Have you ever wanted to make your own solar powered generator? It’s not that difficult. With a little elbow grease and small investment, taking the leap to living on your own solar powered grid is well within your reach.
1. Purchase a small solar panel. You can get one cheaply off eBay or through a retailer.
2. Buy yourself a battery. You want to get a rechargeable one. Any kind of size that is deep cycle and 12 volts should do the trick. Lead/acid or gel batteries work fine. Why deep cycle? This is for continual use. It shouldn’t cost you that much.
3. Get a battery box! You need something to put all of this in right?
4. What kind of input? DC of course. This will generate enough power to run most small appliances. So get a DC input (easily found in car part stores).
5. Go ahead and get an inverter. More than likely you will want to run larger AC appliances so it’s a good idea to invest in an AC inverter. A 115 volt 140 watt inverter will work fine.
6. Well now it’s time to put all this together. Use a drill to attach the meter and DC input top box.
7. Time for the electronic fun stuff. Don’t get too overwhelmed about connecting wires. Just use common sense and basic safety measures. Use an insulated wire to attach the meter to the wingnut terminals on the battery. Do the negative pole first and handle one at a time. Attach the DC Inlet to the battery in the same way and connects the solar panel to the battery in the same way. Close and lock up your battery box. Put the solar panel in the sun to charge.
That’s it! This is a project that you can do in one day. This one up saving you a bunch of money and at the same time you will reduce your carbon footprint. If you want more information about living off the grid or building solar powered devices visit my blog.
