Two solar panels into one power station combination!

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As many readers will know, I've been experimenting with power stations and solar panels recently. And there's a particular configuration that I've been delighted with and which I thought worth sharing.

You see, I have two Jackerys, one 500Wh (that charges my phones and tablets), one 1000Wh (i.e. 1kWh, that I keep stocked for domestic emergencies in these troubled times), and two matching (Jackery) Solar Saga 100 (100W) panels. The idea is that this pair of panels is the perfect (max) 200W input into the Jackery 1000, to charge it up.

Now, while this works very well - in sunny conditions it can charge the Jackery 1000 completely from scratch in a day - how should I charge the Jackery 500? A separate panel for this? That would end up costing even more, plus it's an extra panel to set up and position.

My solution is to daisy-chain the devices, in effect. Here's the set-up:

So the panels (with extra Jackery extension cables, shown in orange, to allow them to be out where the sun is while the power station stays indoors) feed the Jackery 1000, as they're designed to do (the purple adapter shown is twin-8mm-to-Anderson and comes with the Jackery/panels). If the sun's out then 160W or so is flowing into the power station. 

Then, using the supplied 12V to 8mm DC lead, I hook up the DC out from the Jackery 1000 to the input of the Jackery 500. With a maximum output from the 1000 at 100W, this matches perfectly the 100W max input on the Jackery 500, usually averaging 85W in real life.

The upshot of all this is that I can charge both Jackerys from the panel pair and, under most usage conditions (for me), both are kept regularly topped up with free solar energy.

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Now, obviously I'm only 'playing' at solar, in that I'm running/charging phones, tablets, Bluetooth speakers, and - in summer - our fridges/freezers. To power things like kettles, heaters, ovens, needs vastly more power. So my two Jackerys, totalling 1.5kWh, are helping me feel good about charging small things 'for free', but they'd be of limited use in a power cut of anything more than a few hours.

PS. If you do buy anything from the Jackery web site, note that there's an offer spinner on their front page on your first visit. Do this several times (use made up email addresses if need be) until you get a 10% off code at least. So think of all the Jackery prices as 10% lower than shown, etc. Common codes include 'CHARGING', 'SOLAR', and so on. 12% off codes are rarer and harder to guess. And no one has ever won the spinner's 'free power station' etc - it's not really random, which I'm sure you guessed!

PS. If you like this feature and want to support my work then please do so here via PayPal. Thanks.

Comments

Ted's Salmagundi said…
Nice one :-)
8:40 AM
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