Fullthrottleguy
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- May 5, 2021
- 1,100
- 1,473
A buddy of mine just got one of the new style "Solar Generators" as an emergency back up for the house (he told his wife) BUT mostly to use instead of his Genny in his Toy hauler. While I thought he was nuts at first after he showed my how it worked, I think I am coming around as to the usefulness.
Before I thought of the solar generator as a big battery and nothing more, but Its actually way better ...
Here is how he made the case to me:
" I use my Genny mostly to Microwave, coffee maker, charge my phone and laptop. everything else is 12 volt like lights and heater fan at night. I rarely if ever use AC and rarely use the TV, I have the laptop. The Genny is loud and uses fuel from my fuel station.
The solar generator can run all my 12V and AC all day and all night and the solar on the roof recharges it daily, if its cloudy for a couple days I can run the Genny, but otherwise the soar generator does it all. No noise, no fuel, no shaking in the Toy hauler "
The way he is using he might be right ... I had put 3 170w solar panels on his roof last season feeding his two 6v batteries through an MPPT solar charge controller, but his two batteries would be near dead in 10-15 minutes running his Microwave through his 2500W pure signwave inverter if he was running lights or charging his laptop, so he always had to use the Genny. we did the calculations and for him to not use his Genny at all he would need 6 6volt Lead acid batteries, and that was crazy, not just room wise but that near 400LBs of battery.
But his solar generator has a pure signwave 2500Watt Inverter and a super efficient MPPT solar charge controller and Lithium Iron batteries and it weighs 60Lbs and is portable.
It can run everything all day, and all night and charges fully every day. No noise, no hassle. He even has an App on his phone to monitor and control it which is nice.
He just disconnected the Charge controller I had put in and his inverter and ran the wires to the solar generator and he was done. the thing is small and fits in same space his batteries used to fit in. Best thing is he can take it out and use in his house or even in his truck if he wants to charge the laptop or power tools while driving
He is probably gonna change to residential fridge now too since he has the extra power, and they are way nicers than the 3way fridges from a cold standppoint.
So, am I just going Fan boy here, or have you seen the same thing? these things aren't cheap his was $1400 all in, but the Inverter. battery monitor and charge controller it replaced was close to $850 all in ... and his two 6 volt batteries were $350 and if he had to go to 6 batteries (add 4 more) with cables and everything that would be easily $800 more. This thing sounds like a win, and the company says the batteries will last 1000 charge cyscles before going to 80% and basically 10-15 years . Not too bad ...
So what am I missing?
He looked at the Jackery which I hear is the one most people buy,
he also looked at the Bluetti which is also suppose to be good
but ended up with an Ecoflow Delta
https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-delta-power-station
Before I thought of the solar generator as a big battery and nothing more, but Its actually way better ...
Here is how he made the case to me:
" I use my Genny mostly to Microwave, coffee maker, charge my phone and laptop. everything else is 12 volt like lights and heater fan at night. I rarely if ever use AC and rarely use the TV, I have the laptop. The Genny is loud and uses fuel from my fuel station.
The solar generator can run all my 12V and AC all day and all night and the solar on the roof recharges it daily, if its cloudy for a couple days I can run the Genny, but otherwise the soar generator does it all. No noise, no fuel, no shaking in the Toy hauler "
The way he is using he might be right ... I had put 3 170w solar panels on his roof last season feeding his two 6v batteries through an MPPT solar charge controller, but his two batteries would be near dead in 10-15 minutes running his Microwave through his 2500W pure signwave inverter if he was running lights or charging his laptop, so he always had to use the Genny. we did the calculations and for him to not use his Genny at all he would need 6 6volt Lead acid batteries, and that was crazy, not just room wise but that near 400LBs of battery.
But his solar generator has a pure signwave 2500Watt Inverter and a super efficient MPPT solar charge controller and Lithium Iron batteries and it weighs 60Lbs and is portable.
It can run everything all day, and all night and charges fully every day. No noise, no hassle. He even has an App on his phone to monitor and control it which is nice.
He just disconnected the Charge controller I had put in and his inverter and ran the wires to the solar generator and he was done. the thing is small and fits in same space his batteries used to fit in. Best thing is he can take it out and use in his house or even in his truck if he wants to charge the laptop or power tools while driving
He is probably gonna change to residential fridge now too since he has the extra power, and they are way nicers than the 3way fridges from a cold standppoint.
So, am I just going Fan boy here, or have you seen the same thing? these things aren't cheap his was $1400 all in, but the Inverter. battery monitor and charge controller it replaced was close to $850 all in ... and his two 6 volt batteries were $350 and if he had to go to 6 batteries (add 4 more) with cables and everything that would be easily $800 more. This thing sounds like a win, and the company says the batteries will last 1000 charge cyscles before going to 80% and basically 10-15 years . Not too bad ...
So what am I missing?
He looked at the Jackery which I hear is the one most people buy,
he also looked at the Bluetti which is also suppose to be good
but ended up with an Ecoflow Delta
https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-delta-power-station
