12 ms·

$912 energy independence without red tape

209 points by nikodunk 1y ago

leakycap 1y ago
Refreshingly straightforward! The wires would drive me insane, though.
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  Ya, this all seems good except for the custom wiring, which seems like hell.
lazide 1y ago
screams in fire marshall
- apimade 1y ago
  This is like a guerrilla solar recipe from the anarchist’s cookbook. The author doesn’t explicitly dissuade people from plugging in another multipoint/powerstrip/plugstrip into the end of the extension cable you’ve run into the other room. So I will. Don’t do that. There are plenty of low gauge, cheap extension cables out there which will degrade fast in this setup, and may cause a fire. Also, if your landlord is okay with seeing this setup they probably don’t have insurance they’re worrying about, and are simply making sure you’re not actively destroying the property (rather than potentially destroying it with the fire hazard).
  - CamperBob2 1y ago
    I often downvote posts like this, on the grounds that excessive safety nannyism doesn't belong on a site called Hacker News... but having seen what they call a "2500W power distribution strip," yeah... have an upvote or three.
    - stavros 1y ago
      I can't find a mention for the voltage, but if it's 240V, that seems like about 10A, which is standard for these strips, no?
      - solid_fuel 1y ago
        All the prices are in USD, and the outlets are US standard, so this is likely 120V. So 20 Amps, not 10.
      - trollbridge 1y ago
        It's 120V. Pushing 20A continuous through that kind of wiring is less than ideal. First of all, let's assume less than ideal conditions so base our calculations on 115V. 2,500 watts is going to be 21.7 amps; assuming a continuous load (which is pretty reasonable for a whole house) is going to need a breaker and wiring that's rated for 125% of that, or 27.2A. That means the supply needs to be #10 wiring and should be fitted with a 30A breaker at the disconnect. A temporary power tap is not a suitable disconnect. And I highly doubt it's got 10 gauge wiring.
        stavros 1y ago
        Ah yeah, at 120V that is definitely not going to cut it.
    - tpmoney 1y ago
      Assuming the linked products are the products in the picture, the strip is a product from Southwire that is claimed to be rated for 20 amps / 2500W and southwire is an established and known brand. It is listed as being for “temporary” installations and I’m not sure I’d want to run that load through it all the time, but it’s probably not that bad.
    - lemonlearnings 1y ago
      Dont fuck with electricity. I think the intuitions people have are based on home installations with RCDs, fuses and earthing and proper cabling before it gets to that socket. You then plug in a distribution to draw 100w for your devices and maybe the occasional 2kw for the vacuum cleaner for 5 minutes if too lazy to use another socket. Yoy not running full house load through it all day.
      - pshirshov 1y ago
        Eh, what about importing at 15Kw, exporting at 5 and charging batteries at 500A@52V?
  - toast0 1y ago
    > There are plenty of low gauge, cheap extension cables out there which will degrade fast in this setup, and may cause a fire. But I used the highest gauge I could find! I looked hard, but I couldn't find any with more than 16 ;p
    - lazide 1y ago
      Good news! I looked on Amazon and I found one that goes all the way up to 18! It also says ‘fully copper coated’ so you know it’s good. (/s, please never do this)
dang 1y ago
Related: Show HN: My $1k self-install, off-grid solar backup build for renters - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 - April 2024 (229 comments)
thrtythreeforty 1y ago
Suppose I own my house and don't feel like running a new set of wires thru my house, so I'm comfortable separating the panel into a downstream solar-capable subpanel and a real battery stack, but want a similarly thrifty and red-tape-free setup (which never backfeeds the grid). What other pieces of equipment could I substitute?
- toast0 1y ago
  You can pretty easily setup a subpanel with a feed-in outlet and an interlock so you only have the feed-in or the grid breaker closed, but not both. Something like this [1], but you need to shop to match your panel. That's thrifty; changing a panel/building a subpanel probably needs a permit, but shouldn't need utility approval. A transfer switch is an option too, but not so thrifty, and if you an automatic transfer switch, they usually work the other way (use grid if available, fail to local generation), but you could probably make it work. [1] https://www.geninterlock.com/product/generator-interlock-kit-abb-100-and-125-amp-panels/ https://www.geninterlock.com/product/generator-interlock-kit...
