What I'm learning about the power being off.

I got some of these after watching a bloke do a review on them.
www.ebay.com.au/itm/8X-Solar-Powered-3-LED-Fence-Gutter-Light-Outdoor-Garden-Pathway-Security-Lamp-/201088910018?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item2ed1d542c2
I just cliped them to the fence they charge up everyday and stay alight all night, If the power goes out I just take them off the fence and bring them up stairs. I was going to just charge them then store them but the wife liked them up so I just left them on the fence. They can also be used as a battery charger, they take a AAA size battery.

Paul

Mr Pete - good idea having that drawer ready.

- must keep matches at the ready for candles [I've got them stored away lol]

Cool stuff. I hear you on the maglite, I've got a few tools that 'happen' to be lying around in case I have to adjust some nut in the middle of the night.

Don't ya just hate that, you have a backup and something takes that out

I have 4 generators, all stored in the same place, note to self, separate them.

I'm with you peter in that a good deal of self sufficiency is a good plan. I'm still a few years from that, though I'm working on it, no pump hydroponics don't require much water [self sufficiency in water] with little labor costs and so on and no power. I've grown in the ground for years, this is in addition.

Electricity IS very useful though and I think it has it's place in particular saving time and labor costs so you can spend those resources elsewhere, such as food growing as you say. Most of the parts are cheap and/or last a very long time. Solar panels degrade but very slowly and if not damaged 'physically' ought to last well beyond my years, batteries are an issue for endurance or self sufficiency, though you don't actually need them if you're willing to only work whilst you're making the power. Besides you can run a generator with a heavy weight and pulleys for a time, using inertia as your battery storage, or spin a fan as a wind/water turbine. Brush-less electric motors tend to wear out the bearings before the motor [if they're not over worked] and are replaceable. I get that in our modern world we're gluttons for energy, we throw away lots, I'm here online wasting electrons right now.... or am I? Aren't we talking and sharing ideas across the country, hard to do that without electricity. Here's some things electricity is incredibly useful, even thinking with growing in mind; .

- LED Lighting - will last a very long time and use so little power, whilst not connected with growing as such, to have lighting elsewise means burning valuable resources such as fat or wax which could be better used elsewhere.
- Laptop(s) which store gigantic libraries of information in some cases for free, have so much power these days that you can computate anything we'd ever want to and you can write up spread sheets and track data to get the best out of your growing. Same with keeping inventory and being aware of how much you need to grow, based on previous yields and to immediately see lowered yields at a glance, to see what stores you have and so on. They are SO invaluable and most of that used to be accounted for on paper taking far more time and typically with no where near the accuracy.
- Power tools - saves 'lots' of time in building things as well as lowered needs for skills. For instance you could learn blacksmithing but welding can do most jobs [mostly tool making/repairing] a blacksmith does.
- Electric chainsaw - uses a lot of power but saves a GREAT amount of time cutting things with a hand saw. The chainsaw is just one of those tools that makes a huge difference that I would consider it invaluable.
- Washing machine - Again a lot of power and sure you can use the camping ones that work [kinda] but you do get that women used to work from morning to night washing clothes once a week by hand only 100 years ago. Sure you can stay dirty but then you run into medical problems with hygiene. If I could put electricity into two things, it would be the chainsaw and the washing machine. "My own historical laundry experiences have led me to see the powered washing machine as one of the great bulwarks of women’s liberation, an invention that can sit alongside contraception and the vote.” - Ruth Goodman the women who did the washing in the Victorian Farm TV series [definitely see all of them!]
- CB Radios - communications go hand in hand with security. In a peaceful world then they're probably not required, though might be good to use them like the native people of northern Canada do, as asking the community for something you're after and what you have in trade.
- Entertainment - lifts the spirits and gives people an escape from the day to day without the expertise of years of experience of learning to play instruments. Sure you can read a book etc, though something as R&R in downtime is helpful and has been a part of humanity for a very long time, we do too much these days but there's a reason we seek it, a little is useful and important.
- Grinding - The daily grind is an old adage that refers to the long amount of time it takes to grind grain by hand every day just for enough for one loaf. A bike that has a grinder attached might be a way around that I suppose, though not nearly as simple nor labor saving as the electric grinder
- Pumps - pumping water can be essential for making land more arable, that is allowing irrigation despite water course. Yes with good planning it's possible to avoid most of this and I'm no expert, though it seems very likely a larger self sustainable farm would indeed need water where it's not naturally going, or having to get it from some distance.

Yeah, liking the conversation, take it where you want bud, points of view are invaluable as I could have the wrong focus or might have missed something. 

