{"id":20452,"date":"2014-06-11T00:18:18","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T04:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/?p=20452"},"modified":"2014-06-11T00:18:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T15:39:46","slug":"prepping-101-solar-generator-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/prepping-101-solar-generator-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Prepping 101: Solar Generator Basics – Harbor Freight Kit Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The solar starter kit from Harbor Freight is $189, and it is a great way to understand the basic components of a solar power kit.<\/p><\/div>It boggles my mind when someone proudly exclaims that they are free from worry should a disaster strike, because “I’ve got a generator!” That’s great for a hurricane or a blizzard, but what are you going to do if there is a real collapse and your fuel runs out? Did you, in fact, just waste a whole bunch of fuel, which you could have used for cooking for the foreseeable future, to keep a week’s worth of food cold in the fridge? Gas, diesel and propane generators are a complete waste of time in a survival scenario.\u00a0The only real long-term reality for anything electric is solar, and maybe wind if you live in a windy place.\u00a0We’ll get to wind generators in a future article, but most of the fundamental concepts that apply to solar apply 100% to wind as well. We decided to use a very basic $189 solar kit from Harbor Freight to explain the basics of solar, and it is also a really cheap place to start.<\/p>\n

What stops people from getting into solar is a complete confusion over the components you need and how much electricity you get out of those components.\u00a0Deceptive online solar stores throw big numbers around, like 5,000 watts, similar to what you’d get from a small gas generator, but even lower numbers like 1500 watts can be deceptive. Watts, amps, volts! It can all be very confusing. When you try to figure out how much electricity the kit makes, the numbers can bog you down.
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A regular deep-cycle battery will work for solar, as will a standard car battery. But these 100 amp\/hour batteries are made for long-term power storage and constant drain and recharge. They are bruisers, almost 70 pounds each. They cost roughly $200-250 each.<\/p><\/div>
\nThe electrical measure of the “watt” is the most convenient capacity measurement of electricity because it is always the same regardless of the voltage, and this is important because solar panels produce 12-18 volts. Household current is 115-120 volts, and it is a different kind of current than what is produced by the panels. Solar panels produce direct current, or DC, and your microwave, refrigerator and lights run on alternating current, or AC. The other term you’ll hear is “amps,” but amps change as voltage changes, as I’ll explain. Anything given to you in amps can easily be converted to watts. <\/p>\n

Wait, don’t let your eyes glaze over at the boring details! You get watts very simply by multiplying voltage x current, measured in amps. So 12v x 1 amp is 12 watts. 120v x 1 amp is 120 watts. As you can see, when it comes to power consumption or generation, amps can be apples and oranges, depending on the voltage. Buying solar can be confusing because both amps and watts are used for many of the components, so you find yourself having to do the math in your head to try to figure out what you are actually buying.
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