Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Robert Evans, and
Speaker 2: this is a podcast about things falling apart. This week,
Speaker 2: the thing falling apart was my bedroom. Allow me to
Speaker 2: explain three years or so ago, I was finally able
Speaker 2: to buy a house, or at least you get a mortgage.
Speaker 2: This allowed me to achieve a very stupid lifelong dream,
Speaker 2: which was to finally own a waterbed. I know you're
Speaker 2: wondering what all of this has to do with solar power,
Speaker 2: and I swear there will be an answer to that question.
Speaker 2: I also want to make it clear upfront that this
Speaker 2: is not an ad. Some of the equipment I tested
Speaker 2: was provided for free as review units, some of it
Speaker 2: was purchased with my own money and some with company money.
Speaker 2: I'll try to make it pretty clear at each point,
Speaker 2: but I promise it doesn't matter ari my opinions on
Speaker 2: any specific product. No one paid us in any way
Speaker 2: for their inclusion in this episode. Anyway, back to my
Speaker 2: stupid waterbed. The first thing to know about waterbeds is
Speaker 2: that they are surprisingly cheap. They cost about as much
Speaker 2: as an equivalent sized mattress. Knew, so not cheap, But
Speaker 2: the one I bought cost the same as any delivery
Speaker 2: mattress sold for, and cheaper than some of them. The
Speaker 2: reason that most people can't afford a waterbed isn't the
Speaker 2: actual cost of the bed itself. It's that landlords are
Speaker 2: terrified of the things, and so you can't get one
Speaker 2: if you don't own your own home. In case you're curious,
Speaker 2: my desire to own a waterbed is entirely the result
Speaker 2: of the fact that, as a small child, my aunt
Speaker 2: and uncle fell upon hard times and had to live
Speaker 2: with us for a while. Then for another while they
Speaker 2: lived elsewhere, but their stuff stayed with us. That stuff
Speaker 2: included a waterbed, and for a few glorious months it
Speaker 2: was my waterbed. I have craved the insane high of
Speaker 2: waterbed ownership ever since. For three perfect years. Then I
Speaker 2: slept in wavy comfort until about two days before I
Speaker 2: wrote this episode, my bed sprang a pinhole leak. I
Speaker 2: don't know how you might guess a cat, but the
Speaker 2: actual bladder that contains the water is inside and underneath
Speaker 2: a very thick, padded frame that cat claws can't really puncture.
Speaker 2: I should also know that the bladder sits inside a
Speaker 2: vinyl sort of soft cage, so that when it sprang
Speaker 2: a leak, it got some of my sheets wet, but
Speaker 2: it did not cause damage to my home anyway. Because
Speaker 2: waterbeds are the kind of product that only an insane
Speaker 2: manchild would dare to own, fixing a hole in one
Speaker 2: is not the same as performing maintenance on your regular mattress,
Speaker 2: because the kinds of beds that reasonable people own don't
Speaker 2: spring leaks. To patch the leak, then I had to
Speaker 2: purchase a patch kit. But you can't apply a patch
Speaker 2: kit to what is effectively a soft bladder filled with
Speaker 2: roughly a metric ton of water. I did do the
Speaker 2: bare minimum of research here, and king size waterbeds weigh
Speaker 2: around two thousand pounds. Now that's not all water weight,
Speaker 2: but it is basically all water weight. I bring this
Speaker 2: up because I'm proud of myself for guessing right. So
Speaker 2: to apply the patch we had to first drain the bed,
Speaker 2: which necessitated attaching a hose to one of the spigots
Speaker 2: through which we had originally filled the bed. Because of
Speaker 2: the layout of my home and the ground outside of
Speaker 2: the window where we intended to pour the water, we
Speaker 2: couldn't get the hosts started without assistance. The kind of
Speaker 2: assistance that you would say, need to suck gasoline free
Speaker 2: if a stranger's truck were you hard up for fuel money. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: my roommate had a wetback which we were able to
Speaker 2: hook up to the hose, but how to power the
Speaker 2: wet back well. We could have run an extra long
Speaker 2: extension cord, but mine were all in use for various
Speaker 2: insane projects around the farm, and instead I opted to
Speaker 2: wheel out the solar generator that I had filled with
Speaker 2: the beneficence of the sun God Raw just a couple
Speaker 2: of days earlier. The generator was one of two similar
Speaker 2: products I tested for this episode, a Jackery SG two
Speaker 2: thousand plus, which had been sent to me by the
Speaker 2: good people at Jackery in previous weeks. I'd tested it
Speaker 2: by powering my deep freeze and a refrigerator, and in
Speaker 2: case you're wondering, with the panels outside in the sun,
Speaker 2: I got a little over a day before things ran
Speaker 2: dry on my refrigerator. If I'd had the panels in
Speaker 2: a better position, I could have had longer and the
Speaker 2: deep freeze it would have been able to power essentially indefinitely,
Speaker 2: because deep freezes are actually insanely efficient machines. I also
Speaker 2: used it to run a heat gun for my friend's
Speaker 2: art project, which is about as intense a test of
Speaker 2: output as you can run a battery through short of
Speaker 2: powering your home, and it handles that. In terms of specs,
Speaker 2: this battery is part of a more modular system that
Speaker 2: you could wire into power your home or off grid setup.
