# Anyone have or used a solar generator? Worth it?



## mrsjez (Nov 4, 2010)

Sorry to ask so many questions.

Hubby wants to get a gas generator. I say too noisy, too smelly, and who knows about gas prices and availability. He says it's only for "short term" preps (snow storms, tornadoes, etc.) Which I think is prudent. But I tend to look at the bigger picture, SHTF type situations. 

I want to look into a solar generator. But I have no clue if they actually work and do what they say they do. They are 4 times the price as well. EMP Strike - power goes out = no gas. Gas rationing, or gas prices too high that we just can't afford it. 

Can I get some advice on this one? Thanks again!


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## Trisha in WA (Sep 28, 2005)

I have extremely limited knowledge of ways to utilize solar power, but it is something that DH and I talk about fairly often. We would like to have a set up to run our deep well, but since we don't own our place, it keeps getting put off even though I'm sure we could either sell it to the owners or take it with us when we move. 
Interested to see what others say here.
We do have a "alternative energy" forum here on HT as well. You might find some good info there too.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

mrsjez said:


> I want to look into a solar generator. But I have no clue if they actually work and do what they say they do. They are 4 times the price as well. EMP Strike - power goes out = no gas. Gas rationing, or gas prices too high that we just can't afford it.



Actually, if you compare watts to watts, to do what a generator will do is probably more like 10 to 20 times the cost in solar. 

If you see the wording "solar generator" attached to it, you can just about bet you are going to pay too much to get too little. There is a lot of hype out there right now attached to solar that if you don't understand solar fairly well, will suck you into believing solar can do all kinds of magical stuff it simply can't do.

For about $1,000-$1,200, you can buy a GOOD, really quiet Honda or Yamaha generator that would put out 2,000watts and run 8-9 hours on a gallon of gas. And they are really portable.....about 50lbs.

To do that with solar, you'll spend $10,000 or more, if you install it yourself, and it is NOT very portable.

That said, solar DOES have it's advantages. As you point out, fuel could be an issue with a generator. 

Also, setting up the proper ( and expensive ) solar power system can pay you now, in terms of power you don't buy from the electric company while your emergency generator is gathering dust in the garage waiting on the day you need it.....(and you should hope it WILL start after you leave it with fuel in it and not start it for a couple years...also a consideration with a generator...they must be regularly maintained and run, or it won't work when you do need it ). My solar power system pays for about 1/2 or so of our electric bill. 

They read the meter four days ago.....since then, we've bought 21kw/hrs, and our system has produced 68kw/hrs ( it's been 4 fairly nice, sunny, mild days )

Also, there is 30% Federal tax credit for installing solar on your house, nothing for a generator....that helps.

There are pro's and cons to each side of this....for short term needs, it's hard to beat a small ( good ) generator. For the long term, and to help with your electric bill today, solar can be a good way to go.

But don't EVER confuse solar with cheap.


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## Rootdigger (Jan 26, 2011)

If your talking about the "solar generator" they are selling on TV at the website www.mysolarbackup.com that thing isn't worthless but it isn't worth the money and it is not what they are advertising. You can build the same generating capacity with components from harborfreight.com for about $600, I did myself. It only collects 90watts/hr in full sun. Over time that can add up but they don't let you know what the capacity of the storage batteries is so i don't know how much power it can store but for the size and weight for portability it can't be much. On my system I have it plugged in to 2 deep cycle marine batteries combined to weight 160lbs and i might get a day of power out of it before the batteries are destroyed. So, if you let it charge the battery storage for a month you will have about a day of power and then after that it is 90 watts x how ever many hours of sunlight the panel gets a day.

Lets say you get 6 hours of direct sunlight, multiply times 90 watts you get 540 watt/hr. If you have a TV that uses 400 watts you can run it for 1.35 hours and then all the power is gone for the day. If you plugged in an 800 watt fridge you can run it for 0.68 hours. If it was a 100 watt light bulb then you could run it for 5.4 hours...in all of these once you have drained the initial power stored up then after that you will only get 540 watts per day on a sunny day... not my idea of a generator.

