My strimmer battery charger takes 65w. So 8 hours of 30w to charge a battery is almost 4 hours charging the strimmer battery which would probably fill it’s small battery a few times over. If you are not depleting the strimmer battery multiple times a day, that is more than enough power.
You of course do need a battery to store it so many hours of solar are used in several minute short time loads.
See that is where I find they ca get more useful. When you have a non emergency use for them as well.
I haven’t had a powercut for more than 5 minutes in my entire life. Have wondered if power at my allotment shed is worth setting up but not super keen on spending many hundreds/thousands it would take for any garden power tools and a generator would probably be a better option.
Lower power things might not be so bad. Though I really hate how modern powertools use proprietary batteries and each brand uses a different one. A powertool battery charger could be a modest size solar/battery setup.
Factorio GPU demands are fairly low, CPU will be maxed out by late game though…
I did think of stuff like a few days away, but solar takes much more time than that to make sense over more battery.
IIRC it was about a week or so before solar starts to make sense. 2 batteries or 1 battery 1 panel. After a month the panel option gives far more energy, but 3 days the 2 batteries is going to be more.
just over an acre of highly productive riverfront land
Nice, but that is truly vast compared to most of us. I have about 40m² of usable growing space in the back garden and maybe 5m² in the front.
Also don’t have a river. Everything that isn’t drought resistant is already dead.
As for foraging, sure its fun to do. But if it became required there are now almost 100k people to compete with such a small amount of foragable land. Not going to work.
Just light a small fire and keep it pretty small and it can burn out once you are done.
I use a Kelly kettle stove a lot, tiny fire but still a few thousand watts of thermal energy. A few sticks at a time as fuel.
Its just so hard to know what something will be like and I dont want to spend a lot of money for minimal improvement. While display specs are far easier to read.
I have wondered if a good cost effective setup would be one of those solar power stations, get the smallest battery unit that can take the solar input you plan for. Then use the battery to charge USB power banks for your extra power capacity as they cost less per Wh. But the more expensive battery contains all your inverters that you need. Then just an extension lead and as many USB plugs as you like.
Natural disaster, or even just illness and you can’t go to the shops for a few days.
I have heard of people that routinely don’t have even enough food for a weekend in their house.
Vast majority of people do not own enough land to grow even close to all their own food.
I focus on the higher valued things instead. Mostly anyway. Along with experimenting with what I can get to thrive in my area.
Full apocalypse is silly to prepare for.
But interruptions are totally a valid thing. Power outage for a week following a storm for example.
In that case I would probably end up cooking over a wood fire if I am still hungry after devouring the entire content of my freezer. Not letting the ice cream go to waste!
I kinda want to get some solar for USB power, largely phones/tablets. But it doesn’t really make much sense to for me currently. Just getting another battery is a better choice and something I actually use. Solar would only make sense if I planned to need to keep recharging for an extended duration.
But at the same time solar is pretty cool… What else can I power to make use of it. Of course full home solar makes sense. But small portable stuff seems cool and affordable. Just don’t really seem like it makes sense.
Could setup a solar powered desalination plant to water your garden too
Depends a lot on what you are making and how. Haybox cookers require very little fuel. Just get the food up to almost boiling point and that is all the fuel you need.
Love my Kelly kettles - yes I have multiple, different sizes. Gathering wood to boil enough hot water to make tea for 6 people? About 30 seconds of work. Once you have filled 1 hand with sticks and twigs that is about enough firewood.
OP probably doesn’t. This is something I find odd about replies to stuff like this.
Hey guys, got 30w! Should be plenty.
Omg no you need 50kW to run a desalination plant.
But I have a fresh water spring next to me?
Yeah but I live next to the dead sea.
Obviously discussing different use cases and needs is cool, but some seem to try and apply requirements to others when it doesn’t really apply to them.
Depends what you actually need power for. If you just want to power some basic communication devices and batteries for them, 30w may well be overkill.
If you are preparing for an emergency situation, laws like that probably don’t apply anymore.
Don’t you have a fireplace, or can’t you get/build one? Even if it is a temporary stove.
Can it charge up enough batteries to run a typical Factorio session? So until sunrise where you can start charging the accumulators again.
30w is plenty to run a few small lights and phone chargers. You can cook over a wood fire if necessary, or store food that doesn’t need cooking.
Kinda curious now what the back to reasonable normality for essential needs time is for most disasters. Don’t need to stockpile enough to last until completely rebuilt, if food supplies are going to be restored fairly quickly but housing takes a year you don’t need the full years food supply.