Over the past year dozens of emergency solar generators have cropped up on the market. Everything from amateur homemade units to high tech, commercially built solar generator systems are now available for sale. Dozens of fake solar generator review sites are beginning to permeate the Internet.
If you don't know how to tell the difference between the garbage and the high quality solar generator products that are available, it will be a simple matter to get burned.
We've taken our 14 years of experience in the solar industry as well as our experience in operating one of the nation's oldest factory authorized solar repair centers and condensed that experience into what we feel is one of the best solar generator buyer's guide available.
In this guide we're not going to name any specific brand. Our goal is to educate you on the technology behind solar generating systems so that you can make your own educated decision about which brand is best for your specific needs. We'll expose the weaknesses, the myths and the outright deceptions that are prevalent in today's solar generator market.
Use the tips in this solar generator buying guide and no matter who you buy your solar generator from, you'll not only save money but you'll also be able to make a informed decision that will lead to the purchase of the best performing solar generators available on today's market.
Minimum Criteria: AGM Batteries (Absorption Glass Mat) Or Lithium Phosphate Batteries Included
How To Verify This Information: Always check the dealer's ad thoroughly. Make absolutely sure that the ad states "Batteries Included"
WHAT, NO BATTERIES ???
If you check the product ratings on some of these dealer's sites you'll find that one of the biggest complaints concerning the solar generators that these consumers bought is that they assumed that their solar generator came with batteries. Unfortunately AGM batteries are expensive and some cases can cost nearly as much as the solar generator itself.
Beware of dealers that advertise that their solar generator comes with sealed batteries without a specific reference to AGM or Lithium batteries. We were surprised to find that some dealers actually offered "sealed" wet cell marine batteries containing liquid sulfuric acid in their emergency solar generators.
Not only do these batteries cost considerably less but they also have a tendency to vent a corrosive acid mist as well as explosive hydrogen gas when charging and discharging. Marine deep cycle batteries are not true deep cycle batteries at all but rather a hybrid between a starting battery and an deep cycle battery.
The plates in a marine deep cycle battery are much thinner than the plates that you'll find in a true deep cycle batteries so in continuous deep cycle use they tend to have a much shorter life span. In fact you'd be lucky if these batteries lasted even a year in deep cycle use.
Visit YouTube and you'll find that it is littered with videos of homeowners that built their own homemade solar generators using deep cycle marine "wet cell" batteries. What's worse is many of these home made solar generators have their inverters mounted in close proximity to the battery.
Remember The Hindenburg: Hydrogen And Sparks Don't Mix !
Not only will the inverter's fan suck in the corrosive acid mist and severely shorten the life of the inverter but all it would take is a minute spark from the inverter and boom ! you've got a hydrogen gas explosion just like the Hindenburg disaster which would spread sulfuric acid everywhere which may not matter to you if you've burned your house down as a result of the explosion and fire.
AGM batteries do not vent any appreciable hydrogen or acid mist unless they are being severely overcharged. They are typically safe to use in an occupied environment.
Lithium ion technology is the latest and greatest in battery technology. Unfortunately Lithium ion batteries cost about 7 to 10 times more than lead acid AGM technology for the same amount of power. For example a relatively small quality, 12 Volt 40 Amp hour Lithium Phosphate battery runs about $650.00 each. They will cycle quite a bit longer than lead acid AGM batteries but the increased cost simply doesn't make sense at this time.
In an emergency you want as many Amp hours as your budget will allow. The number of charge, discharge cycles is meaningless if you're left with a dead battery because your high tech lithium ion solar generator has too small of a battery for your needs.
Minimum Criteria: A MODIFIED SINE WAVE OR PREFERABLY A PURE SINE WAVE INVERTER. HIGH FREQUENCY INVERTERS ARE OK BUT 60HZ TRANSFORMER BASED INVERTERS ARE EVEN BETTER.