Speaker 2: You can actually attach this to your breaker. It has
Speaker 2: a maximum output of six thousand watts in parallel connection
Speaker 2: and one twenty to two forty expandable voltage. For a
Speaker 2: rough idea of what that means, it can power most
Speaker 2: household electronics and even power tools for a while. You'd
Speaker 2: get about one and a half hours of running a
Speaker 2: home AC unit, and more like two two and a half.
Speaker 2: You know, with a portable unit or a window unit.
Speaker 2: You could charge this thing too full in two hours
Speaker 2: with good sunlight if you had six two hundred watt
Speaker 2: panels attached in perfect sunlight, which is another three thousand
Speaker 2: or so dollars in panels. But that's not an insignificant
Speaker 2: thing to be able to do, mind you, that would
Speaker 2: mean just running your race most of the day and
Speaker 2: nothing else. Of these are cheap products in Jackery's case,
Speaker 2: the battery itself runs about two thousand dollars. I understand
Speaker 2: that's out of reach, perhaps wildly so for a lot
Speaker 2: of people. We will be talking about cheaper options at
Speaker 2: the end, but it is an unavoidable fact that unless
Speaker 2: you are a skilled electrician and scavenger, setting up substantial
Speaker 2: solar systems costs money period. Jackery actually represents one of
Speaker 2: the more affordable options for a plug and play home
Speaker 2: backup system that is also portable, i e. Can be
Speaker 2: taken camping or hauled away with your shit during an evacuation.
Speaker 2: I should note that you can connect the Jackery SG
Speaker 2: two thousand plus directly to your breaker, and also connect
Speaker 2: the battery to other similar Jackery battery generators to g
Speaker 2: additional capacity and output from it. I tested another solar
Speaker 2: generator system for this episode, the Genniverse Home Power O two,
Speaker 2: which was provided to me by Genniverse. Both the Genniverse
Speaker 2: and Jackery systems are similar enough that they can use
Speaker 2: each other's solar panels and operate in basically the same manner.
Speaker 2: This product is cheaper. Other reviews I've read suggests the
Speaker 2: Genier system might be more robust, lasting longer, over time.
Speaker 2: It is certainly heavier and thus has a higher capacity
Speaker 2: around twenty four hundred watt hours as opposed to a
Speaker 2: little over two thousand for the Jaggery system. Both of
Speaker 2: these can be the basis of an off grid or
Speaker 2: full backup power system for your home, and we'll be
Speaker 2: talking about home off grid power in future episodes. I
Speaker 2: want to make clear upfront that what I am advising
Speaker 2: you on today is the quality and utility of different
Speaker 2: solar generator battery products for emergency power. So let's talk
Speaker 2: about what emergency means. The primary emergency you might encounter
Speaker 2: that a battery solar setup would help with is a
Speaker 2: power outage at your home. In that case, you have
Speaker 2: a couple of immediate and real needs. I will list
Speaker 2: these from most basic and easy cheapest to fill to
Speaker 2: most expensive and difficult to meet. Number one would be
Speaker 2: to keep your devices and stuff like flashlights that are
Speaker 2: chargeable topped off so you can keep in contact with
Speaker 2: your community and stay aware of breaking news on whatever
Speaker 2: emergency you happen to be in. Being able to entertain
Speaker 2: yourself with books and movies does, in my view, count
Speaker 2: as one purpose for these systems in an emergency because
Speaker 2: morale ain't nothing. Number two is being able to run
Speaker 2: emergency cooling devices, starting with fans and terminating in stuff
Speaker 2: like window AC units or even portable camping AC units.
Speaker 2: Number three is being able to keep a fridge going
Speaker 2: so your food doesn't spoil. If you're prepping for disaster,
Speaker 2: you should have storable food, anything from freeze dried stuff
Speaker 2: to beans and rice, et cetera. But losing all of
Speaker 2: your shit in an outage is expensive and annoying, and
Speaker 2: it's nice to be able to avoid. The most achievable
Speaker 2: of these systems for a person of normal income is
Speaker 2: number one, and if you have disposable income at all,
Speaker 2: you can afford some sort of emergency solar setup to
Speaker 2: keep your phone or laptop and rechargeable lights going. There
Speaker 2: are a wide variety of battery packs that have solar
Speaker 2: panels built into them. I have tried a lot of
Speaker 2: these over the years, and I have never once been
Speaker 2: happy with the quality, either of their ability to charge
Speaker 2: in the sun or to last over time. The system
Speaker 2: that I currently take with me on trips is made
Speaker 2: by a company called Goal zero, who produce a variety
Speaker 2: of solar battery and charger products. I purchase for myself
Speaker 2: a Nomad thirteen solar panel set, which folds into something
Speaker 2: that approximates the size of a trapper keeper set you
Speaker 2: had as a kid in school. I've had this for years.
