Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
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Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#2It better be attached well. If there's a windy day, and that thing flies off and kills someone, you will not only be liable, you will have to live for the rest of your life with it.
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#3It better be attached well. If there's a windy day, and that thing flies off and kills someone, you will not only be liable, you will have to live for the rest of your life with it.
Very true. I've tested this thoroughly and it won't. Obviously there's always a residual risk, which I've mitigated by moving the panel to a window further back on the roof. Then I'm going to see if the panel's moved after a year. Another solution would be outdoor glue, but that messes with the ephemeral nature of the project. Thanks for the input!!
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#4Nice hack. Can it power a fan for a night? That might save you some money in cooling, which would help with payback.
I won't be using it for my apartment but it has great potential for an off the grid light power use workshop. Good job, thanks for showing.
Just a note, the biggest expense these days in solar power installations, home, is the manpower and incidentals needed to install it. Reduce that and solar power replacement begins to look good. As we saw here, where there were no installation costs.
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#5Nice hack. Can it power a fan for a night? That might save you some money in cooling, which would help with payback. I won't be using it for my apartment but it has great potential for an off the grid light power use workshop. Good job, thanks for showing. Just a note, the biggest expense these days in solar power installations, home, is the manpower and incidentals needed to install it. Reduce that and solar power r…
Hey! It can power a fan overnight no problem. A large box fan uses around 45W, so this could run it for 10hours on a day's charge. Good point!
To your point of expense – the installation cost is what bummed me out, too. That's exactly why the hack is so effective if someone in your family can self-install it! I agree. Similar to an AC unit or a satellite dish that most people just install themselves...
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#6JFYI, the back of the envelope calculation is about energy "created", this assumes that you actually consume it, i.e. that on average you would use that energy (while it is within the battery capacity range), if you leave for - say - 1 month, it is 1/12 less.
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#7How safe is it to keep that battery indoors? Don't batteries need some ventilation?
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#8Cool! The one thing I notice the author gets wrong is (out of modesty perhaps) claiming the system isn't very financially successful. But it actually is!
> 200W system payback period: $300 / $48 = 6.5 years until payback
> Either way you cut it, this is not a money saving machine. Energy prices are just too low.
That represents like a 16% rate of return with little risk, which any investor would take in a second.
However, the $66 battery expires after about 8 years, you're saving more like $40, not $48, to amortize the cost of replacing the battery every 8 years. So the actual rate of return is more like 13%, which is still very attractive. You'll never find any investment/savings product that returns half that well at such a low risk and is so accessible to anyone with $300.
We've hit the point where solar is very economical! It's exciting!
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#9How safe is it to keep that battery indoors? Don't batteries need some ventilation?
It's a sealed lead acid(SLA) battery which is different from a wet/flooded battery, which do require periodic topping off with water and ventilation.
For a project like this, SLA is the way to go.
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/175649/are-s...
Re: Show HN: $200 Solar Self-Sufficiency Without Your Landlord Noticing
#10How safe is it to keep that battery indoors? Don't batteries need some ventilation?
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