How To Verify This Information: Check your dealers ad. Modified sine wave is fine for most loads but a pure sine wave inverter is far better. Stay away from older square wave inverter technology
THROW AWAY INVERTERS
Here's where you need to be carful. As we mentioned above we have been in the inverter repair business for well over a decade. We get hundreds of calls a month from consumers who bought cheap, high frequency, modified sine wave inverter online or at the local automotive shop and are seeking repair service. Unfortunately in the repair industry, the term that we use to identify these inverters is "throwaway inverters" they're simply not worth the time and expense that it takes to repair them.
It's more cost effective to buy a new unit rather than pay for a repair. Unfortunately these "throw away" inverters are notorious for failing right when you need them most or right about the time that their warranty expires. They're hardly the type of equipment that you would want to count on in an emergency. Instead of spending a little extra money and buying a higher quality unit, most consumers never tend to learn and keep on buying these poor quality inverters only to continually fork out more money to buy replacements.
The problem with the vast majority of these low cost high frequency inverters is that they're typically manufactured in facilities where quality control for the most part is non existent. Component substitution is a common practice and you'll rarely ever find name brand field effect transistors, resistors, capacitors and inductors used in these units so basically they are prone to failure as soon as you remove them from their box. Even though the design on paper may look good on paper, the final product rarely meets the design that the engineers originally intended.
Back in 1997 until about the year 2000 we used to sell several brands of these low cost inverters. They filled a niche for a low cost inverter option until we literally started to accumulate a mountain of failed, returned units in our warehouse. Never again !
You'll find these cheap units everywhere, online, the corner automotive shop, your local freight surplus store. Do yourself a favor and resist the temptation to buy them, especially if you're considering them for an emergency application. They're simply not worth the risk or the money.
High Quality High Frequency Modified Sine Wave Inverter Do Exist
On the other hand if you're careful where you shop, there are good high frequency modified sine wave units on the market. The best thing to do is find a well established, experienced dealer, whose large enough to offer a competitive price but small enough to be familiar with his product's failure rate.
Also stay away from new dealers who haven't yet experienced the "cheap inverter phase" of his business. If you encounter a dealer who is boasting about the non name brand high frequency inverter that he's using in his solar generator, run the other way. An experienced dealer will know the difference between the throwaway brands and the quality brands.
PURE SINE WAVE INVERTERS
Pure sine wave inverters
have come way down in price over the past few years and they're much better for
your appliances, especially sensitive load like plasma TVs, computers. laser
printers, communication and sound equipment.
Pellet stoves, Makita battery chargers and laser printers can actually be
damaged by a modified sine wave inverter so always use a pure sine wave inverter
when powering these loads. If you can afford a pure sine wave inverter, always
choose this option over a modified sine wave inverter.
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Actual oscilloscope tracing from a pure sine wave inverter with less 5% total harmonic distortion. Notice the smooth rounded transitions from positive to negative, just like your utility company. To your equipment and appliances this is like a glass of some smooth easy to swallow energizing drink.
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Actual oscilloscope tracing from a typical modified sine wave inverter with 35 to 40% total harmonic distortion. Notice the sharp sudden transitions from positive to negative. This is what causes the high harmonic distortion level. Definitely not like your utility company. To your equipment and appliances this like swallowing a glass of nails. Not too healthy. In fact this type of waveform can actually shorten the life of many appliances.
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All AC appliances and equipment are designed to run off of pure sine waves. Pure sine wave energy is the type of power that is produced by your utility company.
Benefits of running your equipment and appliances on pure sine waves:
Minimum Criteria: Mono or Poly Crystalline only. Stay Away From Amorphous (Thin Film)
How To Verify This Information: Crystalline technology is characterized by separate solar cells that are soldered together. Thin film looks like a sheet of glass that has been spray painted on one side with brown or black spray paint.
Both mono and poly crystalline technology offers much higher efficiency and typically a much longer life span than Amorphous. While crystalline solar modules typically offer efficiency ratings of up to 18% Amorphous (Thin Film) typically only offers about 6% efficiency.
