Bluetti 300 elite

[Chiefster23]

Most here have seen my posts about my small honda generators and my 1200 watt solar panel system. I’m a junkie for backup power. Lately I’ve been watching youtube videos about folks with small off grid cabins. Almost all have a small genny coupled with a newer battery power station. This setup makes sense. Charge up your power station with the gas genny as needed but supply most routine power with the power station. This keeps you from running the generator continuously even when power needs are low. Saving gas and wear on the genny. The power station can keep the lights on and small stuff powered a long time before requiring a recharge. And quietly too, which might be important in lawless situations where criminals are looking to steal your generators. I got a Bluetti Elite 300 with a solar panel array to play with to test out this type of operation. I’m pretty confident that power outages are in our future one way or another. I’ve been saving credit card reward points since forever thinking I would use them for a new gun. Instead I used them on this new toy.

Just this week I discovered that the largest data center in PA is being constructed in the next county over. And PJM (our grid operator) is screaming about zero generating reserves and is already operating in emergency mode this week due to the heat dome. Yep! Blackouts are definately coming our way. Oh, and don’t forget Russian, Chinese, and Muslims hackers are just itching to take us down. A new gun would be nice but this may prove infinitely more useful.

[Texas PO]

These data centers not only demand huge amounts of energy but water as well. I keep hearing the first to AI dominance wins, what about those who lose power and water? Well, Maybe AI can figure it out.

[MoreAmmoOK]

AI... garbage in, garbage out. AI only knows what it is fed or what it can find. Doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction. It will be a long time before a machine can know the difference on it's own.
There are already internet sites that post garbage to purposely mislead AI.
There is a big difference between being able to regurgitate found date and being able to discern fact from fiction.

[Inor]

👍

Post of the year right there boys and girls! AI is great but it doesn't "think". It regurgitates what someone else wrote (maybe in different words but the same exact concept). Since at least 40% of the internet is now written by AI... And the newest models are being trained on that data... What do you think is going to happen?

[T-Man 1066]

I got a really dumb idea, but why not build the data centers in space? Its cold there, so no water needed for cooling. Put all the solar panels you want or need on it, sun shines 24 hrs a day in space. Then we don't consume our power and water.

Just a dumb white guy thinkin out loud...

[Chiefster23]

I’ve been testing this power station out a bit. It can power my freezer no problem but only for about a half day before the battery would be dead. The 350 watt solar panel I paired with this thing only produces about 270 watts max and at that rate you couldn’t recharge this thing in one day. So, I think this thing would probably be good for running some LED lights, a router, and maybe your laptop. During a winter power outages it could probably run your furnace for a short while until you could get your generator out of the shed, set up, and running. I spent $1300 for this unit and solar panel and at that price I vote that it isn’t worth it. Not enough capability for the money. But for short outages it will be very convenient to just quickly get the lights back on, power up the router, and maybe the TV too. I have it. I’ll find uses for it. But I definitely wouldn’t buy it again.
It has built-in charging ports for everything so it can keep your electronics charged up for a long time.

[Piratesailor]

When it comes to solar and battery I’m not that smart but I know enough to get by and create something. I had a good solar system on my boat that would basically power everything short of the motor.

awhile back I bought ECOFLOW for boondocking. It was a 500w and was good for charging essentials. Next I bought the larger size that’s 1800w. I’ve used both over the last year or so snd they have worked well. I also have a 200w solar panel to charge them

outside of those two, with advice from MG, I utilized two spare 6d batteries, two 300w panels and a 2kw inverter to power two large freezers and a few other things.

The goal was to not run a generator at night and so far it works.

if I had to do it over I would have gotten a 3kw inverter and a much larger ECOFLOW.

when the agm batteries go I’ll upgrade lithium

[Chiefster23]

Yes! Lithium batteries are definitely the way to go. Expensive, but much better technology..

[Piratesailor]

Yes! Lithium batteries are definitely the way to go. Expensive, but much better technology..

Definitely. I upgraded my rv with lithium batteries and it was a game changer