I'm all for self sufficiency, it's the logical conclusion when you look at resupply of food for prepping and when you look at taking responsibility for your own life.  Plenty of the old Greek/Italian people still live that life to a certain amount, growing, making and preserving.  It also makes sense that society specialize so we get increased efficiencies for instance growing rice or wheat only for yourself is very labor intensive and not perhaps a good use of your time in today's society, though of course post SHTF it might just be, I own a scythe at least, it's a start

I guess the point I was making is that whilst you would want to be 'able' to take care of things without power, you don't have to live without energy, though sure you'd have be careful about where you use it. Some points below; 

- Solar panels have been around for about 40 years and are still putting out 80% of their capacity. We're still working on how long they last but it's probably for a very long time if not physically damaged.
- NiFe Batteries can last 50 years [perhaps more] if maintained and can be maintained with lye [potassium hydroxide] which you can make from woodash and only every decade or so. You don't even need a charge controller for them, so you can hook up the panels directly to them, only needing wire [lasts effectively forever]. Their lack of popularity makes them expensive but to my mind they're the best batteries for long term solar.

So using just these 2 components [and a little wire that lasts forever and is everywhere right now, so easy to get more] we have a power source and storage capacity for probably past my death and probably more.  Coupled with that an inverter [and lots of spare ones to be sure] we have a basic home grid that will last for quite a while.  Even if we lost all of the inverters, replacing the motors in washing machines and power tools for 12V DC electric equivalents or pre doing this would allow us to simplify things.  If the electrics in the automatic washing machine die, hooking up just the motor with a switch would at least give some utility, though again, we can get one of the now junk washing machines that every house had.  Electric motors do wear out, just not quickly typically neither do electronics. 

We could even use an electric motor to winch up a weight or pump water up higher and use that stored energy as a battery of sorts, allowing the weight to move the winch the opposite way or using the stored water to drive a turbine.  Not very efficient but it's still a battery. 

I'm not in that place, NiFe batteries are prohibitively expensive at least on the small scale of testing purposes and in particular you can pick up used AGM batteries from back up power grids that go for pretty decent prices, have had little use and almost never discharged so increasing life dramatically.   Panels I'm still working on, though again, I'm looking small scale at this stage.  You don't need a lot of power, though having some is incredibly useful.  Even if you could charge a laptop once a week for a few hours, those few hours would be very handy to put in data for spreadsheets of growth patterns and yields, coupled with a printer you could print up newsletters/booklets to help your neighbors and access a giant libary of information.  I've got a 10W panel I've got for hiking that can charge AA's, has a USB port for power for phones [mini computers] which has a good amount of power [25Wh] even during winter, enough to charge 3-4 phones/day, 65W during summer.  There's software that allows the phones to be used in a line of sight fashion without towers [Ive got it installed and can send it to any phone], again quite useful and ubiquitous.   You could even offer a charging service.  Power to me isn't about throwing it around on one person watching a movie, but perhaps it would be useful if a whole street were to have a movie night. 

Sure, to be able to go without, we don't need it to survive necessarily, but it's sure going to make a difference in us thriving.  The old BBC series 'Survivors' from the 70s [worth a watch!] illustrates this, getting the power on [of some sort] making a big difference in what they could do and how they could move forward. 

Yeah, the NiFe looks like a decent option for preppers.  Large starting expenditure though. 

I like doing spreadsheets and calculations as it illustrates clearly some factors.  First one is that in terms of usable power [Ah] NiFe is about 3 times the cost or basic AGM cells and the lifetime costs are better.  Of course I haven't really got a full spread of pricing here, haven't included other options such as NiCad, Gel or even the newer batteries LiFe and I would do so before purchasing though it's a start.  If it's for prepping, then clearly the longest lasting batteries are the way to go.  If it's for your standard off grid and with battery technology being having a significant amount of research being done and hope to become commercially viable such as graphene batteries [nano], or perhaps super capacitors which will most likely supplant batteries at some point, then it might be better to use AGM.

I favor currently favoring AGM from back up power as they were almost never used [perhaps doing a few 10% discharge cycles in a decade] and their life is mostly gauged by storage temperature.  If they're in 35 degrees, they will last less than a decade, if 15, potentially 30 years.  Most such power supplies are kept in the best conditions including temperature, are usually good quality to be begin with.  That is will probably last a while and they will die according to a bell curve, that is mostly all at one point and a few either side of that point.  Where that point is, is completely unknown, though it's easy to pull out a single battery on 12V or a pair of them on 24V.

Graynomad, the cost of nickel is about $15/kg and iron really cheap. Some people have written about making your own NiFe battery's and it's tempting at least on the small scale which suits my mad scientist personality ....muahahahahahaha Having said that I'm not exactly thrilled by the prospect of taking this to a full sized battery [which would be the point] since I've not seen anything bigger than a beaker on the web.

