather makes that even useful).

      • solar panels would have to be bought separately and at over £329 for a basic anker power station plus over £329 cost of solar panel on there website

        thus £658 v £100 is a massive difference and going the anker route definitely non viable financially speaking and for all applications

        supply one [1] portable kit at plus £600 or six [6] portable kits at around £100 each

        or for their house range

        over £1000 that is equal to around ten [10] tailor made kits

        and a lot more money to lose if the get lost or stolen

      • Hippocrates_Garden

        Member
        February 2, 2023 at 9:32 pm

        Curious, how many such systems have you actually built, commissioned and had used for “unspecified lengths of time”? It sounds good and easy, but practical experience may prove it’s much more complicated. I wa building a system just to power a Starlink system, off grid. This thing pulls about 100W or so when starting up and then may range from 20-50watts thereafter. Thus far, I’ve got four Lithium Ion batteries, 12V/100ah in a 24volt configuration (which essentially equals 8 similarly rated lead acid deep cycle batteries) and anywhere from 400-800W of panels spit between two charge controllers. In my location, with our weather, I’m lucky to keep it going 24/7 for maybe 3-4 days depending on the sunshine. In summer this would be way over sized, but one has to design for the worst conditions, not the best. And that’s just for a single Starlink, which is not as important than medical devices.

        With all the bits and bobs, dropped off at someone who is relying on a medical device, can they support and troubleshoot it? or would they require you or someone to do that? How many can you support if several had problems essentially at one time. Having worked in I.T. support, one of the big keys to being able to support larger numbers is: standardization and rock solid dependable components. Trying to get inexpensive components to build more systems would end up being a nightmare to support.

        It’s a worthy goal for sure, however even with my limited experience.. from a fire safety standpoint (medical devices, especially oxygen generators) inside with batteries that off-gas flammable gases, a system which (to many) would be a complicated combination of mismatched components, trying to charge from solar panels that are likely in far from optimal siteing (it’s not unusual for my peak production from 400W of panels to be 50W and total generation over the day maybe 1/10kw, though again in summer with longer days, less clouds and optimal angles it’s massively more than that). there are just a whole lot of “it depends”. This is my opinion, having at least played with solar for some years, building one small operative system and have about $22K of equipment for a full offgrid system sitting in a trailer waiting for the building to be moved to start the install. Others will have other opinions and much more experience.

  • BiggKidd

    Member
    February 2, 2023 at 3:10 am

    Honestly after living with solar power for 15 years you have a lot of potential problems with VERY little reward possible in the real world. Your system starts off far to handicapped and only gets worse from there. I hate to be a naysayer but that’s all I see is a great big problem waiting to happen.
    Lets start off with the fact you want to help. Well it’d be a dang shame for some of those you’re helping to have gasses, fires and in general unsafe conditions. So car batteries are OUT you NEED AGM type batteries at the very least. Next putting solar panels in windows is going to limit their potential by 70% or so I would think, probably more. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’d be a lot better off to provide one of these “solar” generator kits for each case.

    • gods-child

      Member
      February 2, 2023 at 9:37 pm

      <div>”Honestly after living with solar power for 15 years you have a lot of potential problems with VERY little reward possible in the real world. Your system starts off far to handicapped and only gets worse from there. I hate to be a naysayer but that’s all I see is a great big problem waiting to happen.”
      </div>

      this is why i have come here to gain the knowledge that is required thereof

      Lets start off with the fact you want to help. Well it’d be a dang shame for some of those you’re helping to have gasses, fires and in general unsafe conditions. So car batteries are OUT you NEED AGM type batteries at the very least. Next putting solar panels in windows is going to limit their potential by 70% or so I would think, probably more. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’d be a lot better off to provide one of these “solar” generator kits for each case.

      AGM batteries can be considered whereby costs allow

      as for putting solar-panels in windows “limit their potential by 70% or so i would think, probably more” have you tested this theory out…?? and can you say from genuine bona-fide experience…??

      i can assure you i have tested this out with a modern mono-crystaline 50w panel in a frosted bathroom south-facing window and compared my multi-meter readings with a freshly calibrated electritians test meter and we have found that although 50w is rated as per lab tests that on very sunny winter days the solar panel generates a whopping 67w and it cost just under £40

      as for solar generators see my reply to @Hippocrates_Garden as that explains about the cost comparisons

      • Hippocrates_Garden

        Member
        February 2, 2023 at 9:48 pm

        Here’s the test. Build your system as proposed, put a load on it equivalent to what you propose to power for at least a month in poor weather conditions, say multiple cloudy days, short day length, and sun at a sub-optimal angle, and report the data. I can easily be convinced, by data. I’ve been doing this Starlink System for almost a year now, and while it seemed simple and small, real-life testing has me using 4x the batteries and at least 2x the panels. Even with that, were I depending on it, I’d be changing behavior by turning it off when not needed, a luxury one dependant on medical devices don’t have. Believe it or not, we are trying to help by giving constructive criticism.

  • BiggKidd

    Member
    February 2, 2023 at 10:14 pm

    When the sun is coming directly in the CLEAN window and the panel is at the correct tilt it should make somewhere close to 100% of it’s rated output, maybe. But that’s not when you make most of your power believe it or not. First the sun is only directly straight on with a panel for minutes of a day. Taking that in to account there is a window of time that’s close enough to straight on that lasts two – three hours for full output assuming conditions are perfect. Where I live we get on average 3.5 solar hours a day. I think that means fixed panels can generate 80% or above their rated output for a daily average of 3.5 hours. I think that average is taken over a years time so some days will have say 2 solar hours in winter and maybe 5 in summer. That’s assuming the sun shines every single day which it does not, here we average 180ish days of sunshine.

    Not saying what you want to do is impossible but it’s going to have to have a lot more than the normal amount of just about everything except inverters to work on account of the conditions you want to install it in.

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