new to solar

[oldpa]

I picked up a one HQST 100 watt mon monocrystalline panel and a 300wh power station to power my cpac in case of a black out.
I can get 3 nights using to 24 volt outlet on the power station.
I have already posted a question and have received multiple answers. Thanks.

[sdold]

Hi oldpa, great to have you on the forum. We recently had a 9-day power outage due to a snowstorm and relied on a Harbor Freight 2kW "quiet" generator for important stuff like refrigerator and internet, but I really wished I had a small solar setup like yours to keep the phones charged, etc. I ended up using the generator and a charger to top off a battery running a small inverter every couple of days, but a simple system with a solar panel or two would have been nice.

[oldpa]

Thanks for the welcome, We have a 5000 watt generator that can be used during the day if needed but running it late at night would be way much noise for me and the neighbors.
By the way, we were without power for 42 days after Hurricane Andrew in 1992-not fun

[sdold]

That makes 9 days seem like nothing. How did you get by for that length of time, with a generator? Did your house make it through OK?

[oldpa]

It was a mess, House not so good but we had a small class C motorhome with a 4000 watt gen. The big problem the the gas. Some times I had to drive 30 to 40 miles to get it.

[oldpa]

Problem resolved.

I found that if I blocked one corner of the panel with a 3x5
piece of cardboard it would cut down the input current just enough to
allow the battery to charge. I’ll make up a cover made of plastic to clip to the panel,
Today was a very good sun day here in north
Florida I was able to input 40 watts to the power station ( max is 41 watts).
Thanks for the help.

[SunEagle]

Hi oldpa, great to have you on the forum. We recently had a 9-day power outage due to a snowstorm and relied on a Harbor Freight 2kW "quiet" generator for important stuff like refrigerator and internet, but I really wished I had a small solar setup like yours to keep the phones charged, etc. I ended up using the generator and a charger to top off a battery running a small inverter every couple of days, but a simple system with a solar panel or two would have been nice.

It is relatively easy to build a small solar/battery system that is much cheaper then getting one from the market place which can be close to or over $1000.

I have a small portable one (80 watt panel, 15amp PWM CC, 250w inverter & 65Ah 12v battery) that cost me maybe $550 with the hand kart and safely provides me about 200wh a day which it just fine for my CPAP machine or a small fan for my wife.