Harbor Freight sells a 75 watt solar panel, a surge power inverter, and deep charge batteries. But no one there can tell me how to put it all together. I want the end output to be a simple power bar that I can plug my devices into. I live in an apartment so I can not wire it directly into the grid. Please only serious responses. Don't waste your time and mine.
i wouldn't. - harbor freight isn't known for the best quality stuff. - 75 watts assumes roof mounting, at 90 degrees to the sun, on a bright day. you're going to get considerably less. and only when the sun is highest in the sky. maybe you should look at, your computer, for example. if you're using it for 4 hours, and it has a 500 watt power supply, and you add 200-500 watts for the monitor, and some for the printer, modem, etc, you'd use 5kw that day. your 75 watt panel, generating maybe 50 watts at most, for maybe 4 hours when the sun was highest, and shining directly on the panel, would generate 200 watt hours. it would take 25 days to generate the electricity you'd use in single day. in the winter, you'd be pretty much out of luck. there just isn't enough bright sun. clearly, it's up to you, but there's a harbor freight near me, and i'll not be rushing out to get such a system. further, most appliances are quite voltage sensitive. you really do need to have the voltage in the 0-20 range. too much out, either higher or lower, will shorten the life of appliances at best.
Solar Panel through charge controller to battery, battery to inverter, inverter to devices. a 75 watt panel would be enough to trickle charge a battery that is NOT being used to keep it at full charge. The average home requires 4000 watts MINIMUM. This would require MANY, LARGER panels, charge controller, a battery stack, and at least LARGER inverter (preferably 2, 2000 watt inverters, unless you want to REALLY get expensive!)
I don't have direct experience with the Harbor Freight panels, but have heard that they are agressively rated - i.e., the three 5-watt panels are really 5-watt panels. The 80-watt panel is likely to be a serious panel, rated according to standard test conditions. It will also be more durable, and probably have a warranty of 20 years or more. There's really no comparison. If your goal is to experiment with solar electricity, then get the kit from Harbor Freight (or Northern Tool, or any of a handful of other places). If your goal is to save money, generally you will need a larger scale than 80 watts - several thousand watts being the norm. And the payback time will be measured in years.
I would not buy Harbor Freights Chinese made Solar kits-I tried one and don't think it produces enough power to run a flashlite
