Thread: Portable Solar Power

Quite frankly you only buy a complete kit off someone if you don't have any electrical skills! I would suggest you try US ebay.com and look for solar panels, solar regulators, deep cycle batteries etc and choose the goods to suit your personal needs.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Quite frankly you only buy a complete kit off someone if you don't have any electrical skills! I would suggest you try US ebay.com and look for solar panels, solar regulators, deep cycle batteries etc and choose the goods to suit your personal needs.

i don't have any electrical skills, and thanks for your reply...

OK to put it another way, you need to tell us what it is you need power for. It is very easy to purchase a fancy rig that is totally inadequate as well as overpriced. IE are you walking, 4WD camping or powering a hunting lodge?

Solar panels, needless to say, work best in full sun, an overcast day or heavy tree cover will reduce useful output to as low as 10% of maximum. A portable rig made from rigid panels can be cheap and effective so long as you get someone to wire it up for you.

Originally Posted by bee utey

OK to put it another way, you need to tell us what it is you need power for. It is very easy to purchase a fancy rig that is totally inadequate as well as overpriced. IE are you walking, 4WD camping or powering a hunting lodge?

Solar panels, needless to say, work best in full sun, an overcast day or heavy tree cover will reduce useful output to as low as 10% of maximum. A portable rig made from rigid panels can be cheap and effective so long as you get someone to wire it up for you.

i am thinking of using it for a few electrical devices on my vacation property. a light or two, laptop, maybe a TV. the place gets plenty of sun so thats not an issue...

i like the idea of this "overpriced fancy rig" as you put it because of its portability. i could theoretically use it here also if the power goes out...

mate you can make up a much better setup than that for roughly 1/2-2/3 the price than the large one and at best all you'd need to set it up the simple way to do what you want would be

colour perception
the ability to read
strip a wire
drive a crimping tool.

If you're good a bargin hunting and dont mind second hand parts you could get the functionality of the large one for the price of the small one.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

mate you can make up a much better setup than that for roughly 1/2-2/3 the price than the large one and at best all you'd need to set it up the simple way to do what you want would be

colour perception
the ability to read
strip a wire
drive a crimping tool.

If you're good a bargin hunting and dont mind second hand parts you could get the functionality of the large one for the price of the small one.

i get the idea of building my own system but my biggest issue is the "plug and play" portability.

so you're saying i can build this and be able to move it from one place to the other relatively easily?

id like to know how?

Originally Posted by MEANZ06

i get the idea of building my own system but my biggest issue is the "plug and play" portability.

so you're saying i can build this and be able to move it from one place to the other relatively easily?

id like to know how?

Here's a simple one I made to take camping. It powers a 12v 20w fluro plus a 600 lumens led light and charges phones and the laptop.

Panel is 40watt and battery is 18ah and has 2x merit plug + 2x cig lighter plug outputs.

The stand for the panel is easy to make, it is just 20mm square tubing with connect it fittings plus some braces and a couple of brackets to peg it to the ground. The panel and braces are attached with wingnuts and it can be assembled and disassembled easily and doesn't take up much space.

Don't buy the tubing from a hardware store, go direct to an aluminum wholesaler, they will probably even cut it to size for you and should stock the connect it fittings.

I bought the panel online and the rest of the components I got from Jaycar.

You just need to run wires from the panel to a male plug which then plugs into the input socket (the one in the middle in the photo) that is wired to the input terminals of the regulator (the black thing in the bottom of the box). The output terminals of the regulator go directly to the battery terminals. The regulator stops your panel from overcharging the battery and prevents the battery from discharging back through the panel at night.

There are output wires from the battery that run to the terminals bolted to the sides of the box and the output sockets are powered from these.

Worked very well last time we went camping.

Nice setup debarcle, I went even cheaper a heavy jump starter with usb and cig lighter socket and a 40 watt panel with clips just put the panel in the sun and clip to the jumper. Recharges the phone/tv/dvdplayer and runs lights, can start the car if needed

PS comes with a car charger and 240 charger looks neat will run my fridge for 2 days