Speaker 2: I take it with me on every flight as my
Speaker 2: carry on. I have it and two batteries, which are
Speaker 2: different incarnations of Goal zero's Schirpa one hundred on me
Speaker 2: wherever I go. The schrip On one hundred has a
Speaker 2: little three prong outlet you can charge basically any laptop
Speaker 2: on it. You could even do like emergency power for
Speaker 2: a computer. I think with it this and one battery
Speaker 2: would allow me to keep my phone going for emergency
Speaker 2: purposes indefinitely. Two batteries and sharres. I'm able to travel
Speaker 2: with roughly three or four working days of power for
Speaker 2: my laptop and phone wherever I go, and that's without
Speaker 2: me actually trying to recharge them using the panels. You
Speaker 2: can find various years of this battery model on Amazon
Speaker 2: or at other retailers, from two hundred dollars on up.
Speaker 2: The latest model retails for three hundred dollars off Goal
Speaker 2: Zero's website. These batteries are TSA approved, as are the panels.
Speaker 2: I have never had an issue flying with them. Obviously
Speaker 2: in different countries, your experience may vary, but I have
Speaker 2: taken these things to most parts of the world, and
Speaker 2: again I haven't had an issue. They have varying sizes,
Speaker 2: but the Nomad one hundred, which is one hundred watt hours,
Speaker 2: runs about three hundred bucks. So you're looking at five
Speaker 2: or six hundred dollars for this traveling setup, which is
Speaker 2: also great to keep in your home and just have
Speaker 2: less a bit. You know, if you find used versions
Speaker 2: on eBay or wherever, which is often possible, that's not
Speaker 2: an insignificant cost. But if you're building an emergency kit
Speaker 2: over time, most people are capable of bearing that cost. Again,
Speaker 2: over time, you could just start with the battery, which
Speaker 2: is the most initially useful part of the kit, and
Speaker 2: then you could get a panel set six months or
Speaker 2: whatever a year later. And this brings me to what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about quantifiably when I discuss a disaster and
Speaker 2: what you actually need when we're talking about emergency power
Speaker 2: in a disaster. It is uncommon for the average US
Speaker 2: consumer to lose power for more than an hour or
Speaker 2: two at a time. In twenty eighteen, most consumers lost
Speaker 2: less than two hours of power per year without quote
Speaker 2: major events. With major events, that number leaped to six
Speaker 2: hours per person per year on average. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: it was closer to eight. As we deal with more
Speaker 2: climate change, more natural disasters, all of these things are
Speaker 2: going to become inevitably more common. These are also all
Speaker 2: averages of huge numbers of people in huge areas of terrain.
Speaker 2: I will guess that the percentage of people listening to
Speaker 2: this who have as adults lost power for a day
Speaker 2: or more at a time is very close to one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. Now, given the averages, you might consider just
Speaker 2: perching battery power units without solar panels, because in most instances,
Speaker 2: what you're trying to do is ensure that if your
Speaker 2: phone is dead and there's a bad storm and you
Speaker 2: run out of power by the time you get home,
Speaker 2: a two or three hour outage doesn't leave you unable
Speaker 2: to contact your people or emergency services. I have a
Speaker 2: fuckload of different portable batteries because I try to keep
Speaker 2: enough in my work bag wherever I go to function
Speaker 2: in my job for most of a week without power
Speaker 2: when I go on trips. This kind of preparation has
Speaker 2: stood me in good stead in places like Syria, Iraq
Speaker 2: and the desperate wilds of Seattle that one time. But
Speaker 2: if you're not going to such terrifying hellscapes, you can
Speaker 2: probably get a suitable battery that's reasonably tough for under
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars. And we will continue talking about batteries
Speaker 2: and talking about you know, next kind of home solutions
Speaker 2: and eventually cheap solutions. But you know what's not cheap
Speaker 2: is the products and services that support this podcast. Affordable
Speaker 2: but not cheap. Anyway, here's these ads. We're back and
Speaker 2: we're talking about portable batteries, right And my only note
Speaker 2: here is that if you're buying portable batteries, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff not necessarily to run on solar, just to have
Speaker 2: some extra juice with you wherever you'd go to keep
Speaker 2: it home in an emergency. These fluctuate wildly in quality,
Speaker 2: and when it comes to disaster kit, to something that
Speaker 2: you need to work in an emergency, it can be
Speaker 2: worth going with a brand that is a known quantity
Speaker 2: with a long record and a lot of testing done
Speaker 2: on their products, rather than whatever the Amazon algorithm spits
Speaker 2: out when you Google battery. The advantage of a small
Speaker 2: portable folding setup like the one I have from Goal
Speaker 2: zero is that you can take it with you and
Speaker 2: have it on demand if shit happens when you're traveling,
Speaker 2: or if you have to evacuate and it's idiot proof right.
