Two solar panels into one power station combination!

-

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.

_______

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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wavelet - and better sounding speakers (and headphones) on Android...

-
Image
You may well be fairly happy with the audio output (speakers and headphones) on your existing Android phone. Or, like me, you may welcome an extra step up. Perhaps more bass/punch, clearer treble, or perhaps just a volume boost overall. Now, there have been various 'boost' utilities for Android in the past and they've been a bit patchy in how well they work. But Wavelet, discovered by Ted Salmon back in 2021, is a whole different kettle of fish, in that it works supremely well, with extra bass, clarity, and volume,   BUT has a very confusing interface. Which is why a brief tutorial is in order. The steps come from Ted in bullet point form, but expanded by me here and with screenshots, which will hopefully help. By the way, ignore the 'headphone specific' text in the app's title - it works perfectly well for speakers too. In fact, by definition, I'd say that it's really ONLY for speakers, since with headphones you've usually got plenty of natural i...
Read more

Bluetooth keyboard incorrect PIN or password - SOLVED

-
Image
Just in case this helps anyone else, I had a nightmare today with my Bluetooth keyboard and my Android phone - but I used some common sense and found a geeky solution. In my case it was a ZTE Axon 7 running Lineage OS and a Microsoft Universal Folding Keyboard (UFK), but I suspect this cure will work for more general issues. The symptom was that when I tried to connect a previously paired keyboard I first of all got just the raw Bluetooth address shown and not the keyboard name. And then, when I tried connecting, I got an "incorrect PIN or password" error message. No chance to reenter a PIN and no amount of restarting keyboard or phone would fix it. The cure seemed to be to reset something in the phone's Bluetooth system, but what? The keyboard wasn't showing up as paired, so I couldn't 'forget' it. I tracked it down in the end. Settings, Apps, then 'Show system' on the '...' menu. Find and tap on 'Bluetooth extensions'....
Read more

Why the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is better than the 15 Pro Max

-
Image
Forgive the click bait(y) title, but there's actual evidence here, I promise. Note that I did write an article before availability, putting forward worries and concerns , but I've now had hands-on to confirm a few things and report back.  Cased (of course, read the blooming' article!) Pro Maxes - 15 and 14 (with XtremeSkin, Aged Oak , in case you're wondering!) In fact, it's the first time ever in the iPhone line-up/evolution that I seriously think the old 'Pro Max' model can be argued to be  better than the new one. (Admittedly, that I already own the old one [14 Pro Max] and didn't really want to spend over £1000 on the 15 Pro Max possibly helps my argument from a personal perspective.) (There's one big win for the new model, of course. Type C connectivity has been a long time coming - but this will take several generations to become established in iPhone/Lightning households and maybe I'll come back to this in a future article.) My observat...
Read more