- reilly3000 1y ago
  Get a transfer switch. It’s a 30 minute install by a utility or electrician. Victron multiplus ii cx could be a good option.
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  Depending on where you live, systems that you just plug into the wall are legal up to a certain wattage as long as they don't backfeed into the grid
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Great for sheds? Or for addressing a high use area like kitchen or your server room?
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  If you don't need/can't use the grid backup you could probably get away with a cheap-ish Ecoflow/anker/etc battery with some solar plugged in and save a few hundred bucks
- rudedogg 1y ago
  A setup like this seems perfect for a little shed to code in that has solar power. I've wanted to build something like Roald Dahl's writing shed: https://youtu.be/AsxTR09_iWE?t=294 https://youtu.be/AsxTR09_iWE?t=294 for a while. I live in a climate with cold winters though, so I hate to invest in something like this and not be able to use it for a significant part of the year. I guess I could put a small pellet or wood stove in it..
thetoon 1y ago
Does that mean all of your appliances, which should supposedly each run on a separate line, now are all plugged on a big single-line powerstrip? Sure, this single-line is only used when battery and sun are out, but when it happens...
- nine_k 1y ago
  Since the inverter is 3 kW, and the battery is 2.5 kWh, you don't run many appliances off it. Hopefully it shifts your air cooler's peak of consumption away from the most expensive evening hours. You can probably cook at daytime directly from solar power. When the battery is depleted, you, I suppose, just pull the plug from a battery-fed power strip, and push it into a regular socket. I would put 3x the battery capacity, which would add about $500-600 to the cost.
cpfohl 1y ago
So this is terrifying for all the reasons mentioned below, but the _core_ setup where it is not connected to the utility and acts (basically) like a solar powered UPS is really attractive to me. All the commercial solar setups out there spend a lot of effort pushing power back to the grid, when all I really want is this configuration to all my outlets. Does anyone know of a setup like this? Basically a power bank that charges primarily from solar, secondarily from the grid, and provides my normal panel with power through an inverter (or panels/inverters, I actually expect). Feeding back to the grid seems more trouble than its worth...
- yummypaint 1y ago
  This isn't exactly what you want, but you could get the same kind of breaker interlock used for traditional generators and use that for the solar inverter. The downside is that you can't blend grid and battery power at the same time, but this may not actually be a problem in a practically sized setup where solar is the primary.
- amluto 1y ago
  Ecoflow will sell you rather respectable boxes that contain a battery, and MPPT charge circuit, and an inverter-charger all in one. And those boxes have real BMSes inside, too, unlike this sketchy setup.
- lambda 1y ago
  Isn't that just... the setup in this article? Like, yeah, there's some sketchy stuff with connecting those loads to this over extension cords snaked all around the house, but this setup is basically what you're asking for.
  - andreareina 1y ago
    GP is asking for the non sketchy way, that lets them use their outlets etc. Which is not trivial because if you still want to be connected to the grid you need to make sure you don't feed power back into it when it's not expected, like during a power outage.
- 1y ago
benjiro 1y ago
Its a interesting setup that indeed can bypass the red tape.... but your going to have a few other issues: * Fire insurance or well, potential no-payout if your installation creates a fire. * What about grounding? Does it also feed back over the invertor to your breaker panel * How about power fusing... I doubt that he has individual fusing to his different rooms. So yea, electricity compliance is a mess. See fire insurance. * Hanging cables with plugs hanging on them.. yep, very code compliant... * A yes, 2500w rated distribution box with then multiple heavy loads on them. This is one of those, interesting but big risk of burning down your own home, and neighbors in the process. It needs a ton of improvements for safety, what drives up the costs. Imagine everybody doing this, ...
- MountDoom 1y ago
  > * Fire insurance or well, potential no-payout if your installation creates a fire. This is pretty much a myth. Insurance pays out even if you cause a hazard, as long as it's not intentional (i.e., not insurance fraud). Talk to any insurance adjuster: undisclosed DIY is not enough to deny a claim. What happens instead is that if you make a claim and the damage is due to stuff you didn't tell the insurer about, they will drop you right after they pay. Another possibility is that if they do any proactive inspections (e.g., drone fly-bys), they can decline to insure you or drop your policy. A more substantial problem is that this page sort of oversells what they're pitching. 1.2 kW of solar power is a fraction of typical household usage. 2.4 kWh battery storage also isn't a whole lot. And yeah, it's cheaper than paying someone, but if your roof starts leaking, it's gonna cost you and you have no one to sue.
