DIY Solar Generator | Missouri Wind and Solar 

This video is greatly helpful! I built mine in 2 hours today with your help! Found every component in my small town stores for a good price. Very happy with it! Thank you so much! I chose to bypass the use of an outdoor ac outlet and just made an opening for the front of the inverter to come through instead. I chose to use a small USB fan that plugs into the inverter USB port. Everything looks and works great! Can't wait to use this camping.

As a general guide on how to build your own BICC (Battery, Inverter, Charge Controller) this video is pretty decent. I like the way you presented it as an open-ended concept of what can be done. As others have already mentioned, I definitely would have chosen a LiFePO4 battery, with higher capacity, and I would have placed the outlets near the top of the box for both convenience and safety.

I am just about done making my generator. This is nice but I went with the Rolls Royce option. 2.5Kwh LiFePO4 battery, 50 amp pwm charge controller, 3KW inverter and a slew of DC USB ports and 12v dc outs. Plus I made to whole thing able to function in the rain. Was as expensive as the commercial generators but I got 2.5x the energy, 3x the power, 10x the charging capacity and don't have to worry about the batteries catching fire. I wanted something that could power a tiny, high efficiency window AC unit as I live where I have to worry about hurricanes. This is really something that most people should have for emergencies unless you got natural gas piped to your house with a NG powered generator.

Did I miss the fuse protection?

why that battery? I would think if you are comparing it to premade units by price most them use lithium iron phosphate. Good build I love the rigid case. You should watch Will Prowse he does some great things with lithium and solar generators.

Good video and build. I would add a trickle charger to maintain the battery when there is no sun or whhen keeping the unit indoors, and a thermostat for the fan.

My experience tells me to exhaust the air and the placement of the intake air holes will determine the air flow over the components that need to be cooled

Any follow up videos on what that can run or recharge times?

unless i missed it where did you plug the fan into the charge controller, into the load side.

nice job, great way to mount the charge controller.

Excellent, thank you so much for making this and making it as easy as you can . This is great , this is a huge cost savings.

Awesome video! Your the first person I've seen do this diy solar generator. Thanks for the advice.

I built a small one earlier. I have 2k inverter, 30 am controller and have 300 amp hour lithium battery on order. You had a very good overall video. I was wondering how I was going to stabilize the battery. Your method was great and I will steal it from you. I couple changes I will be making

I realize this video is 2 years old and I'm hoping you'll answer my questions. I'm building a cargo trailer camper that will be 12 volt powered with a separate 110 fuse panel powering my AC (gotta keep the wife happy). I just purchased a 200 Ah Lifepo4 lithium iron phosphate battery. My plan was to hard wire the battery to a mounted fuse distribution box in the camper. This will supply all my lights,water pump,12V refrigerator and diesel heater. I have changed my mind and would like to use the battery to build a portable solar generator like you made. I would then use the generator in the camper using a 50 amp Anderson connector to connect to my distribution fuse box or if I needed to use it outside of the camper I could do that. It would have the solar charging components, separate 12v cigarette plugs,2000 watt pure sine wave inverter, and USB ports but basically a simple build. What do you think and I believe you sell some of the components you used correct? Thanks for the great video,very simple and easy to understand I like simple things! Lol

awesome power station thanks for the how to info

*All Good ,But i would never install the plug so close to the ground...* Just saying... What if it's put into the grass??? The grass maybe high enough to hit the plugs or if it's in snow... or Rain? Just saying also be better if it was 6" or 10" More higher Old PPL Don't like to bend down very much LOL Also Fan Blowing out would be better in the rain , I would also put it over the battery and not the inverter. suck if it sucked rain into the box onto the inverter.. . and Drill Air Inlet holes are important , i would do them in places that are covered from rain. Then it could stay outside almost all year.

Great video was that a fart at 12:15😂

Hi there. Thanks for the videos and what you offer to help DIYers. What controller would you suggest if I wanted to add another charging port so I could add jumper cables and charge with my car (at night or emergencies)? Thanks.

Thanks for sharing great project. I'm really inspired by your show. I will order a kit.

In your opinion would you suggest adding a low voltage cutoff switch and an inline fuse for inverters with no fuses? Iv got 1000watt sine wave inverter.

this is great looking for one of these do you sell these? if so how much?

Thanks for the video. I am interested in powering the refrigerator and chest freezer if the power is out. I think the two of them eat 210 watts, times 24 hours, equals 5,040 watt-hours per day. So I would need a battery that could store and output that amount of power after the sun goes down. Can you give me any recommendations? Thanks.

great job Wes. looks like my next project. keep the videos coming.

Have you designed one that could run both a refrigerator and freezer in an extended power outage?

I felt that this video wasted a lot of space on that beautiful toolbox and the prices spent were totally not affordable to the regular person. Thanks for your time

No fuses?

