Simple $1,500 Solar Generator Setup!

0:00 This is my super simple backyard solar setup. It cost me around $1,500. And I think it is a great small setup for having backup power during a blackout or if you want to take your first steps to becoming more energy independent. And I think the best thing about this setup is that it is so beginner friendly. You

0:16 don't need to know anything about DIY solar to set this up. It is plug and play. So, I'll do a little tour of the setup and talk about why I picked each part. Then we'll go inside and I'll show you the brains of this whole setup up in that room. And I'll show you how I use this setup on a daily basis. You know,

0:32 how much energy is it producing? What am I running with it? And how much money am I saving with it? And then I will simulate a blackout. I will cut power to my house, and we will get a sense for which appliances this setup can power during a blackout and for how long. The solar panels I'm using are both 200 W

0:50 solar panels from Reny. I picked Reny because their solar panels tend to have really good output compared to other budget brands. And this is not sponsored, by the way. I bought everything myself, and I'll show you my cost breakdown later. And I went with 200 W panels because I find that's a

1:03 good sweet spot in terms of size for small setups like this. But I could have gone with one 400 W panel and potentially saved quite a bit of money if I'd found a good deal on a used one. And I have wired these two panels together in series. So, all that means is you take the positive wire on one and

1:18 connect it to the negative wire on the other. Then I was left with one negative wire and one positive wire for both solar panels and I just connected them both to this switch here. And then I connected my extension cable to the other end of that switch and that goes up to the room. I am a big fan of wiring

1:33 solar panels in series because it's just easier that you don't have to buy any extra equipment and the only thing you have to pay attention to is the array's opencircuit voltage which is a fancy way of saying the voltage of the connected panels. Uh this array's opencircuit voltage is 46 volts and we will return

1:50 to that number later. Now compare that to parallel wiring where you have to buy branch connectors and potentially fuses and then you have to pay closer attention to wire sizing as well as your power station's current limits. The only thing parallel wiring has going for it is that it works better in the shade.

2:04 And yes, my yard has a lot of shade, which will soon be covering this panel. But to get around that, I've done a couple things. First off, I have not built a fixed mount. These are just off-the-shelf mounts from a brand called Boug RV. And because they're not fixed, I can move these panels throughout the

2:20 day to avoid the shade and capture as much energy as possible. I work from home, so it's super easy for me to do it like twice a day. And I do do it every day I'm home. And when I show you how I use this setup dayto-day and what I'm running with it, I'll show you how much energy these panels are able to produce.

2:37 And these mounts are adjustable, so I can adjust the angle throughout the year based on the optimal angle for each season. They're currently at 30°, which is the best angle for my location for spring. Oh, and if you're wondering why this mount is mounted on the very edge of this panel and this one is more

2:52 towards the middle, I was just trying to get a sense for, you know, which was sturdier. Uh, my conclusion is, you know, maybe this one actually is a little sturdier, so I'll probably move these back to the edges. These mounts have already withstood very strong gusts, even though they're not fixed,

3:09 but I do plan to bring the equipment inside if there's ever a tornado warning. The second thing I've done to help me avoid shade in my yard is I've added these extension cables. So, when the shade is getting really close to this panel, like it is currently, then I have enough extra wire to just move this

3:24 solar panel in front of this one. And now I suddenly have hours before the shade reaches these panels and I can move them over even further to follow the sun. And obviously, the length on this extension cable is overkill. Do not need one this long. I just had it laying around already. And that is my cable

3:42 management right there. Just a cable tie. And the final thing before we go upstairs is this PV disconnect switch. It's really just a safety measure. It allows me to instantly kill power to the system if I'm working on it or if there's an emergency. And then instantly restore power. It is water resistant, so

3:57 it's fine for outdoor use. And again, just mounted with a little cable tie. And on the other side of the switch, again, we have that extension cable. Nothing really special other than it's got this sheath, which I just liked for aesthetic reasons, but it goes all the way up to the room up there. And then

4:13 the wire comes in through this little gap in the side panel of my window AC unit. Not great for insulation obviously, but the people who lived here previously did a bad job installing it. And there was this gap that I just took advantage of. The wire comes inside, goes behind the bed in the corner, under

4:29 the dresser, goes right there, and then connects to the brains of the operation, my EcoFlow Delta 3 Plus power station. All right, let's just bring it up here for a sec. And the solar charging cable connects here on the back to one of these solar charging ports. So I can unplug it super easy. And the key thing

4:49 you always want to make sure is that you just stay within the power station's voltage range. So each port can handle 11 to 60 volts max. And like I mentioned, this array has an open circuit voltage of around 46 volts. But if you are ever doubtful, you can always give it a quick check with a multimeter.

