So, I have been look­ing into solar back­up sys­tems for sev­er­al low volt­age pieces of equip­ment.  I’ve been look­ing into this now for prob­a­bly about a year.  Of course, I’ve done noth­ing about it part­ly due to cost, and part­ly due to the fact that I have to retro­fit some items with low­er volt­age bulbs, etc.  I think I may have done that, and now have to price a sys­tem that can run charg­ing sev­er­al items such as my net­book, iPhone, iPad, bat­tery charg­er, and sev­er­al oth­er items I have been think­ing about.  I have also been think­ing about buy­ing one of those Cole­man Pow­er­Chill Cool­ers, but before I do, will need to cal­cu­late the draw on the invert­er and the battery(s) in the event I do.  I fig­ure, hav­ing some­thing to keep what needs to be cool, well, cool.  If you have ever used on of those cool­ers, you will know they do not keep things extra­or­di­nar­i­ly cold, but do a good job of keep­ing things cool.  I guess if I make a quart of pow­dered milk in a pinch it should do the job.

Where is all this com­ing from?  Well, to be hon­est, I was lis­ten­ing to the Chip Monk Pod­cast about cheap solar pow­er this evening.  In doing a rough cal­cu­la­tion it looks like the whole set­up may cost me between 700 and 1200 dol­lars for ample pow­er in an extend­ed pow­er out­age sit­u­a­tion…

Here is what I am look­ing at:

What makes me feel real­ly good about this, is that I have a slid­ing glass door on the back of my apart­ment that opens onto my deck. I can put the whole unit inside the apart­ment, as the glass doors get direct sun­light approx­i­mate­ly 50% of the day… This way the pan­el can recharge what I use from the pre­vi­ous day, every day.  Win­ter is a lit­tle hard­er for this since the days are short­er, but if I have ample bat­tery pow­er to begin with and do not over use it, I should be okay.

Hon­est­ly, I am not sure when I am going to get around to doing this, but I would like to do it before win­ter sets in so that I can feel a lit­tle bet­ter about inci­den­tal pow­er out­ages…

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