Sunforce 50048 60W Solar Charging Kit <-------- is this any good?

[SunEagle]

you bet, and thanks again. i`m reading the battery link now. really good stuff. that would be another benefit of the solar is after one of our hurricanes we could keep our food good in the freezers and fridge without having to go buy gas (if they even had any left) for a generator. i was going to get an inverter ( 3000 or 5000 watt) to run off of my truck in case of that same scenario. then i thought why not have a solar cell charge the battery and so on.

Just be careful with the inverter. Most items like refrigerators need a pure sine wave power not a modified sine wave that you find on the cheaper inverters.

You need to first understand what your equipment draws in "watt hours" before you can really build your system. There is a device called Kill-a-watt that does a really good job giving you that information for 120volt equipment. Costs about $30 but will save you a lot more in the long run.

As for a true emergency back up power. As russ indicated the best bang for your buck is an LPG generator and a big tank. That will be able to run a lot more stuff than a small to middle sized solar panel system.

I have gone the "belt and suspenders" route. I have a couple of gasoline generators (5500 & 1800 watt), an LPG 3500 watt generator and my small (and expensive) solar generator. I tried to cover the bases by going one piece at a time but now wished I had gone the way of an 8000 watt LPG system. Live and learn (and spend).

[inetdog]

I have gone the "belt and suspenders" route. I have a couple of gasoline generators (5500 & 1800 watt), an LPG 3500 watt generator and my small (and expensive) solar generator. I tried to cover the bases by going one piece at a time but now wished I had gone the way of an 8000 watt LPG system. Live and learn (and spend).

Taking a leaf from ChrisOlson, I might argue that you would be better off most of the time with smaller generator and an off-grid/emergency inverter system that has generator support.
An LPG engine running at low power is not as abused as a diesel at low power, but is still going to be inefficient.

[SunEagle]

Taking a leaf from ChrisOlson, I might argue that you would be better off most of the time with smaller generator and an off-grid/emergency inverter system that has generator support.
An LPG engine running at low power is not as abused as a diesel at low power, but is still going to be inefficient.

What I realized later was that with the 8000 watt I could run just about anything in the house including the AC system. Now with the 5500 I can run a few of the house appliances but not the AC unit. I would then have to run separate extension cords to specific appliances fed from the other smaller generators. The solar battery one would be used at night for my mom oxygen machine.

I just wasn't thinking ahead. I first got the 5500 back in 2004 then got the 1800 watt in 2008 to be used on my property. Last year it was the LPG after listening to people like Sunking saying it was better than a gas generator. The battery system was something I was putting together before I got my priorities straight on building a proper solar off grid system. So there is my generator flotilla.

[inetdog]

So there is my generator flotilla.

Something to be said for redundancy, after all.