I've wanted an alternative power source ever since my basement flooded when the power to my sump pump turned off due to a power outage. It is very exciting and a great learning experience to be able to build my own power plant in my basement. I believe everyone can do this and I would like to show people what I know. Mostly through trial and error!
I will explain everything I do with the upgrades to my 24v off grid system and will show you step by step and how I accomplished it.
'You get what you pay for' springs to mind 😂. I've purchased cheaper power banks, only to find that they pack up working fairly quickly. I've got a power bank that is still going strong, and it's over 5 years old......think it's an Anker one.
Great review, thanks 👍 . I'm going to subscribe to your channel. I've been looking at this solar panel mainly because of the price, the compact size, and the mc4 connectors, which I can use to charge up my 2 Bluettis. I'm new to using solar energy, so everything is a learning curve for my septuagenarian brain 😂
I know you said the solar panel was 10 watts. Any idea what the actual input rating is? Wonder if you could hook up a 2nd panel (say 60 watts) via the usb-c port
That's a good question, but I'm guessing the max input is only 9v @ 2amps max. I don't know if it would be worth the time and money. Thanks for the comment.
THIS IS GREAT! Question: Do I have to use the same battery chemistry to charge this? I have 2 35wh lead acid batteries from Harbor Freight, and I'm wondering if this would work. Thanks for sharing.
basically, you are running a UPS setup.... if you were running a computer setup, it could last longer.... but this is what a UPS does..... and once AC poweer is restored, it recharges the battery again.. Nice experiment...
Does this r600 come charged? I bought one and received it today, tried turning it on straight after unboxing but did not turn on, i put it on charge, its been like 30 minutes but still wont turn on, is there a specific amount of time i need to charge it for or did i get a dud?
If the screen isn't turning on at all then it's probably a dud. Make sure to hold down the power button for a couple seconds. That's really all the advice I can give. Sorry I can't help more.
A soft start would help greatly on battery use also if the AC cycles the compressor on/off very much. Newer AC like minisplits are really much better on power consumption.
Thanks for the info. This AC unit was seriously the cheapest one I could find on Amazon. Any other AC unit should be more efficient. I've heard Medea AC units are really good!
A year later and your test is still so helpful - So I have worked it out that my new-ish 220v fridge will easily run overnight on a 48v 4x 100 Ah battery solar combo, and the solar will charge them back up in time before they are discharged too far to sustain any damage. However, I might be mistaken, so please correct me if I am wrong.
@@OffGridBasement Thank you so much for your reply. I am still planning my system, is 5 x 600W solar panels plus one 650W solar panel in series an overkill for the 6.5 KW hybrid inverter? Maybe a redundant question because the solar panels are for the charging side of the 4 x 12v batteries in series to give a total of 48 volts?
It's a compressor. Here is a link to the manual if you want to look further into it. cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0565/0507/3707/files/td-series-car-refrigerator-User-manual_compressed.pdf?v=1718700071
You can run it for 1 hour and then off for 2 hours. This will maintain your freezer and preserve your battery for longer run time usage. I do this in my off grid cabin.
Hi, thanks for creating this video, I have been experimenting with this is exact refrigerator running off of a life Po 4 battery with a bestek inverter. I lasted about 5 hours before the 50-ah battery was depleted. I was wondering if you would be able to tell me what meter you are using to tract battery consumption and monitor voltages?
I did a similar test with my Waeco CDL18 freezer to see how it would go with a Jackery 500 I had just bought. It pulled 38-40 watts when running then 0 watts when switching off at temperature. The Jackery got down to 4% after 21 hours. I then plugged in the power brick to the Jackery and with 80 watts going in it recharged the Jackery while the freezer is still running. So I was pleased that when I am on my next trip with the solar panel plugged into the Jackery it will keep the freezer going indefinitely. Now I know the solar panel will not charge as well as the power brick but looking forward to trying it out.
So like a year ago, I was considering building a big USB power bank out of 18650 cells. The confusing part was trying to decide if I was going to make it 4s or just parallel them all. Going from 3.7v to 5v seems like it would be more efficient than then dropping from a roughly 12v configuration. But then it seems like charging and discharging would be very inefficient and slow at 3.7. It seems like it would be inefficient within the battery vs the conversion to USB maybe being more efficient. Anyways, just rambling now haha I’ve never seen actual tests to verify the advantages and disadvantages.
Name brand battery things are the best to get and never trust what they claim until tested. I got a fan with a battery in this year called Korbot from amazon that claims 12000 mah, mostly good reviews, when I tested it, it only put out less than 5000mah out of the usba port until it shut itself off and takes about 5100 mah to charge to full in 8 hours, very slow compared to my other fan. It claims over 16 hours run time on low, I get 8 hours on low. My Opolar, now called Koonie on amazon, fan that claims 10000 mah actually takes 10008 mah to charge in 8 hours to full and is 4 years old. It has definitely lost some of its capacity but I have used it almost daily for 4 years. It actually ran the length of time they claim of 14 or 16 hours on low when I first got it, seems closer to 12 hours now. On high it will run about 4 hours now, I think it claims 6 hours on high speed. I did solder some old power drill 18650 cells together in parallel for the Korbot fan and added it to the fan, it now takes 12 hours to charge and I went from 29 watt hours to 36 watt hours by adding those extra batteries out of a bad power tool battery pack, I think the bms board failed since it would not charge at all, I removed the cells and charged them all separately in a battery charger and they all took a charge, that was 1.5 ah battery with 5 cells that came with the tool. The original battery in the korbot is 4-18650 cells wired in parallel with no information on them at all, now it has 8 cells, I am using the 5th cell in a flash light. The Opolar fan has pouch cells in it.
There is a power loss in the DC-DC switcher which converts the 3.7v to 5v, so that last powerbank is probably closer to when it was new. Assuming 10% loss in the switcher, then the original powerbank capacity is probably nearer 67w, so its about 90% of original. Regarding those little USB cables.. they look as though they are fuse wire internally..
All of these Chinese power banks usually put out only half their advertised capacity when we tested them. Typical BS advertising crap from our friends across the pond.
I tend to buy Anker power banks myself, that said I am having to send one back as it does not report the state of charge correctly. Not bad out of 12 unit in all.
I’ve had several with solar charging built in and only one worked even a little bit. That one will go from 50% to 100% charge in direct sunlight in 8 hours.
how would these compare in charging with something like a 12 v 7ah lead acid battery? I am playing with solar with some 12v solar, the abover mentioned lead acid, and some cheap ac inverters.
I've had a couple smaller ones for years, even took them to Europe with me. They have their limitations and definitely should be used with the understanding that there will be degradation, all the claims are over estimates, and you might have to buy a few until you find one that fits your needs. That's how I ended up with a little baggie full of multiples. combined they would all charge my phone from dead to 100% twice. Hopefully id be able to get to a car or mains electricity to recharge them by the time they're all drained.
