Back in January I purchased a small 5 cubic foot chest freezer/refrigerator from Lowes. Midea, about $150. It worked well from the start and like a dumb-ass I lost the sales receipt . Now the chinese junk won’t hold temperature. Now I experimented powering this thing from my Bluetti power station and that combo works great. The small freezer uses very little power. So this is a big winner in an emergency situation. So now looking to buy a name brand replacement from a local appliance dealer I’ve dealt with for years. GE and Fridgedare make similar models at higher prices. But upon close inspection it looks like they are all clones coming from the same chinese factory, just with different price points and badging. More chinese junk! But I will buy the replacement from the local guy as he will service anything he sells. Hopefully the new unit will work and be reliable. I really like the idea of being usable as either a fridge or a freezer. And the low power consumption is a real bonus.
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IF I was starting all over, I would dehydrate everything. Meats, fruits, veggies, eggs.
I wouldn't bother with Canning (too much work, equipment, time, mess) or anything that relied on power (freezer, etc).
This choice requires only an unendable supply of water for rehydrating, and a way to cook that uses wood. And I like that.
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That's great you have a local guy! We were looking at 1 of those small freezers at Lowe's last month, mostly just to keep bags of ice in to try and save the meat If we can't get power on in this heat. I don't remember what brand it was, and we may still get one if they have them... But the only place for it is out on the porch, and I don't know how it'll do in 120° heat, even in the 105° shade.
If we ever lose the A/C, it'll be time to head north, If you know what I mean. A person can prep for anything... except when mother nature wants to kill ya. Can't fight that.
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Lowes and home depot have good prices but lousy or non-existent customer support after the sale. I’ve bought most of my appliances from the local dealer all my life. I’ve gladly paid a small premium but it has always paid off in customer service. Dunno why I didn’t do it this time with this small freezer. Brain fart maybe? So now I’m trying to purchase my replacement freezer and the damned things are on backorder. I’m also thinking of an additional 350 watts of solar panels for the new power station , bringing that up to 700 watts total. With this crazy world we are living in, I’m thinking blackouts are inevitable. With every news story I keep thinking that things can’t possibly get much worse. Then the next day’s stories prove me wrong!
And your porch heat vs a freezer problem, check out garage ready units. They advertise their designed temperature operating range and I think your would be ok at 105 degrees.Comment
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That's good advice about using a local dealer. Thanks!
And best of luck with all of your solar, truly. I used to be such a proponent.... I've just had too many electrical things fail (24v inverter on the mountain, 1800w power station here while running a fan, so we could sleep at night when the power was off) that inherently I just don't trust them anymore for critical uses.Comment
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Still battling and losing. The power company recently made a final decision that none of the equipment ( including what is already installed ) can ever be installed because they are enforcing a version of the electrical code that is newer than what is the legal code level in Wisconsin. I am obviously not removing what is already installed ( the smart switch and the battery units ). My next and probably last move is to appeal to Anker to provide me with their newer generation of equipment as a straight up trade since the stuff I bought has been deemed unfit for the purpose. Their new generation has the UL certs the power company is requiring and even if they give me the hardware I will be out thousands of dollars in removal/installation/engineering costs.Comment
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I have zero complaints about the operation of the system. It flips to battery so fast my Teams calls don't even hiccup and no one realizes we have switched to battery power. Where they fall down is they have no in USA sales/support channel. -
I will give Anker a thumbs up if you have a technical question about the system itself. They only have email support, but they are pretty quick to answer and the ones I have dealt with on questions purely about the system itself have been good. A "can it do this" or "how to I change the configuration to do that" type question has been zero problem. Everything went wrong with once it came to "does this meet code for installation" and "permits have been denied - can you help us work past the problem". They obviously said everything was code compliant on the sales side. We had one point where the actual operation of the system would have been fine with a particular complaint the power company had, but the technical documentation did not clearly state how the feature operated. Tech support confirmed in an email how it operated, but the power company wanted an "official" technical document. Would Anker generate even a one page "official" tech document to help out? Nope. I'm sure the reviewers will come across that one when they comb through all of the correspondence with my case.
