Got a solar generator

[Arzosah]

£1400-£1600? **faints**

But running the slow cooker is seriously impressive. So, it turns out jackery is really real? It would make life a lot easier ... rats, I'm really going to have to think seriously about this now. Thanks for posting, vega.

Yeah I had been thinking about buying a solar generator for about a year but was put off by the price. I work in a seriously understaffed industry so have worked a butt load of overtime since Xmas and decided I needed a treat

It handled the slow cooker like a champ! Tomorrow I'm going to try the induction hob which I imagine will be more of a challenge for it! I've just been plugging random stuff in to it and was pretty impressed that it ran my latte machine with no problems.

Good for you, vega!

[Arzosah]

The beggers stoley idea

viewtopic.php?t=8297

Going to get this out of storage and make it earn it's keep this winter me thinks

Right, I just read through that thread, and it might as well be written in Thai or Chinese or Ukrainian ... anything that has a different alphabet, you get the point

My admiration for you knows no bounds, Andy, have some takeout and some bubbly I won't even try to learn how to do that, but it's made the idea of a jackery even more attractive.

[Vega-J]

Once I've had it for longer and ran it through its paces I'm thinking I'll do another in-depth post about it. I'm new to prepping but if it lives up to the hype it could be a useful bit of kit in a power outage.

I think its ability to cook a hot meal will be useful but unless I can find a lower energy appliance to cook with it wouldn't be every day. It had run it down to 19% with the slow cooker and solar charging it today got it up to 74%. Admittedly I had a bit of cloud cover for around half of the day but in an emergency situation it could be chucking it down for days and no ability to charge at all. My tenency doesn't allow anything with a flame (not even BBQs) so scratching my head about other cooking alternatives.

[Arzosah]

Vega, I see your reasoning behind buying the induction hob then, they don't have flames, do they? Of course, in a sufficiently problematic situation, all bets are off, shall we say?

[Yorkshire Andy]

Once I've had it for longer and ran it through its paces I'm thinking I'll do another in-depth post about it. I'm new to prepping but if it lives up to the hype it could be a useful bit of kit in a power outage.

I think its ability to cook a hot meal will be useful but unless I can find a lower energy appliance to cook with it wouldn't be every day. It had run it down to 19% with the slow cooker and solar charging it today got it up to 74%. Admittedly I had a bit of cloud cover for around half of the day but in an emergency situation it could be chucking it down for days and no ability to charge at all. My tenency doesn't allow anything with a flame (not even BBQs) so scratching my head about other cooking alternatives.

Look at a jetboil or similar you can take it to the pavement and boil water in minutes fill a flask then take it home...


Camping gaz did do a catalytic camping stove years ago technically there was no flame it just got hot... But they discontinued it

[Yorkshire Andy]

The beggers stoley idea

viewtopic.php?t=8297

Going to get this out of storage and make it earn it's keep this winter me thinks

Right, I just read through that thread, and it might as well be written in Thai or Chinese or Ukrainian ... anything that has a different alphabet, you get the point

My admiration for you knows no bounds, Andy, have some takeout and some bubbly I won't even try to learn how to do that, but it's made the idea of a jackery even more attractive.

Yep buy it and use it I might have accidentally bought a big 100w solar panel today .

Now for my master plan over summer

Pick up and rotate the kids 5x5ft two floor play house and spin it 90 degrees.... That puts the roof on the right aspect to face the current bun

Screw panel to the roof put the box I linked to in there that gets me power to within 2m of the back door and a roof 45° to the sun

2x 110ah batteries giving me a useable 1300wh ISH of useable power

[jennyjj01]

I might have accidentally bought a big 100w solar panel today .

Pick up and rotate the kids 5x5ft two floor play house and spin it 90 degrees.... That puts the roof on the right aspect to face the current bun

Screw panel to the roof put the box I linked to in there that gets me power to within 2m of the back door and a roof 45° to the sun

2x 110ah batteries giving me a useable 1300wh ISH of useable power

LOL at adopting and re-orientating the kids playhouse
So remind me, how much do you have by way of solar panels.... Are they an assortment? and how do you accidentally buy another?

[Yorkshire Andy]

I've got a 60w Bosch folding jobbie in my camper.... To charge it's leisure battery whilst away

I've 60w currently on my shed for lighting and basic power ..

I've got a 50w flexible keeping a caravan battery topped up

So if tshtf with the new panel it will give me 370w if I linked them all together

Accidentally= I went on eBay looking for another 50w one and well you know

But the way the energy prices are going if I can offset say £5 a week of leccy to the DIY box £20 to £25 a month is a good saving to be had .

With the added bonus if the lights go out we can still sort of function

[GillyBee]

I have both a plug in and a standard kitchen induction hob cooker. I love my induction hob for every day and would never go willingly back to gas in the kitchen but it is like a kettle in it's power needs. The hob ring ratings are several kilowatts, much greater than the typical couple of hundred watts for a slow cooker. The plug in one is the same. Running a slow cooker on solar sounds a great idea. Induction would take a very much bigger rig. It will be interesting to know if your setup is up to the job.

[jennyjj01]

I have both a plug in and a standard kitchen induction hob cooker. I love my induction hob for every day and would never go willingly back to gas in the kitchen but it is like a kettle in it's power needs. The hob ring ratings are several kilowatts, much greater than the typical couple of hundred watts for a slow cooker. The plug in one is the same. Running a slow cooker on solar sounds a great idea. Induction would take a very much bigger rig. It will be interesting to know if your setup is up to the job.

Induction Hob typically rated >2000W Even a small one is going to be 800W.
Best case scenario with say 2 x 200 Wh panels in UK sunny weather would need to be collecting for four hours (50% efficient) just to run the hob for one hour.
And then two x 110 mAh batteries would only store 2640Wh. So we'd be using 1/3 or so of full battery capacity for that 800Wh

The induction hob set at low power would be ok for a few quick warm meals,

Fact is..... Small scale PV. Solar is seldom going to be the best way to cook food. Do that with fossil fuels and let the solar provide light and maybe a bit of refrigeration. You can run a lot of LED lighting and charge up a lot of torch batteries on a small PV rig.