Reddit reviews ALLPOWERS 20A Solar Charger Controller Solar Panel Battery Intelligent Regulator with USB Port Display 12V/24V

First of all, I don't agree that a generator is an important prep unless you have a specific life-or-death need, e.g. medical equipment or an electric-powered well. The average apartment-dweller should be able to get by without electrical service for a few days. Stock up on spare batteries for flashlights and such. Get some non-electronic forms of entertainment. Get a hand-crank radio — many of them can charge your phone as well. Get food that doesn't need refrigeration or cooking. Learn which food actually needs refrigeration for safety; don't throw out your whole fridge on day one of an outage.

That will cover the short term and, in a long-term disaster, fuel will be in short supply so a generator is of questionable use.

> Unfortunately, i live in an apartment in socal. Can generators even be used in an apartment? I have a small balcony.

Do not risk it. Carbon monoxide can get inside the building. Do not risk it.

As an alternative, consider a portable power pack, and remember to keep it charged up! Some can be charged from solar as well. Or DIY with a bare panel, a charge controller, a marine deep-cycle battery and an inverter. (Also, a lot of things such as LED light strips can run directly from the 12V battery and don't need an inverter.)

> How long do they last if i buy one and just throw it in storage?

All prepper equipment should be tested regularly. I'm not an expert but I would say run it for 30 minutes every month or two. Remember that gasoline goes bad after a few months. They also have starter batteries that need to be topped up like a car battery. You'll need to check the oil and air filter and replace if needed.

> Once i buy a house, what is the best generator to own?

Like any "what's best" question, it depends on your needs. How much power do you need? Look into a dual-fuel gas/propane generator as well. Propane is much safer to store and it stays good for decades assuming your tank doesn't leak.

Also for the love of god, don't jury-rig a connection to the house wiring. There are about seven ways to kill yourself or someone else by doing that. You need to use a proper transfer switch or at least a breaker interlock plate. The easier option is to rely on extension cords and not the house wiring.

For about $200 you can be charging laptops and cell phones and running some fans and lights in your house. Here's the breakdown:
Solar Panel - $106
Charge Controller - $38
Inverter - $20
Battery - Anything 12 volt, ideally "Deep Cycle" but a car battery will work if you have one. This can be between $30 and a lot, depending on what you want to run.

The parts aren't special, they were just the cheapest I could find on amazon, and while they took a little longer than I wanted to get there, they did get delivered to San Juan. Now my family is charging and running all kinds of things off the sun while the idiots in government continue to suck at their jobs.

Nice... The controller you posted is unavailable, but a newer version is offered on Amazon.

There aren't any battery chemistries that run at 5V +/- 10%.

It sounds like you should get a 12V deep cycle lead-acid battery. They are very common, cheap, can take heat, have solar chargers available, and come in the capacity you need.

All you need is a 12V > 5V regulator, which is also very common, cheap, and available.

edit: This one has a 5V regulator built in, so you could run it straight off the USB ports if your load is < 3A

Sure, I will try to list everything here, most of what I got was from Amazon.

$107 HQST 100 Watt,12 Volt Solar Panel

$20 Charge Controller from Amazon

$90 1000W Power Inverter I went overkill for most on this, but I wanted to power a chainsaw if needed, otherwise you would only need to put in $37 for something really good

$11 Battery to inverter cables

$64 35AH 12V Deep Cycle Battery

$14 12V LED lights

$5 light wiring

$6 Switch

$38 Solar Panel Wires

$13 Battery Cables

$16 Conduit Pipe

$17 Unistrut

$13 For the Satellite Mount on eBay

Then figure $20 for various nuts an bolts.

So for me it came out to about $434, but considering that I paid high for my inverter, and over paid on cables/wire (you can use cheaper cables, but I went with the pre-set ones for convenience), you could do it for just over $350.

I think you are over-estimating the capacity of that car battery. You might be able to run a few LED lights for a few hours a day, like 2 or 3 hours a day maybe, but a constant draw of a cheap wifi camera (often not the most efficient possible power-wise), will kill that battery very quickly.