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It seems I may have beaten the first floor dungeon boss with Anker. I broke through tech support and my case has been sent to another as yet unnamed team that is reviewing all of the correspondence from me and my solar installation company. Not sure it will pan out into anything, but the whole quest was one more "sorry" email from stone dead so I'll take the minor victory.Comment
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My brain is fried from watching YouTubes; PO's is hanging on by a thread, lol.
We're looking for a somewhat portable solar battery or power station to run a small window A/C 6hrs (overnight) that will be fully charged back up during the day from the gen. Max spend: $3,000.
Here's the A/C specs:
115V, 60Hz, 9.3A, BTU-10,100 Watts- 920
Motor: FLA 1.20A, 1/9hp
Compressor: RLA 6.4A
We've looked at Anker, Jackery, Bluetti, Pecron and a gazillion others. Rather than a big honking unit like a Delta Flow, we're leaning towards a smaller unit with add-on batteries... cause we'll be taking it with us if we ever have to leave TenOaks.
Not asking y'all to research it , but if something comes to mind that may work for us, please shout it out. Thanks!
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Just to add on to what MG said. We have settled on a mid range unit to be a supplemental to the gen sets we already have rather then a whole house solution. Once we install the soft start on the AC unit our big generator will run the AC and that was a concern. We would like the Solar gen to run the Window AC unit as an emergency back up and short term outages. There is a dizzying array of choices when it comes to these battery back up systems.
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787Comment
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I would stay away from Jackery and Bluetti (hearing quality control issues with Bluetti lately). Your scenario sounds like a good match the Anker F3800 Plus ( that "Plus" is important ). It is super portable having wheels integrated and a dolly style pop handle. The base unit is 3840Wh so I don't think it alone would hit your run time duration without an expansion battery ( maybe 3-4 hours on just the base unit ). It can recharge off of solar or generator ( there is a brick you probably need if you use a non-inverter generator ). Expansion batteries are expensive, but are plug and play and just stack on top of the base unit. You can order directly from Anker, but if you are a veteran you can order through Home Depot at the same prices and get the 10% veteran discount. Fully kitted out with probably two solar panels and one expansion battery I don't think it will fit under your spending cap - that expansion battery is fairly expensive although you can add that later if you like the system.
The units I have are the older version - the original F3800 and they perform extremely well.
Buy Anker SOLlX F3800 Plus Portable Power Station - Anker SOLIX US
Anker SOLIX F3800 Runtime Calculator | WattRunTime.com
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I need to make one minor correction - thinking about it some more I believe it was EcoFlow that was having the recent quality control issues, not Bluetti. I didn't pay too much attention since I'm on an Anker platform. Apologies.Comment
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Do you have any thoughts about Pecron? I'm looking at their e3600lfp with a couple of expansion batteries, which would give us around 8.5-9kwh, for around $2800.
I've also learned/realized our window A/C is a Beast.
It does the job, but gawd it sucks the juice.
Really appreciating your input.
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I may be getting too chatty on this topic, but another though occurred to me. If you are looking for something to be able to take with you the amount of weight you have to lift into a truck or car might be a factor. That F3800 Plus is a chunky boy at about 136 lbs. I remembered they have a smaller model that was not of interest to my application, but I took a look at it for your scenario and it might be an even better match.
Anker Solix F3000 with one expansion battery and one solar panel would meet your wattage/run time, have that same roller suitcase type movement, cut the base unit weight down to 91 lbs if you have to lift it into a vehicle, and would drop under your spend limit. Going with two solar panels is showing $3,200 right now. If you can do the Home Depot veteran discount you might squeak in under $3k.
I have no experience with that series of device, but is sure looks like it shares a lot of DNA with the F3800 series. Also comes with a weird little device letting you use the solar input during normal power operations to reduce your electrical consumption from the grid. I think that's just a little bit sketchy, but the theory is sound.
Anker SOLIX F3000 Portable Power Station (UL9540 Certificated) - Anker SOLIX USComment
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