[MikeK]

I haven't bought any of the solar yard lights. Well, I have one, but it's for lighting up a halloween display. :

I use cheapo LED flashlights and rechargeable batteries. Works out about as cheap and is brighter. I have a bunch of small solar battery chargers and one larger unit.

Also have a bunch of oil lamps and candles. Before I was forced to move back into the city, my plans were to grow my own oil for them.

Edit to add: Actually, I just remembered I had 2 other old solar lights that used flourescent tubes. If you can find these cheap, they have a large panel and a gel cell battery that holds a fair amount of juice. The factory gel cell is crappy and goes out in a year, but you can upgrade it or use the panel and charger with other batteries.

 

[MikeK]

I am so far behind in about everything "solar", this summer I am giving this my full attention. My Dw (a teacher) takes continuing education classes over the summer and I usually takes something with her for the heck of it, I'm hoping they offer some type of introduction to basic solar power or something along those lines.

OM

I don't keep up with it much, myself. I just realized that I have some battery powered devices that I consider important. Radios, flashlights, gunsights, etc. So I standardized them to run on the same size batteries (AA), then looked for charging solutions. Unfortunately some of my things like the pull pin perimeter alarms needed 9v batteries.

I found a panel charger that had various attachments for charging all size batteries and bought it. Then I got to thinking how important the batteries would be in a bug out, so I looked again.

This time I found small chargers that had some useful features. They have a gauge so you could tell how strong the sunlight is. This lets you figure out the charge times. They also would charge every possible battery size, including 9v (and prismatics, whatever those are). I bought a dozen.

What I need to do now is upgrade my aging nicads to the new, low loss NiMH batteries. Dangit they're pricey though and I'm broke. I think I'll spend some time at the DMV installing license plates! :

 

[MikeK]

Nice set-up, you are far ahead of me. Recharging batteries with solar is definately on my priority list. One of other goals is to find out if I can run a small 5 cubic foot freeze. I don't know if thats possible and reasonably priced.

If I can make ice and keep meat frozen that would huge in my overall plan. Maybe I'm dreaming but now that my food preps are nearly complete I want to explore all the possibilties in that area.

I see you remember the licence plate idea my son is doing, he still does that on Saturday mornings and some during the week if he needs the money. So far that hasn't been any problems. I keep telling him to NOT tell his friends or you'll have competion!

A small freezer won't take that much current to run. Especially if you look for one of the ultra insulated units with a low draw compressor. It would sure cut down on the system requirements though. It's not prohibitively expensive to go in with a small solar unit. It just gets really costly when you try to run your whole house on it. Wind is where it's at if you have much of it. My land in Colorado almost always has enough wind to drive a generator.

I bought the small panel charger because of the accessory plugs. I have a couple rechargeable multi purpose lanterns that I use constantly, even now. It'll charge those too. One of them is a handy investment and cheap. I think I paid $20 or so back then. I see them for about $35 now.

I'm glad that license plate thing is working so well for your son. I'm in the middle of a move right now, but I'm seriously thinking of giving it a try when I get settled in. I may even get on wholesale with a supplier and offer high security fasteners and a selection of license plate frames, if the idea works out here.