5:05 So, we're getting 43.3 volts, which is well within that 60vt limit. And also, it gives us a good buffer because in cold weather, the voltage of solar panels can increase. So, you want to have a little bit of a buffer, usually like 20 to 25%. That is well within that range. And also on the back here, you'll

5:24 see the current rating of each port is 15 amps max. So, if you're connecting your panels in parallel, that'll just tell you the maximum amount of current that the power station can accept. So in my case, if I wired my two panels in parallel, they would output around 20 amp short circuit current. So I might

5:40 get some clipping in terms of current if I did wire them in parallel. And yes, I also have the power station's AC wall charger connected. I'll talk about why in just a sec. And I'll also talk about how I use the 12volt DC port here. And then on the front, obviously, we have the screen. If I press this

6:01 button, it'll light up. And you can see we're getting 330 watts input from the solar panels. And currently only 27 watts are being used. So I've got the AC outlets on. This button is for the USB ports. And then this goes to my monitor. And then this goes to my window AC unit. Oh, look. We just hit 100% charged. So I

6:21 am actually going to turn the AC unit on to drain the batteries because otherwise I'd be letting all that solar power go to waste. Now there's about 400 watts being used by the power station. And I've noticed that this power station in particular will start pulling solar power again once this gets down to about

6:37 97%. And this power station also has a great app. I can see everything in the app as well. So I can see how much power is being used by the AC outlets. How much power is coming in currently? Nothing. Oh, looks like the solar panels. Okay, now the battery just dropped down to 97%. You might be able

6:54 to see there. It says 98% here. But now it's starting to pull from the solar panels again. And I can see this all in the app. And I could turn all the outlets on and off remotely. You can see AC, DC, and USB ports I can all turn on and off. And I'll talk about self-powered mode in just a sec. Okay, I

7:11 am sadly going to turn the AC unit off because it is just making a lot of background noise. I think that's better. I went with the Delta 3 Plus for a few reasons. First off, it's just a really good power station overall. I have three power stations of this size, like 1 kilowatt hour battery, similar power

7:28 output, and this one is my favorite. It's a good size, good weight, great app, all that stuff. Second, and this gets to the expandability part, which I'll touch on in a little bit, is this can handle up to 1,000 W of solar, which is really good for this size power station. Each of those ports that I

7:45 showed you on the back can handle 500 W of solar. And finally, this explains what we saw in the app. Also, why the power station is currently plugged into the wall is it has something called self-powered mode. Okay, so expandability. If I wanted to expand this setup, it would be pretty easy to

8:03 double the solar input and the battery capacity. I could just plug another 400 W solar array into this port and then this is an extra battery port. EcoFlow sells expansion batteries and you can connect one here to double the battery capacity. And then yeah, you've got self-powered mode in the app. I just

8:20 think it is such a cool little feature. You You're first asked to set a backup reserve when you turn it on. I set mine to 10%. What does this mean? It means above this number, the power station will only use solar power and then once it gets to around 10%, it will start pulling from the grid. Clearly, I'm

8:37 excited about this setup and we haven't even talked about how I use it dayto-day. So, I'm going to run through like a typical day in my life with this setup, how I use it, and then we'll do that blackout simulation. First thing I'll do in the morning is I'll just come over here obviously check the battery

8:53 and then I will turn on the AC outlets. That way I can turn on my monitor and then my monitor is connected to my laptop. So it starts charging my laptop as well. With those two things on, it's using 84 watts. It looks like there's 9.3 hours remaining, but that is not taking into account any solar charging.

