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

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

Solar update: still waiting for the battery to get here so there's no physical update, but here's minor emotional/noticing update.

1. People (who I know IRL in America and have talked to) generally don't think about kilowatt-hours. When folk look at their electric bill they think of nothing if they're rich and dollars if they're normal and kWh only comes onto the radar if they're having solarpunk thoughts. Nobody knows how much a particular appliance or device uses, people think that a server rack pulls more current than a kettle, this is an entirely normal way to live, the world is full of things and nobody has the spare brain cycles to notice this sort of thing until it comes up. I only notice it because It Came Up. So, a caution to those who might do this, It Will Come Up and then your brain will be filled with It whether you want it or not

2. Having solar panels lying around not hooked into anything is a special sort of liminal airport waiting purgatory because you go ALL THOSE LOVELY PHOTONS ARE JUST HITTING THE DAMN GROUND, look at that smug grass

@ifixcoinops not to get too grim about it, but my dad lived through the last war in Western Europe in an occupied country.

Towards the end of the war, as the population were starved of food and electricity, my dad's family set up a bicycle on a stand in the house and family members took turns pedaling to provide some light after dark.

My dad told me he was stunned how much physical energy it took to provide a measly few watts of light. Everyone quickly agreed the light wasn't worth the effort.

That story has given me a very strong appreciation for just how much energy those of us living in rich countries in the 21st century use.

Those UK kettles you miss? I squeeze my toe gently on the accelerator of my electric car, and I draw ten times what each of those kettles draws.

#straitOfHormuz

@fluidlogic @ifixcoinops at least if that would happen again today, the led lights would be much easier to power from a bike...

But Oof, what a story. Ingenious too