Let's say you wanted to run 12 Watts of LED lighting for 4 hours a day, and a camera (24 hours a day) which draws ~3 Watts.

12 x 4 = 48 Wh. Not much, but definitely substantial.

3 x 24 = 72 Wh. Again, not much, but substantial. This isn't going to be a 10 Watt panel type of deal here. :P

So, 120 Wh total. Or, ~10 Ah.

You'll need to account for cloudy days, so let's multiply that by 3.

360 Wh usable storage capacity needed, and 300 Wh generation needed each day.

You'll only get ~4 hours of good sun in a day, and panels put out ~60% or there about their rated power in the real world.SO...

360 Wh / 4 = 90 Watts.

90 Watts / 0.60 = 150 Watts.

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So, you'll need:

1 x ~150 Watt rated solar panel. ( https://www.amazon.com/Newpowa-Moncrystalline-Polycrystalline-Efficiency-Module/dp/B00ZIZ6VY6/ should do.)

1 x PWM charge controller. ( https://www.amazon.com/ALLPOWERS-Charger-Controller-Intelligent-Regulator/dp/B01MU0WMGT/ or similar.)

Wire with MC4 connectors. ( https://www.amazon.com/BougeRV-Extension-Female-Connector-Adaptor/dp/B0753ZLLQB/ )

And battery cables to go from the charge controller to the battery, but you can probably buy some ring terminals at your local hardware store and use some 10 AWG stranded copper wire, don't necessarily need to order special ones if you can make them. :)

EDIT: You'll also want to fuse the positive side of the battery, solar, and load circuits. Choose fuse sizing for the wiring you use.

​

Now, the battery will die in a few months most likely if not sooner being cycled like this since it's not a deep cycle battery, but hey, then you can replace it with a good one. :)

I have a 120 volt shaver, jig saw, variable speed electric drill, and more that get used occasionally. I got a $25, $20 with a coupon, inverter from Harbor Freight, the 400/800. It is sufficient. Often used stuff like phone charging and exhaust fan use 12 volts.

My mini van has one battery. The original starter battery got to the end of the warranty period and died. I replaced it with the biggest battery that would fit in the original location. That's a group size 24. I got the one with the most amp hours, 75, and the least cold cranking amps to attempt to get a deep cycle battery. It uses water so it might be deep cycle. It was $80 at Sams. A group size 59 starter battery was $100 so I saved $20. Deep cycle batteries like golf cart batteries shouldn't be discharged more than about 50% to avoid shrinking capacity. It is my opinion that starter batteries should be limited to 5% discharge. Batteries that are 12 volt and alleged to be deep cycle, like the one I got, should be limited to 15% to 25% max discharge. I'm looking for at least 3 years service.

I got a cheap charge controller like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MU0WMGT/
High priced charge controllers have lots of settings and stop charging and call that float. How they determine that the battery is full varies and they are often accused of battery killing. This simple controller has one voltage setting. When the sun comes up it connects the panel to the battery. The current is limited by the ability of the panel to produce. When the battery voltage gets up to the set voltage, mine is set to 14.4 in the summer, 14.6 in winter, the controller goes off and on keeping the battery at that level. Some people call that absorption. Then the sun goes down stopping the charging. When the absorption voltage is reached and the current tapers off to1% of the battery capacity, .75 amps in my case, the battery is full. For the controller to tell the difference between amps going to the battery and amps going to a load gets complicated.

My battery is flooded lead acid. When it gets over charged it makes hydrogen and oxygen by taking apart water. I check the water level. Since it does use water I take that as confirmation that it is getting fully charged. I keep track of how much water it takes. Thats 20 to 30 ml per cell per month. I also use a hydrometer to check the electrolyte specific gravity. 1.275 means it is charged. AGM batteries cannot be checked with these simple methods. Electronics to asses state of charge are $150 and up. Simple coulomb counters can tell you what you put in or take out but that isn't state of charge.
Whatever battery you get it has to be fully recharged or the capacity of the battery fades away.