Speaker 2: A good option if you just want something in your
Speaker 2: home to keep your devices topped off is what I'd
Speaker 2: call a large small battery generator. These are a couple
Speaker 2: of steps below products like the Jackery two thousand to
Speaker 2: the Geniverse that I tried, but above the handheld little
Speaker 2: batteries that many of you have already. The two examples
Speaker 2: of this product category that I have and have tested
Speaker 2: are the Yeti four hundred from Goal zero and the
Speaker 2: anchor a n Ker Solix Solix C eight hundred. The
Speaker 2: Yeti four hundred is the product I purchased with my
Speaker 2: own money and what I've taken with me for years
Speaker 2: into the mountains when I go shooting or hunting, usually
Speaker 2: with a set of folding panels. This ensures that if
Speaker 2: my car dies and I've been dumb enough to let
Speaker 2: my jumper box that I keep with me die, I
Speaker 2: have a backup that I can use to charge my
Speaker 2: jumper box. I also have a convenient way to top
Speaker 2: off my phone or my E reader or my SAT phone,
Speaker 2: both for normal use and in an emergency. It handles
Speaker 2: extreme cold and extreme heat well, and that's not always
Speaker 2: something you can take for granted with batteries. Again, kind
Speaker 2: of top of the list is that I am an idiot.
Speaker 2: I don't know much about electricity, and these products are
Speaker 2: pretty idiot proof. When it comes to my YETI four
Speaker 2: hundred or the C eight hundred from Anchor, I keep
Speaker 2: them both plugged into the wall at all times that
Speaker 2: I can grab either for an emergency. Now, the Solix
Speaker 2: C eight hundred that I have was sent to me
Speaker 2: as a review unit by Solix, and by necessity I
Speaker 2: have not been able to subject it to the years
Speaker 2: of rigorous real life testing that my Goal zero YETI
Speaker 2: four hundred has endured. I will note that it is
Speaker 2: well reviewed, and from the exploration I have done on it,
Speaker 2: which does not include years of testing but does include
Speaker 2: a decent amount of reading and some testing, I think
Speaker 2: it's better constructed and more conveniently laid out in the
Speaker 2: Goal zero, and it also gets you about twice the
Speaker 2: storage nearly eight hundred watt hours as opposed to a
Speaker 2: bit over four hundred. Both products cost the same price
Speaker 2: around six hundred dollars, although older generations are often available
Speaker 2: cheaper online. New and used. Either is enough to keep
Speaker 2: a family of Force phones charged for a two or
Speaker 2: three day outage without severe rationing. You can get a
Speaker 2: lot more obviously on the anchor, and you might not
Speaker 2: want to have someone like gaming on an alien Ware
Speaker 2: laptop or whatever with either, but you can charge your
Speaker 2: laptops and the like off of them if you want to,
Speaker 2: like watch a movie at the end of the night,
Speaker 2: you're all huddled together there in the dark. That's not
Speaker 2: going to be something you have to stress out about
Speaker 2: too much. Again, Boncer Solex is going to give you
Speaker 2: a lot more juice to play around with. But either
Speaker 2: should be enough for an average outage if you just
Speaker 2: keep them plugged in. You can also use them to
Speaker 2: power a fan during the day. They will not run
Speaker 2: small AC units. These are worth considering as an intermediate
Speaker 2: option for the more cash prepper. What you're looking for
Speaker 2: here is not a full off rid replacement, but something
Speaker 2: that can provide you with options for more than just
Speaker 2: basic gadget power. With these big, small batteries, you can
Speaker 2: run a fan or fans, maybe not long enough for comfort,
Speaker 2: but in bursts throughout the day to get you through
Speaker 2: the hottest part of the day during a blackout, during
Speaker 2: what we call a wet bulb event, This would be
Speaker 2: the life saving health emergency that a basic solar setup
Speaker 2: would be most useful in saving you from. For context
Speaker 2: in case people aren't up to date, a wet bulb
Speaker 2: event is a weather situation in which the temperature reaches
Speaker 2: a critical level above eighty eight degrees fahrenheit and does
Speaker 2: not drop below that point for an extended period of time.