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I didn't really show the costings of ultracapacitors which with the right electronics could work great and will in effect last forever, can be charged incredibly quickly and you can use all of their charge without any damage what so ever. Downside is price and the number you need. You need 500f x3200 for the equivalent of a 100Ah at about 12V [they work differently to batteries but approx]. The best price I have found would cost you ... $21,500 ... you can pick up 2 used AGM battery of 100Ah [similar usable capacity] for about $140. .


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Another option I just ran into is fork lift batteries.  Accordingly off-grid people have been talking about getting up to 20 years on them [not proof but worth noting] and you can pick up used ones like one on ebay going from $300 [no bids] to $600 for 546Ah at 24V.  This gives you 6500Wh of usable power, that's charging your phone about 620times or running your laptop for 200 hrs or 60 loads of washing.  Once they die if it's post SHTF, you've got half a ton of lead for bullets

The life at least from off-grid forums seems to be 5-10 years of these used batteries of ok quality [check!] and if look at the above for a comparison the end row shows Cost/year/usable Ah and for these guys at $300, it's 2.7-5.4c/year/Ah.  Hopefully you can pull out the individual cells as it would be a pain to move them if you couldn't.  Their life would be longer if they're hardly used and kept charged.  [car charger on a timer]  

Yeah sure and where have I stated or implied otherwise?   The new people that come here are being told the right priorities anyhow, water and food storage followed by water and food replenishment.  Then we might look into security and move up the scale of importance.  Not sure how electricity isn't eventually on people's lists?  

Sure, your experience is you haven't needed your own grid to be able to survive.  I would agree.  It's only about enhancing a situation, much like having fuel for a chainsaw would be.  It's not like other topics aren't valid to discussion?  You don't need candles or torches either to survive.  They're handy though. 


Sure.  I have my brain I store plenty in that with experience and learning, my books have info on some things I might have forgotten and I have more books and videos on prepper info than I have in any physical library, probably on the planet.  It's a scale of things, I can muddle through with my brain, look at some info in books I own and look at gigantic libraries on my computer with 20 titles and tons of videos if I wish.

Have you tried cutting firewood without a chainsaw?  With some electricity, you get a chainsaw to your work and cut it up in no time.  In terms of work load at harvest and cultivation, the job would take more than one person without a tractor or horse.  As has been shown in history.  Then there's grinding grain, from where the term 'the daily grind' comes from in which it took a good chunk of the day to make enough flour just for tomorrows loaf.  What about building things, power tools are so incredibly helpful for time saving, time you could then spend in the field.  I could go on with a litany of tasks our forefathers did that were shortened.  Some electricity? 


Depends on how you're thinking.  If you want to live like we do now, then it's going to cost a zillion dollars.  Compare that with the $600 for a balanced years supplied of food.  You can spend a few hundred instead and have a system that you use infrequently but for jobs that are worth doing and for things that will save you great time.  The big expense is batteries and you can dispense with them if you like.   Panels are only $1/W these days, so whilst that first $$ might go towards food and then security, then spending some on power might be a good plan.   

Do you actually need hot water, wood and gas to survive?  The answer is no if you have shelter at least in most of Australia.  Even in most of sunny Victoria, there's not one part of the year to which some clothes/rugs couldn't keep me going just fine.  Same with food, apes [we are] don't cook food, we hardly need to either, though it's more palatable and potentially safer [water] if you have no other means of making it safe .   To which I'll suggest that they improve your living situation and hygiene and comfort.  You don't need electricity either to survive.  It adds to your situation as I've already laid out.  To which I will suggest your argument merely points out your preference and I've not disagreed, firewood is important.  As I've already pointed out, you've probably not got a sustainable way of collecting that firewood, at least in a way that is efficient of time.

How can you suggest that solar power is not sustainable?  The first solar panels from the 70s are still going strong at 80% of their initial output, which means that they'll last 40+ years.  I get that most people don't understand that you can run solar without the batteries just fine, just not as usuable it just needs some kind of regulation for most electronics, to which a $10 part can do that, buy a few to be sure.  If you know a few basic things about electronics you can make one very simply, though less efficient with parts costing only about $0.50, if you buy 100 of each of them, you'll have regulation for about 2000 years.

So whilst I agree that food and water are of great importance, far more so than electricity, it's been well covered in lots of posts and I'm sure will continue to be so, by both myself and many others on this forum.  To my mind, it seems quite erroneous to this discussion.  I do also see that discussions of other topics are an enhancement to one's situation and in particular I hope I have shown that solar power IS very sustainable.