My system is a $20 controller, $108 panel, $80 battery, $10 fuse box, $20 inverter. That's $238. Crimp terminals, crimper, wire, fuses, battery fuse holder, nuts and bolts, and some bits of heat shrink will go over $250. The single battery gets me alternator charging without a solenoid switch. Your $250 budget might be a bit short.

I have this one right now https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MU0WMGT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

but I could be putting up 50 of these configurations and need a way to get the data remote without traveling to check the controller

I used 2 solar panels, 2 deep cycle batteries and this solar charger off Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MU0WMGT

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MU0WMGT/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1495807720&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Solar+controller

$100 panels https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01HHDC6NQ/

$20 charge controller https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MU0WMGT/

$100 marine battery https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008974VFG/

$150 ac inverter 2000watt https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0716WT8D5/

[inverter](ampeak 1000w power inverter 12v dc to 110v ac dual ac outlets 2.1a usb car inverter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071NZ8DSB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NbC6Ab814KH3Z)
[solar controller](allpowers 20a solar charger controller solar panel battery intelligent regulator with usb port display 12v/24v https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MU0WMGT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_adC6Ab4DAFH9X)
And ill add some sort of solar panel

It's super bad all around to have your solar panel directly connected to your battery. Probably not too dangerous, but I have heard that the flexible solar panels like to get so hot (if bent in a certain way) that they'll literally burn out parts of them (like a broken fuse).

Main issues here:

1. You're going to over-charge your battery, shortening its life or damaging it.
   
   
2. You're going to be drawing when not charging
   
   I bought one of these guys: https://www.amazon.com/ALLPOWERS-Controller-Battery-Intelligent-Regulator/dp/B01MU0WMGT/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_263_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XPGVMHDYZV5TBJ2NCJ53
   
   You can go much more expensive, but it's not really worth it. Worst thing that happens to these is they stop working. If you're really worried about that, buy a spare or two.
   
   20A is more than enough for anything less than 200W. If you have more than 200W of solar panel you'll need more.
   
   My 100W setup is larger than your flexible (lower efficiency) panel, and peak I'd only output a little more than 8 amps.
   
   Your solar panel might also be bad. Check how many amps its outputting. You need a cheap multimeter for this kind of work.

Buy this:
smile.amazon.com/ALLPOWERS-Charger-Controller-Intelligent-Regulator/dp/B01MU0WMGT
Charge off the USB.

It would be pretty easy to build something similar for a lot cheaper. Pick up a used suitcase at the thrift shop, mount a 50w panel on the outside (much better than the 10W panel in the case you linked to.) Inside the case, mount a charge controller with USB, this 20Ah battery (again, better than the 16Ah in the other one), and this 500W inverter (not sure how big the one in the expensive case it, but 500W should be enough.) So for less than $250 and a little bit of build work, you can have a much more functional system (500% larger solar capacity and 25% more battery capacity).

Yes! but that's a pretty spendy piece of kit. Wouldn't something like this work sorta the same, just replace the panel input with a 12V source?

Ah, its pretty important that solar panels get direct sunlight. they get quite a big efficiency loss in the shade.

You would want a solar charge controller, something like this and a solar panel, something like this

The ones I listed are just the first hits on amazon, i dont have experience with those, so do some research :) I think that will work with a motorcycle battery but i might be wrong.

BTW, how about a really long extention cord... like 100ft+?

I installed this controller: Solar Controller, ALLPOWERS... https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01MU0WMGT?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Hopefully that link works. We are in Ontario Canada.

Got that covered, I have a larger, better 24v MPPT on the way. However, I have to disagree. ut the spec sheet says 24v (https://www.amazon.com/ALLPOWERS-Charger-Controller-Intelligent-Regulator/dp/B01MU0WMGT/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_263_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TAP7B6HN0BP9SXXHVYN8)