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    > What happens instead is that if you make a claim and the damage is by some stuff you didn't tell the insurer about, they will drop you right after they pay. Another possibility is that if they do any proactive inspections (e.g., drone fly-bys), they can decline to insure you or drop your policy. This is also a pretty bad outcome.
  - jagrsw 1y ago
    > as long as it's not intentional I think this could be considered intentional, because in most countries, connecting this inverter to anything (source, sink) would require certification (+tests), as it doesn't have standard electrical outlets (it varies from country to country, but in the countries I've seen, either certification is required or connecting wall/ceiling lamps is exempted from this, but verification must be done afterward).
syntaxing 1y ago
I remember seeing this on HN a couple years back. At the time, this made financial “sense”. But nowadays, you can get an all in one refurbished for sub $700. This way, it’s truly portable and all you need to worry about is getting the solar panel power to your battery generator.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
aorloff 1y ago
This irresponsible. Power distribution centers are not power strips and there's a reason for that Yes, we are on the cusp of self-pluggable home solar solutions. No, this is not the way.
- ivanjermakov 1y ago
  What is wrong with plastic there? I think possible lack of grounding and messy power cabling are bigger hazards.
  - alt219 1y ago
    Two things come to mind: 1) if any arcing occurs, a metal enclosure will shunt to ground and (hopefully) trip a breaker; 2) in the event of an overload, plastic melts which might result in a fire.
  - MountDoom 1y ago
    I think plenty of folks just have a vague understanding of electrical codes and say stuff like that to impress others. Generally speaking, you're just not supposed to do permanent electrical wiring with extension cords and power strips, especially not for stuff that goes into or through walls. This has nothing to do with plastic - you have plenty of plastic in electrical boxes, outlets, PVC conduit, etc. Cable insulation is plastic too. The electrical code doesn't want you to put extension cords in the wall mostly to make sure that the connections can't come apart, that the comparatively softer and more delicate wires aren't easily crushed or abraded, and so on. This project definitely isn't done the way you should do it if you had a real budget dedicated to it. Is it a death trap? Meh, I've seen far worse extension-cord contraptions in US homes.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- tpmoney 1y ago
  Assuming the linked products in the article are the items in the pictures, that power strip is a metal enclosure, not plastic
- 1y ago
trollbridge 1y ago
On the one hand I like this... on the other hand, the electrician's assistant in me that tries to be as NEC-compliant as possible is absolutely cringing at a few of the pictures on there. With that said... a few hundred more dollars, and this could be a proper setup with a proper load centre, breakers, and so on. Simply replace a lot of your home's existing wiring.
- starkparker 1y ago
  > Simply replace a lot of your home's existing wiring. Seeing as the entire project is by and mostly for renters, that's not feasible.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    Do said people plan to take everything down when the landlord comes over? Otherwise said renter will quickly find themselves in violation of most lease agreements for creation of hazards on the property.
    - NegativeK 1y ago
      I've never had a landlord come into an apartment or house I'm renting. (Except when the landlord also lives there.)
    - kelnos 1y ago
      The article author claimed they got their landlord's permission first, so I doubt they'll be taking it down when the landlord comes over. They'll just take it down when they move out. Also... I lived in rented apartments for more than 15 years, and the only time a landlord entered my unit was one time when I explicitly asked her to (there was a water leak, and I was about to leave town and wouldn't be around to let the workers in to fix it). Is this a normal thing? Are landlords constantly visiting their tenants?
      - aianus 1y ago
        They don't do smoke alarm inspections? AC filter replacements? I've never lived anywhere where they didn't come in multiple times a year just for those things.
Waterluvian 1y ago
I’m amazed that you can legally sell any device that plugs into a normal receptacle and generates power for that circuit.
- caymanjim 1y ago
  Why? It's just a battery charger. They are basic-ass components and there are a zillion UL-listed lithium chargers that are perfectly safe and in common use. There a many problems with this article, but the fact that it includes a battery charger is not one of them.
