Southern California is one of the most expensive cities when it comes to electricity. SPECIALLY if you indoor grow.
I’ve come with yet another question about portable solar, or DIY solar without plugging anything in on your main box that connects everything in your house.
Has anyone done this yet ?
(P.S. I rent a house so it must be portable)
I forgot to check other posts but I found this
Anything is possible if you’ve got the change, SoCal certainly has the sunlight
I have a 28W solar panel and never thought about this.
I wanna see where this goes.
How many watts do you want to run and at what hours should be your first question.
If you want to run the lights at night you need to have enough battery storage. You want portable so lithium would be your only option. You looking at thousands of dollars in equipment.
Hi guys. I live in a camper in the middle of my farmland. Soon after I set the camper up, I realized how much money it would cost to get hooked up to the grid so I began making my own solar equipment. So I have some “Hands on experience”. Your batteries are the weak link. They are the biggest expense and MUST be replaced every 3-5 years. I suggest you buy Lifepo4 batteries. They are tough and after 5 years can still provide 80% of their rated charge potential. You can make your own solar panels by buying dicounted cells and placing them between 2 pieces of glass ( recycled skylights). Get aluminum backed cells because they are more forgiving. Silicone cells are thin and fragile. They are too fragile to work with. Regardless, You will never be able to run anything bigger than a 30 watt led light. You can look into the “solatube” (skylight type setup). Do lots of research and dont buy anything until you are ABSOLUTELY sure that will fit your needs. I hope this helps. 
Honestly im still waiting on a Californian to use thier Tesla to power a grow room to pay for itself.Waste not want not
curious as to why. i know things that pull more than 30w can be powered by solar, my daughter has done it. not an led grow light but hair dryers and coffee pots pull a lot of power.
To power a grow light that is on for at least 12 hours requires a large (stable) source of electricity. A hair dryer or coffee pot draws a lot but only for a limited period of time. You can use a large light but you will need a larger battery bank and more solar panels. That would not be portable.
got it. no, it wasn’t portable at all.
I doubt we’re many years from being able to achieve this affordably.
We are grid tied (unfortunately), the battery costs are too much for us.
But the benefit is still there with running lights during the day (for us).
Haven’t been counting watts on everything but the monthly bill tells the story.
If you are tied to the grid, look into “net-metering”. When you are generating electricity but not using any, your electric meter spins backward. Therefore, your bill is lower at the end of the month.
somewhat trans-portable…
I was going to say solar useless unless you have lots of sheets
But…
Holy hell 925.00
I pay 75-150 depending on weather.
Shit yes, 925 bucks I could build a set up that run
2 Mars 600s for that.
How much yall make an hour?
Like 100 or something
I mean 900 bucks
That’s 3x my house rent.
Gruesome Newsome sucks
This seems like a cheaper alternative.
Lol…remember back in the day when folks would just tap into the power before it hit their meters. Ah, yes…the good ol days
Sorry I’ve been MIA, but I thought I would add my experience here…
I have a Bluetti ACMAX and I have solar panels attached. The Generator is indoors, powering my office and 1 grow room. During the summer I keep it on solar power almost full time. During the winter, especially right now, I have the generator charging from the grid during low cost times, then running entirely off the gen during lights on and work day.
I also have a Vtoman generator that I keep charged as well, which runs a smaller tent.
I could probably have it run permanently via solar with the panels I have, but until I upgrade my panel locations I will keep it this way.
