DIY Plug-In Solar Power LEGAL in All 50 States! (First Look at Craftstrom Solar)

0:00 800 watts of solar. It's just plugging into a standard 120 volt outlet. And this is finally legal for everyone, no matter where you live. This solar kit is from Craftstrom Solar, your one-stop shop to have a DIY solar kit that literally just plugs into your house, ship to your door, set it up, and

0:19 immediately start saving crap ton of money on your electric bill. It of course has the standard rapid shutdown anti- islanding protections for when the power goes out so that you're not back feeding and hurting anyone working on the lines when the power is on. This also is able to not back feed. So you

0:36 don't need any grid tie agreements or permits or anything. Let me show you how this works. If you can't tell from all the videos I've been making about this subject, I really really want to help as many of you as I possibly can get going with some solar. Even a relatively small array like this can make an absolute

0:51 tremendous difference in your power bill. Craftstrom will ship these kits to your door. Let me show you what I got here. First and most important are these awesome solar panels. They are semiflexible, but the key word is semi. So, you can bend them. I don't know if you can see that uh this this bends a

1:10 little bit, but it does have a metal frame around the outside. So, it's very strong and quote unquote rigid still even though there is some flex to them. The panels are also bfacial. So, if you put them on a reflective surface or you live somewhere where that you get snow, you'll be able to get even more

1:26 production off the backside. The kits also ship with their own racking system. So, you can easily deploy your array at proper angles. You do have adjustability in the angle with these mounts. And then, of course, uh one of the key components is the micro inverter. This array that I have has two micro

1:45 inverters. There's one for these two panels and there's a second one there for these two panels. Each of these particular micro inverters are 350 W units. They communicate uh with the free app through a simple Wi-Fi connection and you do not need to buy extra gateways or anything to have access to

2:03 the app and monitoring. It's all built into the micro inverter which is awesome. Craftstrom provides all the cables that you need to connect the solar panels to the inverters as well as the inverters to each other as well as the inverters to the house. You may need to get a little extension cord of some

2:20 kind, but it literally just plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet. And if we follow this cord, you'll see that the solar is plugged into just a standard 120 volt plug. This device right here is the secret sauce to allowing this to work anywhere without grid tie agreements or anything. This is

2:38 Craftstrom's smart power meter. I'm going to go into more detail on how it works and how to connect it up in a future video, but basically this communicates wirelessly to the inverters and then it's mounted in your main breaker panel. And if you notice, these are my main power lines coming in from

2:55 the utility. These right here are current sensing clamps and they permanently install around your main grid feeding wires. They can detect the flow of electricity and basically they are able to tell when the solar is going to produce more power than the house is consuming. That'll send uh information

3:14 to this which then throttles slash limits the solar production automatically. You can if you have a grid tie agreement already and an existing solar system and have permission to feed back to the grid. This actually has a mode where it will allow back feeding to happen. So you're

3:32 actually able to expand on the cheap your existing solar system as well if you have one already. Are you starting to get a picture here and see why Craum is so unique? They have really thought things through and engineered things well. Now, in addition to that smart meter, Craft Drum has also solved

3:49 another issue that's very prevalent in plug-and-play systems. And that issue has something to do with your home's wiring. Pretty much all of the plug-and-play systems on the market that I've played with have required a dedicated circuit to plug into. And they are not compatible or severely limit

4:06 their input on a shared circuit. So, it's either full power on a dedicated circuit or limited power continuously on a shared circuit. So, Craftstrom's the first place to create a smart breaker that plugs into your outlet if you have a shared circuit so that you do not overload the circuit's wiring. You plug

4:23 additional loads into it. So, Craftstrom has literally solved every problem the plug-and-play solar has ever had. They also sell batteries for this. And someday uh here in the future, I hope to test that. But, uh for now, we're going to start with the entry point product so that you guys can see what one of the

4:40 cheapest options that they sell will get you. I think you're going to be shocked. There are a lot of details and information I need to cover on the kits. I'm one of the first content creators to get hands on this. I'm going to deliver some very valuable information to you, but it's a lot. So, there's going to be

4:57 a whole series of videos to this. In one video, I'm going to show you how it ships to you, unbox it all, and show you how to build your solar array. In another video, I'm going to show you the installation of the smart power meter in your breaker panel. In another video, I'm going to show you how you commission

5:13 your system and connect everything up to the app and the wireless networks and get it producing power. And then finally, there's going to be a whole slew of videos where we're actually doing real world tests and seeing how much power this can offset. The property I'm deploying this at has only a grid

5:31 connection, no other means of offsetting their power. We have power consumption history on utility bills and so we'll be able to see over the long haul what kind of difference this makes and see what kind of real world savings we get from it. So subscribe so you don't miss any of those. I'm also going to be leaving a

5:48 link to a playlist down in the description. You guys can check out that will have every video that I've ever made about Craft Strum in it. It might take a few months here right at the very beginning to get it all populated and filled, but if you're watching this down the road, you'll be able to access all

6:02 the videos from that convenient leak. Let's talk briefly about pricing. Now, pricing is current at the time of making this video. If you're watching this down the road, it's possible that things have changed. The kit that you're going to see me uh testing in the first couple of videos is this 800 W plug-and-play unit.

6:20 I want to have a candid conversation about the cost here right off the bat because I can already hear the comments flying something to do with oh you know I can build something that's you know couple hundred bucks and it will do five times the power or whatever. So if you're like hardcore DIY person like

6:36 that more power to you. I wish you the best of luck. But if you're like the majority of us that uh a lot of this stuff kind of goes over our heads and you know electricity is not the safest thing to play with. There's value to being able to just purchase something that has already had all the kinks

6:52 worked out, has all the safety certifications, are legal to use, all of that. The 800 watt kit at the time making this video is just over $2,000. Again, I can hear the solar connoisseurs in the comments just going nuts on the keyboard right now saying, "That's over $2 a watt." You know, whatever. Uh, yes,

7:10 but don't forget, you're not just buying solar panels. You're buying the solar panels, the stands, the power meter, the inverters, you know, all those things. to put together. Then also remember that this is your cost pretty much. You may need to buy an extension cord uh or something additional. But aside from

7:26 that, you're going to get pretty much everything that you need and you're going to be installing this yourself. You don't have to pay expensive installation fees. The vast majority of you will probably not need to involve the help of an electrician at all. And then you're not paying, you know, the

7:38 massive markup that uh you know, rooftop solar uh installers are tacking on. And I think you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll get a return on your investment. I'm going to have a whole video showing you the impact the kit makes to the power bill. So you guys can, you know, kind of get a real world

7:55 idea of the kind of impact this is going to make. Also, don't forget that you're not only making an investment to save money, you're also making an investment to become just more self-sufficient. Seems like power outages and good down situations are happening all the time and more frequently. So, between, you

8:11 know, the solar setup here and then, you know, getting some battery storage with inverters and whatnot that they've got available down here, now all of a sudden, you can work as a little self-contained power plant basically at your own house. And there's a lot to be said or the cost of peace of mind.

8:30 Anyway, that's my two cents on this for now. Uh obviously I will be uh giving you more details uh down the road here after my uh kit has been hooked up and running for a while, but I will be leaving links uh to this so you guys can uh come and check Craft Room's website out directly and check out uh what they

8:46 have to offer and uh their kits and their equipment. I can't wait to show you how this all works, guys. It's amazing. So stay tuned. Be subscribed so you don't miss it. I'll catch you all on the next one.