- sowbug 1y ago
  None of the equipment in this article does that. It takes power from the grid the way any appliance does; it optionally charges by solar; and it provides power the same way a UPS does, using ordinary female power sockets. But there are devices out there that do feed power over the exposed prongs of a male plug. They're called "suicide cords" for good reason.
  - Waterluvian 1y ago
    Ah. I saw a whole thing about solar panels for balconies that did exactly this. I skimmed the article and thought I saw the same idea. I missed that it’s just charging a battery.
    - Waterluvian 1y ago
      Ah! These… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806
jagrsw 1y ago
As someone with an electrician's ticket (non-practicing, but the exam was no joke), this is a "not-so-good" idea. A 3kW inverter powering a fridge through extension cords (fridges/compressors can have serious inrush current). You can't just snake "yolo" cables through a house for anything drawing serious amps (say, more than 5). I'm willing to bet zero impedance or insulation/continuity tests were done. I hope the inverter has the RCD protection included. This "works" 99.9% of the time. Now multiply 0.1% by every person who sees this and thinks it's a clever hack. Update: He's plugging an extension cord directly into the inverter's output terminals? A 3kW inverter at 120V can push 25A continuously (and likely no RCD in the path). That can melt a 10/15A cord. The inverter's own breaker (say, 30/40A) is there to protect the inverter, not the cord. The cord may "become" the fuse long before the breaker trips on an overload (it doesn't trip at 30A instantly, more like at 100-200A if it's equivalent to EU class B/C). Update2: I'm against overregulation and panicing at every perceived threat, but I must say, I wouldn't mind an inspection taking a look for the sake of neighbors. Update3: The PDF (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0746/0415/1079/files/POW-LVM3K-24V-H_User_Manual_V1.3.0929.pdf https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0746/0415/1079/files/POW-L...) says that the AC input "maximum bypass overload current" is 40A. If he plugs the inverter into a wall outlet for charging/bypass, it will let his appliances pull 40A through a standard 15A socket. The main apartment panel will eventually trip, hopefully.
- caymanjim 1y ago
  This can be done safely if you know how to compute the correct wire gauge for the distance, and don't overload the circuit. You can easily and safely run 15A via a proper-gauge extension cord from a 3kW inverter to a fridge or any number of other individual appliances at once. Where this is potentially going to cause trouble is people who don't understand how electricity works, or that different wire gauges exist, or how many watts various appliances use. The kind of person who takes a tiny lamp extension cord and plugs a power strip into it, thinking that more sockets will provide unlimited power. The photos in this article are scary. A 2500W power strip with a bunch of crap plugged in? Exactly the kind of scenario you don't want to see. And talking about running a fricken induction cooktop off that, along with a fridge? The photo and text imply that you have near-unlimited power.
gregable 1y ago
What would change if you wanted to do something like this but for an EV? You already have a large battery, you can make decisions like "I need to be full for my road trip tomorrow, so fill from the grid", but you can just trickle charge from some fixed solar panels throughout the day most of the time. I think amperage can even be negotiated via the standard EV charge cable.
- nikodunk 1y ago
  You’d need a bigger kit. WIll Prowse has many guides on these. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rRqV8BHE8lY https://youtube.com/watch?v=rRqV8BHE8lY
cavisne 1y ago
Balcony solar kits are popular in Germany which are a more legit version of this. The main thing I would be nervous about is the panels are claimed to be "rated for 120km/h winds". Presumably thats if they are bolted down? Just laying them down loose on the roof seems like a bad idea.
- cbdevidal 1y ago
  Yeah I came looking for this comment. I’m in Florida, USA where high winds are the norm. A big shingle sitting there not tied down would flip real quick.
Havoc 1y ago
That's a really good price for the sizing. Like others said not sure about that wiring though
amluto 1y ago
Ugh, these two-lead LFP batteries without any sort of BMS communication are fairly nasty devices. The inverter/charger does not know the maximum safe charge or discharge current, the cell temperature, the cell balance state, or really anything else except the voltage. If the actual BMS in the battery (assuming there’s one in there at all) wants the charger to slow down, it has no way to tell it to do so. The charger has no way to know what it needs to do to get the cell balancing circuit (if any) to work. And the BMS (again, assuming it exists) can’t even communicate the state of charge to the inverter/charger. At least this particular setup uses a somewhat dignified 24-ish volt setup instead of the usual awful “12V” that is often seen in this genre of battery.