Speaker 2: If people lack access to effective cooling during heating events
Speaker 2: like this, they will die. We saw one of these
Speaker 2: hit a couple of years ago where I live in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 2: which has been long famed for its mild temperatures and
Speaker 2: thus most homes lack central air. During a three day
Speaker 2: heat wave, temperatures rose to record highs and did not
Speaker 2: drop low enough at night to allow people any recovery time.
Speaker 2: More than one hundred of them died. This kind of
Speaker 2: thing is possible anywhere if you have central air standard
Speaker 2: where you live, the grid can always go down, as
Speaker 2: we've seen happen in Texas over and over again. For
Speaker 2: someone with money, your best bet might be pairing a
Speaker 2: portable air conditioner like the Idea Duo, which ranges from
Speaker 2: five hundred to six hundred dollars on Amazon, with something
Speaker 2: like the Jackery SG two thousand plus, which with panels
Speaker 2: and a good sunlight, would allow you to run it
Speaker 2: during the day at least in a single room. As
Speaker 2: an aside, this is actually a case in which someone
Speaker 2: with a window unit is at more of an advantage
Speaker 2: than someone with central air. You can connect your jaggery
Speaker 2: directly to the breaker, but without expansion batteries, it's not
Speaker 2: going to run a whole home long, so you'd want
Speaker 2: to unplug everything and turn off the lights, running your
Speaker 2: AC in short bursts, and maintaining discipline with your doors
Speaker 2: at windows, ideally putting up foil or at least cardboard
Speaker 2: over the windows to maximize efficiency. If you're just being
Speaker 2: able to run a fan because you've get a smaller unit,
Speaker 2: you're probably looking at something like, you know, getting towels
Speaker 2: and rags well, but putting them over people's chests and
Speaker 2: faces and kind of getting directly under the fan for
Speaker 2: the periods of time that you can afford to run
Speaker 2: it again. We are not talking about the most ideal
Speaker 2: comfort situations here, we are talking survival. The limitations I
Speaker 2: found for are generally twofold. One is that even with
Speaker 2: good sunlight, folding panels like the ones Jackerie and Jennifer's
Speaker 2: ship Me don't always hit their advertised wattage. This is
Speaker 2: because you've got to deal with a lot of other factors,
Speaker 2: the movement of the sun throughout the day, where shadows
Speaker 2: fall on your home or property, your access to the roof,
Speaker 2: how clean the panels are, and under normal use conditions,
Speaker 2: it is surprisingly easy to get stuff on them. On
Speaker 2: a sunny spring day in Oregon, I found my two
Speaker 2: hundred watt Jackery panels tended to get one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty two one hundred and fifty watts during the most
Speaker 2: optimal parts of the day. I was able to plug
Speaker 2: the Jackery panels into the Geniverse generator and vice versa,
Speaker 2: and I found that jackerres panels generally performed ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen percent better during real life conditions. I looked it
Speaker 2: up and on paper, the genniverse has a solar cell
Speaker 2: efficiency or EFF of about twenty three point four percent.
Speaker 2: Jackery beats them by one percent with an the FF
Speaker 2: rating of twenty four point three. That is not enough
Speaker 2: of a difference to matter too much, although I should
Speaker 2: know that what I saw in real life use was
Speaker 2: a notable difference. You may experience something different with these panels,
Speaker 2: with any panels that you get. I can't claim to
Speaker 2: have tested anything but the ones that they shipped me.
Speaker 2: The Jackery Explorer two hundred plus is capable of taking
Speaker 2: fourteen hundred bots of input max, which would be seven
Speaker 2: sets of panels, although from what the manual says, it
Speaker 2: can take up to six Solar Saga eighty panels to
Speaker 2: their two hundred wide panels under normal conditions. You can
Speaker 2: expand all this with added Explorer two thousands running in
Speaker 2: tandem and up to twelve Solar Saga eighties on a
Speaker 2: single generator, but doing that requires some wonky shit with cables,
Speaker 2: and at that point we're talking about a system beyond
Speaker 2: what most people are likely to want or need. When
Speaker 2: it comes to durability, I suspect that both the Jackerie
Speaker 2: and Genniverse are probably close in functioning. Online reviews give
Speaker 2: both systems good user reliability ratings. In real world conditions.
Speaker 2: I had the opportunity to do something that you never
Speaker 2: want to do in real life with the device you'd
Speaker 2: paid for, which was work one of these systems to death.