They really try and fool you with the 1800watt capacity of the inverter, that just means when it is at full power you can run multiple appliances adding up to 1800 watts at one time but they will quickly eat up all the stored power and then you are back left with 540 watts per day however you want to use them. At full use capacity of 1800 watts you will have 18 minutes of power each day once the stored load is used up. The whole scam of 'solar generator' really ----es me off, they are preying on peoples ignorance on the matter and WAY over charging for the POS. A decent generator that will give you 1200 watts continuous power and run 12 hours on a gallon of gas will cost you $200 from champion power equipment and i have run mine for 3000+ hours with no problem. That said, one year I had a generator break down in Feb and I am snowed in till May, I had 45 watt solar panels in a box from harborfreight.com that came with a charge controller and 2 5watt lights. I pilfered a battery from the backhoe and with a 600 watt inverter I could collect roughly 315 watts per day. That allowed me enough power to get on the internet for a few minutes a day to let loved ones know I was OK and print some stuff to read of current news and run household 30 watt florescent lights at night for several hours to keep my life semi-normal. I know that little bit gave me the sanity to survive the 3 month blackout so take that and think about it.


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## wvstuck (Sep 19, 2008)

For just lighting and listening to a small radio the Harbor Freight kit is the best deal if you have sunlight. I purchased two 27 series Deep Cycle Batteries for $80 a piece and hooked them together in parallel, still 12v but twice the storage and amps. I have been running a 40w equivalent light bulb (6watts actual I think) For almost 12 hours and still have almost full battery charge. The Solar panels will charge the batteries back if all I am doing is running a couple of lights and a small radio. BUT I also have a genrac 3750watt gas generator to run things like the fridge and freezer a few hours in the morning and evening to keep them cold, or to wash a load of clothes. I am constantly expanding my solar power and getting appliances that run on less watts... I am looking into LED bulbs now ($30 a piece) but they don't pull power from my system. 

The Solar generator is a rip off, you can run two camp lanterns on rechargeable batteries for a longer period, than that thing will run your house. Seriously.. A little over a half hour of refrigerator time and the battery is dead. Like TNAndy said.... Don't confuse solar with cheap.... Figure $5 to $8 a watt for good panels... Plus storage batteries.... Building solar is usually a slow, one piece at a time project for most of us. But if you get started, some day you can get finished. But the Solar Generator is a stand alone piece, you can't add capacity to it later like you can with real panels and deep cycle (or better yet Gel cell) batteries.


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## jamala (May 4, 2007)

Glad to see this thread, thanks yall I learned alot from your posts.


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## mrsjez (Nov 4, 2010)

Yeah - I was looking at the mysolarback up. 

He did end up buying the gas generator. Since I told him it was his call. I'll tell hubby that he might be able to build one  That way we might have both.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

I've used www.backwoodssolar.com for yrs and been happy with them. I'd suggest you get some panels, a charger with monitor, some deep cycle batteries (Trojans are good, buy them locally) and an inverter.


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## Rootdigger (Jan 26, 2011)

I wrote this in an email for a friend of mine who wants to put panels on his hunting camper and thought he could get power to run a refrigerator to keep his beer cold. I had to disappoint him but gave him the gift of what potential he COULD have. Maybe this will help explain what you can do with a small solar setup.

Look at the getup in the photo, my generator went down one winter and i put together the Dictator 2000 Mobile Solar Power Station. it is rated 45 watts so with 8 hours of sunlight you will have 360 watts to play with at night. The box it is mounted on holds the battery and the inverter. The panels set up in about 20 minutes. I got the panels and inverter at Harbor Freight (they are on sale right now for $199, saw them on Thursday when i was out). I spent the extra money for a larger inverter so I can run power tools when I want, it also allowed me to use the computer to send email to let people know i was OK every so often. The solar panel kit comes with a charge controller which you would have to buy separate, it also comes with 2 5watt florescent lights that are very bright. I also have a 60 watt solar panel kit that they sold at costco last year that I am going to install on the goat barn when it gets built but haven't used it and can't vouch for it. The Dictator 2000 just sits in the yard over by the chicken coop for whenever someone wants power over there. Be sure to hook it up to a deep cycle marine/RV battery.

