So, I’ve been mostly dormant on here for a while, but I’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately and figured people might be interested in, or not. 🤷🏻♂️
This first project was making a relatively inexpensive portable battery “generator” for when we go camping. Now I did have to buy pretty much all of these pieces, but was able to put together a 420 watt-hour power station that I can charge with a solar panel and can run ac and dc powered items. The components I got were:
35 amp hour 12v deep cycle battery from harbor freight
Solar charging regulator from harbor freight
DC to AC power inverter from harbor freight
I got all of these pieces when they had a 25% off deal around Xmas, so I was able to get all 3 of them for $88ish
The remaining pieces I got from an RV store and they were a battery case and a battery charge reader...thingy.
The assembly was pretty straightforward. Put the battery in the box, wire everything to the battery, put the lid on, and glue the inverter and reader to the outside of the box. This has worked really well the last few trips we’ve been on and has been able to run our electric cooler (basically a horizontal mini fridge on wheels) while we’ve been to a few middle of nowhere trips. My 100w solar panel is also able to recharge this in about a day of normal sunlight, at least according to the reader thing.
It might not be as pretty as the ones you can find at retailers, but it’s a lot less expensive. And if something goes wrong I can replace that part rather than buy a whole new unit.