Speaker 2: It shows the genivers and the torture test I used
Speaker 2: basically involved keeping it outside, charging and providing power at
Speaker 2: a fairly low trickle for twelve days of intermittent rain
Speaker 2: and wind in the Pacific Northwest late winter. We got
Speaker 2: about two inches of rain during this time, and that
Speaker 2: was enough to eventually kill the generator, but it took
Speaker 2: close to two weeks of downright irresponsible treatment. We are
Speaker 2: talking the kind of neglect you would not subject a
Speaker 2: product like this too without no other option. And subsequent
Speaker 2: tests with the Jaggery, I have been able to keep
Speaker 2: it operating outdoors in bad weather without damage through taking
Speaker 2: minimal measures to shield the generator. The least I did
Speaker 2: was stick a plastic home depot crate lid above it
Speaker 2: literally set it down on top of the unit to
Speaker 2: stop water from just hitting the ports on the sides
Speaker 2: and back directly. The most elaborate protective set up outdoors
Speaker 2: was a simple tarp cover and making sure it was
Speaker 2: elevated a bit above the ground when it comes to
Speaker 2: which of these systems would be best for you. The
Speaker 2: primary difference between the Giniverse and the Jackery is that
Speaker 2: the Giniverse is higher capacity twenty four hundred and nineteen
Speaker 2: watt hours as opposed to a little over twenty forty
Speaker 2: two for the Jackery. This means that without input, you
Speaker 2: can run a normal fridge off the Giniverse for about
Speaker 2: six hours, and goodsun you can recharge it fully in
Speaker 2: eight hours with two Geniverse solar powered two panels. The
Speaker 2: Jackery system will recharge in a similar timeframe under optimal
Speaker 2: conditions and give you a bit less usable power. It
Speaker 2: has the benefit of being almost twenty pounds lighter and
Speaker 2: significantly friendlier in design. For reasons that elude explanation, the
Speaker 2: Geniverse lacks a telescoping handle or wheels to help you
Speaker 2: maneuver it into or out of position. This sucks because
Speaker 2: it's heavy, and if it's not wired into your breaker
Speaker 2: and you're using this for an emergency, you might need
Speaker 2: to move it around so that you can have the
Speaker 2: panels in different positions to take advantage of the sun.
Speaker 2: This also makes the Giniverse less useful than the Jackery
Speaker 2: in normal daily life. Tasks. I started this episode with
Speaker 2: a rather ridiculous story about my waterbed, but I've actually
Speaker 2: found quite a few tasks which having a weeelable battery
Speaker 2: capable of this kind of output is handy. Basically, any
Speaker 2: power tool that you are likely to own will run
Speaker 2: off of either of these systems, but only the Jaggery
Speaker 2: is friendly enough to want to move around outdoors to
Speaker 2: take advantage of this fact. And this kind of gets
Speaker 2: us to the crux of a question some of you
Speaker 2: have been asking this whole episode, how practical are any
Speaker 2: of these solutions. My answer is complicated, but I think
Speaker 2: fair if you can't or aren't going to expend the
Speaker 2: energy to become competent with solar power to the extent
Speaker 2: that someone living off grid would generally want to be,
Speaker 2: these are exceptional solutions so long as you can afford them.
Speaker 2: In both cases, you're looking at around three thousand dollars
Speaker 2: for a setup that could power anything in your home
Speaker 2: and would handle all necessary tasks for longer than the
Speaker 2: length of an average blackout. The Jacquerie and Jenniver's systems
Speaker 2: are also future capable. You can expand both with added
Speaker 2: batteries over time and add in more panel capacity up
Speaker 2: to a point that makes them quite attractive if you
Speaker 2: can afford them. My personal recommend would be for the
Speaker 2: Jackery over the Genniverse for most people, for a couple
Speaker 2: of reasons. Please note that I received review units from
Speaker 2: both companies and money from neither, so I have no
Speaker 2: vested interest in picking one over the other. One reason
Speaker 2: that I chose the Jackery Explorer two thousand is that
Speaker 2: it is a bit cheaper nineteen hundred for the base
Speaker 2: system and four hundred and seventy nine for each set
Speaker 2: of two hundred watt folding panels. Compare that to the
Speaker 2: Genniverse home Power two Pro, which starts at two two
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety nine dollars and thirty four hundred dollars
Speaker 2: for the generator with two two hundred watt panels. The
Speaker 2: Jackery is also meaningfully easier to use in recreational situations,
Speaker 2: so it is a system that the average person will
Speaker 2: get more use out of. You can take it camping easily,
Speaker 2: you can use it for overlanding, and you can have
Speaker 2: it ready for an emergency. I will note that if
Speaker 2: you have a system like this, you will surprise yourself
Speaker 2: with how often it comes in a handy for simple tasks.
Speaker 2: What I like about both systems is again their future compatible.