I am just going to write this out because i don't know what you know or not; I assume you know all of it but if not i don't want you to expect the moon and get disappointed with a solar panel setup. First, never ever let your battery get below 12v. That's one thing I like about the Harbor freight solar kit: it has an alarm goes off when the battery is low and when it gets critical it shuts itself off before the battery gets destroyed (which is handy for a drunk like me). The charger also has lights that tell you what the battery charge is, and shuts down before the charge is too high for the battery (which will also destroy it). Every appliance has a power rating either on the power cord or on the back or bottom of the appliance. You want to keep all your thinking in watts so you can keep track of what power you can use. Some appliances will just give you watts. For example, my boombox is rated at 13 watts (that is very low wattage), but others have just volts and amps, so i grab my dewalt hand drill that is nearby and it is rated 120v and 6amps and i multiply those together to get 720watts. If your solar panel is rated at 45 watts and you get 8 hours of sunlight then you have 360 watts to play with every day...WATT HOURS...a watt is how much draw is being pulled for one full hour of use. So, you could play the boombox 12 hours of the day (12hour x 13watts=156 watts used) and you would still have plenty of power (204 watts remaining) to use for light and whatever. The drill is rated 720watts but you only have 360 watts a day to use; however, when have you ever had to run a drill non stop for an hour straight? If you only use the drill for one minute that comes to 1/60th of a full watt hour so 720watts x 1/60 = 12 watts used to run a drill for 1 minute. That is where your size of inverter comes in, a 400watt inverter will only run 400 watt hour rating of all appliances combined. So, even if you only want to run the drill for 1 minute and only use 12 watts, because the drill rating is 720watt hours the inverter will flip its breaker because it isn't large enough, you will need an 800 watt inverter or larger. So, once you add up the wattage rating of all your appliances you want to run over the course of an hour you will know what size inverter you want to have.

For example: I want to run 2 20watt florescent lights (40watts total), the radio at 13 watts, at 53 watts run I could easily get away with a 400 watt inverter...but I also know I am going to need a fresh margarita every hour I have to factor in the 360 watt hour rating for the blender, 360 +53= 413watt hours rating so i will need a 600watt inverter to run all that even though I am only using the blender for 1 minute and only using 6 watts during that time for a total of lights 40watts+boombox 13watts+blender 6 watts = 59watts used per hour. With the 360 watts you get with a 45 watt solar panel in the sun for 8 hours a day you can drink margaritas in the light listening to music for a little over 6 hours a day. With a larger inverter, like 1200 watts, you could run an electric chainsaw for a few minutes, or a microwave...1000watt microwave uses 17 watts for each minute of use. Keep this in mind when shopping for appliances, the wattage is required to be printed on the box and the difference between a 13 watt radio and a 45 watt radio is 3 times less usage The last thing to keep in mind with your calculations is phantom loads. Phantom loads are the little bit of power it takes to keep something plugged in...the wattage rating on an appliance is always the peak load, it doesn't tell you the running load or if there are phantom loads. Not everything has a phantom load but some have high peak loads. An example of a phantom load is a TV, they have a low wattage draw that is alway on to keep the capacitors warmed up so when you hit the on button the TV comes right on versus the old TV' from the 70's where it had to warm up first. Any gadget that has a light on is indicating it is plugged in is drawing a phantom load. My microwave is rated at 1000 watts, so if i only run it for 1 minute over 1 hour i have only used 17 watt hours total, but the LCD screen display on the microwave draws a phantom load even when the machine is not in use of 45 watts per hour, almost a full 3 minutes of microwave time is lost to phantom load every hour. The solution is to only plug in the appliance when you are using it. Peak loads are more a concern for the inverter because it is free energy in your calculations. My circular saw is rated at 1200 watts, but the rating is always peak load, the peak load being what is takes to get the engine running from a full stop to full spinning blade. Once the blade is at full speed and running the wattage use drops to probably 500watts and then when I start cutting it will draw 800 watts with the increased resistance of the wood and 1000 watts if i and pushing the tool too hard. Running watts are much lower but they are never rated, phantom loads are never rated either. You can get a tool at the hardware store that plugs in between the tool and the outlet that will give you these (how i found out about my microwave drawing and insane 45 watt phantom load) if you are really interested but otherwise just keep these things in mind in the whole calculation exercise for total energy use per day. Your inverter has a phantom load also, and that increases with the size of the inverter, so have a couple inverters on hand and only use the larger one when it is needed and always turn off any inverter or disconnect from the battery when not in use.

