![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/solar-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a> got it firstly to power my CPAP, Megan’s medical equipment, all our crazy bike lights, and phones. After testing it out for the last 2 nights, I now have the very satisfying feeling that we can power all of our personal medical equipment and personal electronics without the power grid for a very long time!<\/p>\nYay solar!<\/p>\n
I got the very succinctly named “Renogy<\/a> 100 Watt 12 Volt Portable Solar Panel with Waterproof 20A Charger Controller Foldable 100W Solar Suitcase with Adjustable Kickstand for Power Station, 100W Panel-20A Controller, Black” for $160<\/p>\n It’s 2 50 watt panels, a charge controller, kickstand, a good protective case (good for packing away the panels!), with 10′ of wire and a alligator clips to go on my battery.<\/p>\n My math says that on a deeply overcast day, this system will just barely provide enough energy to power my CPAP. On a sunny day, I’ll have oodles of energy to spare. Here’s the math:<\/p>\n You usually get about 75% of the power out of a solar panel. 75% of my 100 watt system = 75 watts. Wildly guess another 10% in losses = 67.5 watts captured on a sunny day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n There’s about 8 hours of great sunshine per day = 540 watt-hours per day captured<\/strong><\/p>\n ——————————–<\/p>\n You’ll see in the photo that I’m charging at 1.0 amps at 10am on this overcast morning in the bay area. 1.0 amps * 12 volts = 12 watts. With 8 hours of sun that’s = 96 watt-hours<\/strong><\/p>\n I measured with a Kill-a-watt that my CPAP uses about 120 watt-hours<\/strong> per night. My AGM\u00a0 On a sunny day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I have a 12 volt adapter for my CPAP so I don’t need to run it though an inefficient inverter. I also got a bunch of 12 volt accessory\/cigarette-lighter to USB adapters to charge my electronics and my USB AA\/AAA battery charger.<\/p>\n In 2021, I got a 35 amp-hour AGM deep cycle sealed lead-acid (SLA) battery f0r $120 to take camping. It has powered my CPAP for a max of 3 nights. The exact model is the very succinctly named “Interstate<\/a> Batteries 12V 35Ah AGM Deep Cycle Battery (DCM0035) Group 24 Rechargeable Replacement Mobility SLA AGM Battery (Insert Terminal) Wheelchair, Trolling Motor, Scooter, RV”. It’s been great.<\/p>\n I got a solar panel kit for our Burning Man adventure THAT STARTS TUESDAY! I got it firstly to power my CPAP, Megan’s medical equipment, all our crazy bike lights, and phones. After testing it out for the last 2 nights, I now have the very satisfying feeling that we can power all of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10148"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10158,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148\/revisions\/10158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"