Speaker 2: You can start with the base system and then add
Speaker 2: a couple of panels, and as you say, they have
Speaker 2: more money, you can add an additional battery packs and
Speaker 2: panels to give you both more capacity and more input,
Speaker 2: with the goal of eventually storing a day or a
Speaker 2: couple of days of power and being able to run
Speaker 2: your home minimally during extended emergencies. The shortcoming that you'll
Speaker 2: find with either system is that if you have a
Speaker 2: normal home, it will cost as much as a nice
Speaker 2: used car to have a setup that could run your
Speaker 2: house for extended periods of time, let alone indefinitely. A
Speaker 2: typical home AC unit can burn something like fourteen thousand
Speaker 2: kilowatt hours per day, and that's just half of what
Speaker 2: an average home draws. Heating amounts to a comparable draw
Speaker 2: So while these systems can be expanded significantly with additional batteries,
Speaker 2: if you're dealing with an outage that extends past several days,
Speaker 2: you will encounter severe limitations. This brings me to the
Speaker 2: most impressive but least accessible piece of gear that I
Speaker 2: tested for these episodes. The Anchor Solix F thirty eight
Speaker 2: hundred portable power station. This holds about three eight hundred
Speaker 2: and forty watt hours of electricity and can output six
Speaker 2: thousand watts if necessary. You can charge your electric car
Speaker 2: or run a welding rig off of this thing. It
Speaker 2: can be expanded with additional battery storage, and if you
Speaker 2: had thirty or forty grand to spend, you could wire
Speaker 2: this thing up to power your house for close to
Speaker 2: a week without sunlight. The F thirty eight hundred itself
Speaker 2: costs four thousand dollars, and you can run two of
Speaker 2: them in tandem with twelve battery packs each to power
Speaker 2: your home for about two weeks for just the cost
Speaker 2: of at this point a rather nice car that is
Speaker 2: wildly out of reach for most people, but if you
Speaker 2: can afford it, the anchor is a really cool system.
Speaker 2: There's been a tremendous amount of thought put into everything,
Speaker 2: from how the device is constructed and laid out to
Speaker 2: how you carry it. I particularly appreciate the fact that
Speaker 2: you can wheel it like a big suitcase or lay
Speaker 2: it on its side where it has additional pop out
Speaker 2: handles to enable you to carry it in multiple different ways.
Speaker 2: All of Anker's products feel premium, and the metal handles
Speaker 2: that I said pop out are like metal. They're very solid.
Speaker 2: Everything has a clean interface and what I would describe
Speaker 2: as an exceedingly livable industrial design. If you happen to
Speaker 2: be one of the people who can consider putting down
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars for an emergency battery, the Solix F
Speaker 2: thirty eight hundred will see you through ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: of the power loss situations you are likely to encounter,
Speaker 2: and require minimal knowledge to set up and get working.
Speaker 2: It is easy to attach to your home breaker and
Speaker 2: Anchor's instructions for doing so are simple to follow for
Speaker 2: folks who can afford the cost then, and that cost
Speaker 2: is not inconsiderable. It is a great mix of might
Speaker 2: save your life and will definitely come in handy. I
Speaker 2: should also note that the Jaggery system has a better
Speaker 2: pedigree than the Geniverse system in the industry, probably similar
Speaker 2: to Anchor. They've got a long track record and are
Speaker 2: well regarded not as inexpensive solution, but as a reliable
Speaker 2: one with a good warranty and a lot of history
Speaker 2: to back them up. All of these systems are, in
Speaker 2: my experience, reliable and easy to use. All of them
Speaker 2: are and I have to hit on this a few
Speaker 2: times because it matters expensive. That presents a problem if
Speaker 2: you're someone who sees the value and these as potential
Speaker 2: emergency devices but will realistically never be able to throw
Speaker 2: down three thousand dollars for them. It would be irresponsible
Speaker 2: of me to give you some specific technical advice because
Speaker 2: I lack that knowledge. But I have some experience here,
Speaker 2: and we're going to get to that after this next
Speaker 2: set of ads. We're back and we're talking about what
Speaker 2: you can do, at least a little bit of what
Speaker 2: you can do. Again the furthest thing in the world
Speaker 2: from an expert here, but I wanted to at least
Speaker 2: provide some starting points from folks who are never going
Speaker 2: to be able to afford these more formal, easier to use,
Speaker 2: idiot proof kind of situations, because while I'm not an
Speaker 2: expert on this, I have lived off grit a bit,
Speaker 2: and I have known people who have done so in
Speaker 2: a wide variety of weird situations. At one point, my
Speaker 2: partner operated a solar powered shack that they lived out of,
Speaker 2: with batteries so comparatively primitive that she had to regularly
