Solar system update: I just spent an amount of money that is quite frankly frightening to the likes of me

See, there's a bunch of different ways you can Do Solar, depending on how Into It you wanna get. I'm typically on the raccoon end of the spectrum y'know, scavenge parts and cobble together and try to do it all on the cheap, which would normally rule out the sort of all-in-one inverter/chargecontroller/battery devices that rich folk go for. These are devices where you literally just plug solar panels in, keep your voltage below the max, and it does it all for you with an app, you don't have to know anything.

But. Big part of my use case was, frankly, next time there's a massive storm and half my mates are without power for days at a time and they need their freezer to get cold and their phone to get hot, I wanna be able to chuck a thing in the car, wheel it over, give them a couple cycles and take it back to get charged up in the sun again, and that ain't happening with the sort of screwed-into-a-big-plywood-board system I'd initially been thinking about. Plus I'd saved some money on the actual panels by finding a bloke who's upgrading all his, so the panels I'm getting are gonna be big and old and heavy and blue and not very efficient for their size but very very very cheap.

So. Gulp.

Ecoflow Delta Pro Three

which coincidentally has the same number of words as Two Fucking Grand Christ

So I'm, like, half-raccooning it, cheap panels and expensive battery. I'm not plumbing into the house's main panel, at least not at first, I wanna have the vital loads on the battery and keep it kinda divorced from the house wiring. Later on when I've had some more hands-on practical fiddling I might sell this all-in-one contraption on again and bollock around with, like, separate inverter and charge controller and big chomnky wires and get the biggest crimper I've ever seen rrrrrr yumyumyum, but FOR NOW, this'll do nicely
Step Zero of doing solar panels is to not need much electricity
thirteen cents per kilowatt-hour I pay, on that basis it's fine if my primary PC monitor is one of the old ccfl ones that draws 50 watts, but if I'm the one buying the infrastructure to push the electrons through it then the maths Changes y'know
Well today looks like a lovely day to go and buy sixteen old solar panels off a bloke on the internet

I got 8 solar panels today, gonna go back for the others tomorrow.

The panels were in the woods.

Just, like, big piles of them in the woods. Full of rain and leaves and twigs and creatures.

I mean I guess it makes sense and I don't know what I expected, these machines are weatherproof, they're meant to live outside.

Dude wasn't there when I turned up so I got the car ready and had a look around and got my meter on some wires and yup, they work. These mossy dirty sleeping machines in the woods are silently pushing electrons trying to find something to push them through, not asleep after all, just waiting.

I've never handled a solar panel meant for roof mounting before, only those like little portable camping jobs

These things aren't light and I've got stairs in front of my house, had to carry them up balanced on my head

Ready for a little sit down now

Finding technology overgrown in the woods and deciding to wake it up again is like, my most beloved vibe
@ifixcoinops that must have felt like scene from Foundation series :D

@ifixcoinops

Sounds like you and @Edmonds_Scanner might have interests in common.

@ifixcoinops
They're easiest to handle with two people. Awkward goofy things
@ifixcoinops You gonna roof mount them? or just lay them outside? :)
@pixx I figure ground mount at first, maybe mess with the roof later on

@ifixcoinops

Points for balancing them on your head! It is a cool, obscure skill.

@ifixcoinops

My reflex mental image has you balancing them vertically, long side up.

@ifixcoinops The real fusion energy revolution was the one shining in the sky all along
@ifixcoinops
This may be the most invested I've been in a solar panel's story arc
@ifixcoinops How many watts are those babies?
@Coffee supposed to be I think 230 or 240 but they've probably lost a few over the years
@ifixcoinops That is very decent. And eight of those? If I had a place to put them, I could probably *live* off of that during not-winter.

@ifixcoinops

"These mossy dirty sleeping machines"

Very "Castle in the Sky"

@ifixcoinops what forest do these grow in? I'd like to go harvest some myself.
@ifixcoinops It's almost like a shared infrastructure distributes costs, and society crumbling so that people have to reinvent the wheel at an individual level is gonna hurt.

Who knew. ¬.¬

(Most of us, but the rich don't care because we're expendable to them until they realize they can't do anything for themselves.)

@ifixcoinops

Yes it is.

Especially in the old days when panels were really expensive.

I think someone tried to make "nega-watts" a term for energy efficiency.

@ifixcoinops

I've had a Delta 2 for a few years and it's done very well for us. I am planning to add some solar charging capability once we're settled into the house so we have a few more options for resilient power.

@venya @ifixcoinops Delta 3 plus here, for power-cut use and actually using the generator efficiently (run for an hour to charge one big battery, not two phones and run a 30W gas boiler controller!)
Nice bit of kit, may experiment with one of their cheaper solar panels, but the main use case is in dark Scottish winters, only works at scale I suspect.
@_thegeoff @venya @ifixcoinops you might be surprised! I’m in Seattle and our winters are comparable. My panels get me all the power I need, even in the winter, for everything except electric car charging and heat. More than enough to run household electronics and a fridge or three.
@ifixcoinops Step Zero is "do not zap yourself" 🤞
@davebiff eh, it's only DC ;)
@ifixcoinops @davebiff DC will take you out instantly so you won't suffer it's fine 
@ifixcoinops or to cover every available space in panels

@ifixcoinops the crimper is so worth it and also you can borrow mine seriously

anyone can

anyone?

she's crimped her last 00 probably here

@ifixcoinops

two fucking grand christ O_O

@pixx @ifixcoinops Yeah, EcoFlow is pretty nice consumer grade kit

Fitting the batteries and inverters and everything into a case that can replace a petrol generator does drive the costs up somewhat

@cmdrmoto @ifixcoinops

Yeah, it's just... I've got an inverter-charger on the way and I'm wincing at the $250 price tag rn (it's... probably worth it, since it should pay for itself in reduced electricity costs within 3 months), and I already had a separate 24V battery (~$300)

That kit is _way_ nicer, it's just... so expensive O_O

@pixx @cmdrmoto yyyyup, had to have a good few lucky breaks to be in this position and boy I know it

@ifixcoinops @cmdrmoto

I mean tbh if not for house fire I'd probably have wanted to go for something like that too

but a few lucky breaks can be reversed by a reaaaaaal unlucky break, if that break breaks enough :P

@pixx @ifixcoinops And of course, in accordance with the Vimes “Boots” Theory of Socioeconomic Injustice, the nice expensive kit is less likely to burn down your house.
@cmdrmoto @pixx being self-employed means feast or famine and nowt in between so I get to oscillate wildly between boots
@ifixcoinops @pixx Being in the tech industry and extremely fireable gave me a similar economic outlook 😂

@ifixcoinops @cmdrmoto

and an advantage to getting something like this is that it reduces how much you need for the next famine :)

@pixx @ifixcoinops Yup. Buy the good shit while you can, cause when the lean times come it’ll pay dividends right as you need them most

@cmdrmoto @ifixcoinops Yeahhh I'm in _very_ lean times right now, still forcing myself to get the cheapest inverter I can

Ensures that in the worst case scenario, even if I can't afford grid power in a few months, I'll still have cooling. And, more likely, it means bringing electricity bills down >75% for me...

@cmdrmoto @ifixcoinops again*

less likely to burn down my house _again_ :P

@ifixcoinops Heeeeeyyyyy, device buddies!

(My first solar generator / 3D printer UPS was an EcoFlow delta 3 plus)

@ifixcoinops solar systems are expensive but proportionally awesome!
@ifixcoinops I've always thought the Magratheans charge far too much.