Amorphous technology is cheap, very cheap, but you should still resist the temptation to invest your money into Amorphous solar modules. In the end they're no different than buying a cheap throwaway inverter because in short order you will have thrown your money away.
THIN IS JUST NOT IN !
This author is embarrassed to admit that about 15 years ago, I caved in and bought about a dozen thin film modules that I mounted on aluminum framing in my back yard. They were cheap and I was so proud of my black, sleek looking solar system until I started noticing a dramatic drop off of my daily energy production. It took about a year but in the end every single one of my Amorphous solar panels completely failed due to moisture intrusion, leaving me with a worthless pile of glass that I had to haul to the dump.
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BAD
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GOOD
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Amorphous Solar (Thin Film) Not A Very Wise Choice. |
Mono Or Poly Crystalline Low Cost, High Efficiency, Much Longer Lifespan, Much Less Degradation. A Much Better Choice.
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Unfortunately, today not much has changed. YouTube is littered with people showing off their cheap surplus freight company thin film solar modules. They produce very little offer the poorest efficiency, produce very little power for their size and still continue to fail right about the time that the warranty runs out. Unless you have money burning a hole in your packet, stay away from thin film and always go with commercial grade mono or poly crystalline solar modules. You'll be much happier in the end, guaranteed.
Minimum Criteria: Your system should permit you to add additional batteries and solar modules as needed.
How To Verify This Information: Always check the manufacturer's specification sheet directly. Do not rely solely on what you read in an ad.
Many solar generators offer a fixed battery capacity meaning that if your power outage lasts longer than the capacity of your battery versus the size of your loads then that's it, you'll be out of power until your solar panels have had time to recharge your solar generator's battery.
So for example if you gave into your temptation to buy some of those cheap, low efficiency Amorphous solar panels that I just discussed and you just depleted your 60 amp hour battery pack, even at 45 Watts, it will take you approximately 4 to 5 days to recharge your battery to its full capacity.
I don't know about you but my guess is that in an emergency, most people wouldn't want to wait 4 to 5 days to fully recharge their batteries so you can see the value of being able to double or triple the amount of your battery and or solar generating capacity.
To approximate your run time, simply multiply your battery's average voltage which in most cases will be about 12.3 volts times your battery's AH or Amp hour rating, let say 60 AH. This will give you your Watt hour capacity which in this case would be about 738 Watt hours. Next divide your solar power generator's Watt hour capacity by the wattage of your load. For example lets take a 150 Watt TV set. 738 divided by 150 watts would give you a run time of 4.92 hours. An 18 Watt compact fluorescent light would have a run time of 41 hours. So the bottom line is, if you can expand your battery capacity in Amp hours, then you expand your run time. But remember, you still have to recharge your batteries in a reasonable amount of time so when adding more batteries, you also want to expand the number of solar panels that we be recharging those batteries.
Shopping Tip: Always make sure that your solar generator can be easily and safely expanded and make absolutely sure that all of the necessary cables, connectors and charge controllers are included in your expansion kit.
Minimum Criteria: None. Meaningless !
Unfortunately very few of the solar generators if any that are being offered on the market today are actually manufactured by names that are printed on these products. Most if not all of the solar generators that you'll find on the market are private labeled which explains why many products look the same and offer the same specifications even though they have different names attached to the product.
The problem with buying a big brand name solar generator is that you will typically pay a premium just to have that big brand name printed on the product when you could have bought the identical product without the big brand name for considerably less.
Shopping Tip: Forget the brand name, always compare specifications. On the flip side stay away from homemade solar generators unless you're absolutely sure of what you're buying. As simple of a device as it may seem, a poorly designed solar generator can easily start a fire if not engineered properly.
These Solar Generator Shopping Tips Were Brought To You By Discountsolarsupply.com
HIGH QUALITY EMERGENCY SOLAR POWER SYSTEMS
SINCE 1997