Speaker 2: refill them with water. That kind of maintenance is going
Speaker 2: to be second nature to people who know they're shit
Speaker 2: with solar, and those people have a lot more options
Speaker 2: than the layman. Probably the most impressive and cash neutral
Speaker 2: setup I saw was in a place called East Jesus
Speaker 2: in far southern California. This was It was a totally
Speaker 2: off grid power setup that kept around twelve to eighteen
Speaker 2: people alive year round and often intense temperatures, powering AC
Speaker 2: units and trailers in RVs, fridges, fans, lights at the
Speaker 2: entertainment equipment they used the wakes Now. Their setup was
Speaker 2: all scavenged or bought cheap in auction. The batteries they used,
Speaker 2: which took up an entire shipping container sized space, were
Speaker 2: purchased cheap from a telecom company in the area which
Speaker 2: retired its deep cycle batteries once they hit eighty percent
Speaker 2: of their original functioning capacity or something like that. Panels
Speaker 2: were likewise scavenged or bought cheap and used. Since they
Speaker 2: had a lot of space but little money, wiring a
Speaker 2: shitload of panels a varying efficiency together was a solution
Speaker 2: that they could afford, both in terms of the money
Speaker 2: that it cost and in terms of the space that
Speaker 2: was required. Most people lacked the technical knowledge to set
Speaker 2: something like this up. I sure do, and even more
Speaker 2: of them lacked the space. But it is an example
Speaker 2: of the sort of solutions that people with little to
Speaker 2: no cash can cook up if they're clever and knowledgeable
Speaker 2: about the fundamental technology. It would be extremely irresponsible if
Speaker 2: I did not add here that solar setups are the
Speaker 2: sort of thing where it behooves you to be exceedingly
Speaker 2: fucking careful. The chief benefit of the system's goal zero anchor, Jenniverse,
Speaker 2: and Jacker make is that they are all as close
Speaker 2: to idiot proof as they can be. Part of the
Speaker 2: cost comes from the fact that they use expensive but
Speaker 2: extremely stable lithium iron phosphate batteries. These have long life spans.
Speaker 2: Jackery rates THEIRS at ten years and a cycle life
Speaker 2: of up to two thousand cycles. They have a good
Speaker 2: standby time too. Jackery rates THEIRS at up to fifty
Speaker 2: percent charge after two years in storage. A lot of
Speaker 2: the cheaper or scavenged options you find are lithium polymer batteries.
Speaker 2: These are rather infamous for igniting and burning down people's homes.
Speaker 2: There are solutions you can find online and if you're
Speaker 2: interested in cheaper homebrew solar setups out there, one place
Speaker 2: I suggests starting is diyssolarforum dot com. The people there
Speaker 2: will have suggestions for minimizing risk. Since LiPo is one
Speaker 2: of the most dangerous battery chemistry types out there, some
Speaker 2: people build what are called battery bunkers. One form I've
Speaker 2: seen this tape is basically a cube of bricks around
Speaker 2: and below the batteries with a ceramic flat sheet above them.
Speaker 2: Some people will suggest lacing sandbags above the bunkers that
Speaker 2: if the battery goes into a thermal runway, it will
Speaker 2: melt the sandbag and pour sand into the battery to
Speaker 2: stop the fire. Again, I am not giving advice here,
Speaker 2: just providing you with an example of the kinds of
Speaker 2: concerns that you do have to think about when considering
Speaker 2: building setups like this for your own. It is unfortunate.
Speaker 2: The most financially accessible way to do this is by
Speaker 2: taking the research into your own hands and relying on
Speaker 2: the experience of hobbyists and lifestyle explorers who have been
Speaker 2: there before. But disasters aren't fair, and either is life.
Speaker 2: Another exploratory option I'd suggest is googling questions like how
Speaker 2: to run small room ac off solar or how to
Speaker 2: run to twelve volt fridge indefinitely Comma solar, and then
Speaker 2: add Reddit as a search term. You'll find threads of
Speaker 2: people in off grids, solar or overlanding subreddits who have
Speaker 2: explored these problems for themselves and their journeys can at
Speaker 2: least act as a basis for your own. I'd like
Speaker 2: to thank at the end of this as at Jack
Speaker 2: Reach Universe and anchor who sent products for me to review.
Speaker 2: It was incredibly nice of them all, and from an
Speaker 2: esthetic point of view, they all make great gear that
Speaker 2: is a genuine pleasure to use. Gool Zero didn't send
Speaker 2: me anything, but I've paid for their stuff for years
Speaker 2: and I've never had anything fail in the field, so
Speaker 2: I figure I owe them a shout out here too,
Speaker 2: and it's going to do it for us. It could
Speaker 2: happen here for the day, so you know, check in
Speaker 2: tomorrow or you know Monday, depending on when you hear this.
Speaker 2: Whenever it drops and yeah, goodbye.
Speaker 1: It could happen here. As a production of clue Zone Media.
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