Final thing i want to mention is if you have multiple batteries hooked up in a series you can store more power if you are not using the power on a daily use to run higher wattage devices for a longer period of time...I can store multiple days of watts, so like 360watts per day x 7days=2520watts, that is a lot of power. So i have 2 deep cycle marine/RV batteries on the Dictator 2000. When civilization ends and there is no more gasoline I can roll the Dictator 2000 to a downed tree and let it sit there for a week then come and use my 1000 watt electric chainsaw on it for 2 full hours, and I can do that every week. More batteries more energy storage capacity to capture energy on days when you are not drawing any power.


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## Rootdigger (Jan 26, 2011)

Oh, I can attach a pic










Hand wrung shirt...not a mumu.


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

A little bit more about battery power: inverters are inefficient. You lose power when your 12V DC goes in and whatever comes out. If it's producing heat it's losing energy. A transformer (like all those wall-warts) takes AC to DC, and gets hot. An inverter takes DC to AC, and gets hot. If you are going to move to self-contained power it WILL be expensive, no question. However, you can be more efficient if you use your DC 12V or 24V or 32V or whatever directly. Use, say, 12V DC LED or compact fluorescent, and short runs (less resistance) of thick heavy-gauge wire (less resistance again). You can get a 12V DC netbook computer, small 12V DC fridge, TV, lots of stuff from ordinary and marine and camping suppliers.

Other things, you may just gotta go with standard appliances. Could be that's all you've got, because the power goes off tomorrow. Avoid it as much as possible, but when you do, either that's when you use an inverter, or you fire up a powerful generator. Turn off the fridge and freezer, run the genny to power your washing machine and vacuum and power tools and well pump, then turn them off and turn the fridge and freezer back on. DON'T turn everything on at once - they take more to start than they do to run, so start them one at a time, until you're running all you can for the power you've got. Run the fridge and freezer until they stop - that means they are down to the temperature they need to be to preserve your food. Then turn the generator off.

Oh yeah - if you're not bothered by bears or other thieves, and it's freezing outside, use the cold rather than pouring expensive power into appliances. Set up an ice chest on the porch (maybe an old broken chest freezer), wrap a chain round it and padlock it.


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## Bikram chhetri (Mar 28, 2020)

Yes totally worth it. I have used a solar generator for my RV and I need to say they are worth your money although they are very expensive to buy. You need to come up with a generator that has solar panels in it.


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## DaisyDuke (Nov 21, 2017)

Bikram chhetri said:


> Yes totally worth it. I have used a solar generator for my RV and I need to say they are worth your money although they are very expensive to buy. You need to come up with a generator that has solar panels in it.


I bought one for my RV about a month ago and it's 'delayed in shipping' whatever that means. They say I should have it by the 15th. What brand do you have? I'm getting the Inergy Apex with only three panels, I wish I could afford something more. But right now I figure minimal is better than nothing.


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