9:10 Like you saw the solar panels will produce like 350 watts in good sun. So, when the battery is mostly charged like it is currently, I will also turn on the AC unit. That way, I can take full advantage of all the solar power produced by those panels because they'll stop producing power when the battery

9:27 reaches 100%. And also, this keeps the room very cool and also helps cool the upstairs so I can save on energy. And in the colder months, I can do the exact same with this small electric space heater. This AC unit uses like 400 to 500 watts on hot days. So, this plus my workstation will drain the battery. And

9:46 once it gets to like 70 75% usually, I'll just turn it off and I'll keep, you know, turning it on and off throughout the day based on the battery percentage. Of course, I'll use this setup to charge small devices like, you know, my phones and mics for filming. But what about that 12volt DC port that I mentioned in

10:04 the back of this power station? I will use it to charge my small power stations. So, this is my EcoFlow River 3, and it comes with an included 12volt car charger. So, I can just plug it into the car socket in the back, and then obviously plug the charger in, and it will start charging. It's charging at 92

10:27 watts. So, this is another good way to use excess power produced by the solar panels connected to this. And this power station is so lightweight, so portable. It's just so easy to take with me wherever I go. I know that at first this might sound kind of dumb, but again, my solar panels are producing excess power.

10:43 And this is another way that I can use that excess power. Also, if you think about it, it's DC all the way down from the solar panels to this power station's battery through its 12volt DC charger to this power station's battery. So, there's definitely some inefficiencies, but it's not like I'm losing a ton from,

11:02 you know, running an inverter or converting DC to AC. And also, I'm lazy. I don't want to throw out a 100 watt solar panel just to charge this guy. I want to be able to charge it from the comfort of this room. And you can see in the numbers how well this works. So this was yesterday's. 1.4 kwatt hours from

11:18 solar, 0 hours from AC, 100% solar power a day. The same with the day before, 1.6 watt hours pulled, and then 1.5 watt hours from solar the day before that. Let's look at output. You know, I'm using quite a bit of energy in this room. 1.4 24 kwatt hours. I'm running the AC unit a lot. That's all solar

11:38 powered. Another 1.1 all solar powered. And then we're here at today's everything so far has been solar powered. And using it like this dayto-day, everything just work. Oh Blackout simulation. Okay. In my area, if the power goes out, it's probably dark and stormy. So, I'm going to disconnect the solar panels and

12:01 take this downstairs to run some critical appliances. Starting with my kitchen fridge. I mean, we don't even have anything crazy in here. But if I add it all up, it's probably hundreds of dollars worth of food. We do not want that to spoil. Not to mention $50 worth of eggs. So, I'm going to plug this in.

12:19 We're sitting at 96% which is really good. And then there we go. Fridge is back on. And if I wanted to run a 12vt fridge, I could also go ahead and plug that in the 12vt port in the back. And right away I am also going to be plugging in my phone. So to do that, I just have to remember to turn the USB ports on. There

12:39 we go. That's charging. And it's light out obviously, but if it's dark, I'm going to grab an LED lamp because those are way more efficient than incandescent bulbs. And then turn one on. I can hear the fridge just started running. So let's check the battery. 95%. There's 63 watts being used. Estimated 11.6 hours

12:57 of run time. And I don't know if I mentioned it yet, but these AC outlets can output a continuous 1,800 watt. So, we are just using a fraction of that right now. Okay, so I got my food staying nice and cool in the fridge there. Got light. My phone is being charged. I will say though, this battery

13:13 is a 1 kWh battery, which is not that much. So, I'm going to closely monitor its percentage over the course of this blackout. It's been an hour since I plugged in the fridge. But before I check the battery, I got to say I'm bored and I want Wi-Fi. I can plug in my Wi-Fi router and it uses about seven

13:31 watts, which isn't very much, but wouldn't it be so much more fun if we plugged in a Starlink Mini? You guys have been wanting me to buy one for months now, and I finally did. So, let's go set it up. This is the power cord that came with the Starlink Mini. You might think, ooh, maybe we can run this