A fan with temp sensor helps go keep the noise down.

Could you share any words of wisdom about ventilation and other precautions? I went with two 6volt 230 amp hour each. I know that means I only have 230 amp hours usable. But my question is abouy my tool box, it has very little extra room inside after every component is installed. There is still a little room for air to move around and I put lots of air holes and a fan of course, but do you think it poses an issue that these batteries are so big in a tight area close together? Will they produce heat and dangerous fumes?

He sells the complete kit at a good price.

Good job.

I'm planning to build about a 28x28 small house ( I 40 x143 in Tnn ) . I'll need a off grid solar system to completely power it ( wind power backup optional ) . House will be home (full time) for Wife & Myself . That means I'll NEED full power , full time ( for EVERYTHING a normal house needs power for 24/7 365 ) . Do You offer something ( affordable that's less than the house ) that will work ?

i like this

Where you guys located???

Would definitely have used lithium iron phosphate. Much cheaper in the long run. Also, you are missing a FUSE on the battery. I would not feel safe the way you have it.

Is that the guy from RUSH?

What par of Missouri are you guys located?

You really need to do a lithium battery. If you want people to build one you need to prepackage all the components that they will use including wires to be put on it. By doing this you will shut down most of the sales of these crappy Chinese power boxes. You could have several levels of your kits. Perhaps four levels and all the customer has to buy is the encloser I would like one to have at least a 30 amp solar controller and at least a 100 AH battery. It would be good to have a 1000 watt inverter although a 600-watt inverter would work just fine in most cases. The reason I have not bought one of these is the quality as you mentioned, and the limit in solar watts to recharge them. I would also like to have a regulated 12-volt output and I am thinking if you had a lithium battery this would not be an issue. Most of the people that buy these all-in-one power boxes do not have a clue about how they are built. A kit would lead them down the path of understanding better than a seminar or a series of webinars. I built one a couple of years ago on a hand truck that has a 100 AH AGM battery. I am now using the components to build a solar system in my camp trailer with two name-brand 100 AH lithium batteries. I will probably build my hand truck back using a lithium battery and a smaller solar controller. I personally like using the 12 volts rather than an inverter.

The rear tray in that tool box comes out.

Somebody farted at 12:18. Great video!!

To finish, I will have 2 100 watt grapes. Maybe your inverter has a remote switch. You need a way to turn off the inverter when it is not needed. I will add phone chargers, cigarette lighter plug, a led light and a standard ac outlet but marked dc. I camp and use Xmas lights around the tent and other incandescent bulbs do not care about ac or dc. The inverter dies put a drain on your battery. I will have switches at each dc site and a double pole switch between the charge controller and battery. This way when it us in storage the charge controller will not drain the battery. I am also putting a 40 amp automotive fuse between where my pannels go into the box and the charge controller just for safety. I will have a warning at the switch by battery not to hook up pannels with this switch off. I will also have a warning about the ac plug look alike being dc.

Can this setup be out in the rain? Is it weather proof?

Pure black box and fan. Asking for heat and trying to get rid of heat at the same time.

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉😮😮😮🎉🎉🎉

It's like comparing apples to grapes no regulated DC no USB quick charge or type c pwm instead of mppt charge controller agm not lithium I've been buying and using booster packs to charge my cordless power tools for years now with my Coleman 75 watts solar panel came with a, pwm charge controller I bought them on sale for about 160$otherwise they're around 200$for around 300$I went from 400 watts to 1200 watts unfortunately they are designed to kill the battery in just over a year didn't find out that they were not fully charging the battery and taking it way below dead something that if you want your battery to last between 5 to 8 years you should never do after finding utube I found proper charging perameters and that the battery in these units are replaceable unfortunately I had just bought 2 new booster packs from Walmart since they didn't charge it past 13.1 volts I phoned everstart and asked them and they said that was fully charged after about 8 months I found that I could only boost my car 4 times it started out at 5+ times by after ten months I was down to 3 or less so I hooked up up my charger to the boost cables turned them on and plugged in the charger at first all I could get it to was 80% but after a few charges I got it to 100 % almost killed 2 more booster packs eventually I'll rebuild 2 of my older units adding USB charging and USB quick charge and type c also 12 volt regulated port's one has the ability to modify it and put in a bigger 100 amp hr battery I have a 15 amp pwm charge controller and a 30 amp pwm charge controller for the other all I have to do is find where to buy the components the cheapest way to make a solar generator is to watch the free listing they come up free just go get them and then replace the battery and upgrade them although this is a great video I was hoping for something better and bigger than this but at least I found out that MW&S was still in business

lead is dead. Decent LiFePo4 batteries can be had at a far price these days. lighter and you can use almost 100% of the rating. 10 times the life span. DIY is far better then store bough if you have the abilities to created one.

You are better than Jeffrey