Tag: Preparedness and Resiliency
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The Most Important Prep For Survival? Water Storage and Purification Alone is not enough…
There is one resource any Survivalist or Preparedness oriented person should be an expert on first and foremost. You must have skills in retrieving, storing and processing it – or all the rest of your preps simply don’t matter! Having the right mindset is still top of the list, yet everything still depends on this…
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14 Watts Can Do WHAT? Getting smarter about solar power, efficiency and high-tech survival
Hi folks, most survivalists know how much food & water they need to survive “X days” in the jungle”. That’s because they are smart and take time to think things through! But have you ever wondered, how many slices of toast can that 12-volt 10 amp-hour lithium battery make?? Note: this article is about an…
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Mini Peltier Freezer Powered by Solar – solid state refrigeration prototype (plus video)
For the longest time, I’ve been fascinated by those small Peltier based fridges and coolers for sale on the internet. They generally drop the temp to something pretty “cool” but they often fall short of an actual “refrigerator”, let alone freezer. (Video of my test freezer – article continues below) What I’d really like to…
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How Many SOLAR Watt-Hours does it take to cook? (Documented Experiment plus Video)
Kitchen-Grade 12 Volt Cooking Appliances are an untapped industry in my opinion. There is a pressing need all over the world for simple, durable and affordable 12v cooking appliances, but most of the ones available are not designed for the rigors of daily use. After years of searching for alternatives, I could not really find…
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Insulated Solar Electric Cooker – simple DIY! affordable off the shelf option plus video
An insulated solar electric cooker, sometimes referred to as “ISEC” is an insulated container that takes a direct solar panel input to cook food. These appliances are generally a DIY project and not something available off the shelf. A good example is my small solar electric cooker which I used to boil an egg with…
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Pure 12V Off Grid Cooking With a 200AH LiFePo4 Battery! Article and video
A larger 12v lithium ion battery offers a renewable energy source for cooking. In fact, such a good sized battery can replace the fuel tank typically used for cooking in some scenarios. Recently I received a sample of Power Queen’s 200ah deep cycle LiFePo4 battery. I put it to the test by simultaneously operating three…
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Pecron E600 LFP – solar generator endurance test and review
A solar generator is a great way for people who are new to solar power to get started without much effort. Just plug in the solar panels and go. Over past years I have collected, purchased and repaired over 40 solar generators and portable power stations of various kinds – definitely enough to experience their…
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Building a Solar Powered Ryobi 18v Battery Supercharger x3 – Project Overview plus DIY video
If there’s one thing that has changed DIY over the past few years, it’s cordless lithium ion powered tools. I use a lot of Ryobi 18v batteries to run tools and have become addicted to their flexibility and affordability. But the charger usually is plugged into an AC outlet. Why not simply plug a solar…
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12V Toaster Oven! Build your own for about $25 DIY / HOW TO Video
12 volt toaster ovens should be very cheap and readily available – the world needs them. I’ve been working on a 12v DIY volt toaster oven prototype project for over a year in the solar workshop. Wouldn’t it be great if the DIY solar power enthusiast could build a portable 12 volt toaster oven in…
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Direct Solar Electric Cooking vs. traditional methods – A Grid Down Scenario
It’s happened, The Grid Is Down. Roads are closed. No gas stations are open. Nothing works. Electrical power and communications are gone. Chaos is slowly breaking out. But the Off Gridder feels fairly secure; solar panels on the roof, 20kw of batteries, a wondrous integrated inverter with bluetooth, MPPT charger all crammed into one giant…
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My 12 Volt Hotplate Cooktop Prototype – Cooking without an inverter
This project has the goal of the total conversion of a portable kitchen cooktop / hot plate to pure 12 volts DC operation – NO inverter! Second is to show and demonstrate that such an appliance should exist. I believe this type of 12 volt appliance should be common and affordable. With a 12 volt…
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20 Watt Solar Panel Boils an Egg! My ultra efficient solar electric cooker prototype (Video Added)
Cooking food with only 10 watts of solar power sounds unattainable – but it’s not. This was recently proved in my solar workshop. I used a combination of an insulated food container with a diode chain solid state heating element to efficiently extract heat from a solar panel. The result is an ultra efficient mini…
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Tiny 12V LiFePo4 Lithium Solar Powered Kitchen Setup – Emergency Preparedness Test
Cooking food from smaller solar power systems has always been one of my key interests. High tech survival and emergency preparedness too. But cooking with standard kitchen appliances often seems out of reach due to the high power draw required. And many people do not have large batteries and inverters to do the task. The…
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Solar PV Solid-State heating elements (Diode Strings) explained
This post is mainly to address the lack of understanding about solar powered (PV-to-Load) solid-state heating elements – also called a diode string or chain. The Part 2 video presentation and this blog post should help fill in the blanks. The video itself is also posted here on this page. Watching Part 1 is also…
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Solar PV DC Home Heating PART 3 – engineering and safety devices
PART 1 AND PART 2 | Solar PV DC Heating for Beginners This blog post is a continuation of my Solar Electric Space Heating series. Since 2022 I have been converting commodity AC space heaters to direct Solar PV DC operation. This follow-up blog post has links to all of my video presentations on this…
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Boiling an Egg with a 100 Watt Solar Panel – Simple Solar Electric Cooking
What can a 100 Watt solar panel actually do? Well, it can boil an egg pretty easily. There are a lot of complicated and expensive ways to cook off of solar. But this is not one of them. One of my favorite ways to use a small solar panel to cook is to simply plug…
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My Portable Solar Electric Toaster Oven prototype – cooking without batteries!
Hi folks, hope you’re doing well. In what is possibly a first, I am unveiling a new prototype invention – a mini PV solar electric toaster oven. It is lightweight, portable and I think would be fairly cheap to produce. It easily bakes or roasts bread, meat, vegetables and whatever else – all day using…
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18V tool battery bakes bread! My Mini Oven prototype part 2
Is it possible to bake bread using an 18V Power Tool Battery? Recently, I set out to answer this question. In the back yard I set up a table and connected my mini solar electric PV2L oven to a Ryobi 18V power tool battery with alligator clips. After a few adjustments and a short wait,…
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