13:47 off of DC. That'd be a lot more efficient than AC. You know, this has two 12vt ports in the back, which maybe this could fit into, but you'd be wrong. It doesn't. Let's check the battery while we're here. It's been a little over an hour and it's at 86 85% and there are 82 watts being used

14:04 currently. Estimated 8.3 hours. This will actually be my first time setting this up. So, I hope this works. While the Starlink is setting up, I am going to talk cost and savings potential for this setup. Um, okay. So, these are my actual costs. I spent a total of $1,500 on this setup, but you could get

14:32 this setup for $1,000, and I explained exactly how you could do that for each piece of equipment. The main savings is going to be going with a used solar panel. So, you could get it down to $1,000. The caveat being that I don't know what prices are going to look like as the tariffs start to kick in. Um,

14:50 savings. So, I am saving 1 kilowatt hour of electricity per day with this setup. Now, if you have a yard with better sun, you could save twice that, 2 kwatt hours per day. Um, so if you're saving 1 kilowatt hour per day like me, then depending on where you live, that's like 10 to 30 cents of savings per day

15:09 because the cost of electricity is usually depending on where you live in the US, 10 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour. So, if you're saving 2 kilwatt hours per day, that's 20 to 60 cent savings per day. And I plan to make a full video doing a potential savings breakdown. Uh so subscribe if you want

15:24 to get notified when that comes out. Okay, that took a while. I had to scan the sky around my house for obstructions. Oh my gosh, now it says offline. Okay, online. It's kind of spotty. Um these are some statistics. Ping success. I'm imagining that's pretty low. Here's the cool one for me.

15:43 Power draw, 22 watts average, and they have real time updates. Let's do a speed test. Yeah, those are not great numbers right now. I know someone will probably give me some ideas on how I can improve this, but I'm going to go plug in my normal Wi-Fi router. I am sure there's some

16:04 user error on my part in setting this up, so I'll do my homework. And I plan to make a full video on solar powering a Starlink Mini. Before I try to heat up some food with this thing and run my microwave, let's do an output or a battery check. 76% about 110 watts currently being used. Okay, I got the

16:19 microwave plugged into the power station. Got some leftovers here I'm going to heat up. It's working. Oh my gosh. Okay, so it's using 2,000 watts. Wow, that is over the 1800 watts continuous power output. This might actually uh cut off the outlets. Can it

16:46 last a minute? Still running. Okay. Wow. What if I do it again, but at like a lower power level? 1 minute 80% power. Ooh, 1,500 watts. Nice. That's where I like to see it. Feel like I earned this meal. I brought

17:11 the power station into the living room. It's still connected to the fridge. There's the Wi-Fi router plugged in, the food, the lamp, and then this goes to my TV. I am going to watch TV while I eat dinner. Yes. [Music] Imagine during this blackout, you start to get really hot cuz you can't run your

17:36 AC unit. Uh, this could run a window AC unit, but only for about 2 hours. So, I grabbed a fan and I'm going to plug this in here, and I can use this to stay a little bit cooler. Oh, that's nice. Alternatively, imagine you start to get really cold during this blackout. You know, maybe it's during the colder

17:58 months during the winter. You might want to grab a small space heater, but those things also use so much energy, like window AC units. So, this would only be able to run one of those for like again 2 hours max. So, what if you grabbed an electric blanket instead? These things are way more energy efficient uh

18:17 compared to electric space heaters. Where's the little power thing? You could turn it on to your preferred heat settings and stay all nice and warm that way. We are coming up on the 4hour mark since I plugged in the fridge. And before I check the battery and see how much wattage all this, including the

18:37 little blanket, is using, uh, I want to say I'll put links to everything in this setup in the description below. Also, if this is making you want to get a solar system with whole home backup, then obviously you could go the professional route, and I'll put a solar calculator down there, which will help you estimate

18:54 how much something like that would cost. It'll cost more than $1,500. That is for sure. And then also, if you want, you could get quotes from local solar installers. So, after four hours of running the fridge, plus a bunch of other stuff, the Wi-Fi router, the TV, the electric blanket, let's check. 49%.

19:12 Wait, what? The power is back on. Dang, I was kind of having some fun.