Posted: 12/29/2010 8:23:13 AM EDT
| i caught the tail-end of a t.v. commercial for a solar generator. anybody know anything about this device??? anybody have one??? reckon it will work???? what'cha think????? |
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You asking about something like this?
Yes, they work, but for the money these people want you can build your own (better) system. A solar generator simply consists of solar panels, batteries, a charge controller and an inverter (for a/c power). ETA: the system I referenced on the net consists of a 90 watt solar panel, and proclaims an 1800watt capacity. (1800 watts is the inverter rating) Maybe I am wrong, but that system is going to provide 1800 watts of power for a very short period of time (maybe minutes) and a 90 watt panel is going to require several hours (days) to recharge the battery. The included a/c charger requires 15hrs to recharge the battery. |
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I doubt anything of that size will be worth much for any decent length of time. You would be able to run lights and maybe a fridge off of 1800w, but not enough to really count for things like heat/cooking. You would need a much larger item to handle that kind of a load. Even if you are only running 500-800w off of that system, it has to be shut down to recharge after a while. For a small cabin it would be great, but for an average sized middle-class home, it wouldn't cut it for much.
I agree with the above, that for the $$ you could build something much larger and more useful (although maybe not as portable). |
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This topic comes up every several months.
Most of the advertisements for "solar generators" make wildly optimistic claims about how much power their products produce. For example, they'll claim several thousand watts of output, without mentioning that the batteries included in the product are too small to sustain that much power for more than a few minutes - or that the solar panels are too small to supply more than a tiny fraction of that amount on a continuous basis. As several folks have already mentioned, you can put together a much, MUCH more capable system yourself, simply by selecting your own solar panels, batteries, charge controller and AC inverter. |