- turtlebits 1y ago
  BMS <-> "solar inverter" communication is not required. All LFP batteries that aren't raw cells have a BMS, which have over/under voltage protection. A bad charger isn't going to do anything. There's also nothing wrong with 12V setups (see all the RVs that are out there).
  - amluto 1y ago
    > BMS <-> "solar inverter" communication is not required. It’s “not required” in the sense that it works. Poorly. Have you contemplated how balancing between paralleled “12V” LFP packs works? LFP has a voltage vs SoC curve that is very unpleasantly flat for purposes of cell balancing without intelligence, and almost no intelligence is available in these arrangements. > Theres nothing wrong with 12V setups (see all the RVs that are out there). There is so much wrong with them that it’s hard to even know where to start. Let’s suppose you have an RV-like setup that is designed to power one single 15A 120V receptacle. That’s 1800W, which is pretty small by the standards of modern inverters. It’s also 150A at 12V. Want decent efficiency? That means you want to lose less than, say, 2V on the wires, so you need to carry those 150A over a round trip resistance below 13.3mOhm. If you use the ABYC ampacity table, that’s 2AWG or larger wire. Fortunately 2AWG will carry 150A a respectable distance without excessive voltage drop. Now, 150A is a lot of current. 150A will make massive sparks, light things on fire, and weld sizable pieces of metal even if 12V is unlikely to electrocute you. And you’re feeding that wire or bus in multiple places (because you may have multiple batteries and a beefy charger), so you remember to put giant 150A fuses or breakers at all the feed locations, right? But wait, 12V needs below 0.08 ohms to produce 150A. Want to comfortably blow a 150A fuse? You need well below 0.08 ohms total resistance in the entire circuit, including the fault. If you have a high resistance fault (and “high” could be 70 mOhms!), you will never blow the fuse and you can produce literally kilowatts of heat. Crispy! (Your house likely has circuits bigger than 150A, but it’s at a voltage that can much more easily trip the breaker, and in civilized countries there will be some sort of RCD as well.) Oh, and that 2AWG cable is expensive, hard to bend, and requires actual skill to terminate well. And modern systems often target powers well above 1800W. At least in a car, the high current portion of the 12V system is made and tested in a factory. And it still makes amazing showers of sparks if anyone messes up a jumper cable. There’s a reason that car makers want to move away from it. So I stand by my claim: 12V sucks.
IgorPartola 1y ago
I have been thinking lately about what it might take to run a small house entirely off grid. My thought was that if you could build a separate battery shed that is away from everything and then fill it with like 100 kWh of batteries charged by a 30 kW solar array, then you could presumably run power from the battery shed to your house as if it was a normal utility hookup. But then again I have no clue if a town zoning office or building inspector would have a fit over a setup like that.
- bombcar 1y ago
  The easiest is usually to have wheels on the house, and then power it as a trailer/rv.
  - IgorPartola 1y ago
    I am thinking more something that has a high spouse approval factor. 1200 sqft, 2-3 bedrooms, normal plumbing and sensible HVAC.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      I’m thinking something that is technically a large RV trailer “docked” into a non-house structure that provides additional space. All major plumbing and appliances and power are in the trailer, the extra “rooms” have nothing much but lighting. Not sure how it’d work in practice.
      - thaumasiotes 1y ago
        Powering your house is an advertised feature (with additional equipment) of a few electric cars. e.g. https://electrek.co/2025/09/28/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-your-home-if-its-one-of-these/ https://electrek.co/2025/09/28/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-yo... To go off grid, you'd need a source of power to the car that wasn't your house.
caymanjim 1y ago
The number of people replying to this thinking that this is novel is both amusing and surprising. This is a DIY power bank. You can buy professionally-made ones from Bluetti, Jackery, EcoFlow, and many other companies. Including with solar panels. They've been around in some form or another for decades. Modern ones use LiFePO4 batteries, which have a solid safety profile compared to older-generation lithium batteries. Or you can buy components and build your own, hopefully more safely than the article shows. Go hang out on r/SolarDIY or check out Will Prowse on YouTube.
- throwawaylaptop 1y ago
  Reading HN regarding tech makes me think I'm stupid. Then I see HN discuss hands on real world things, and I start wondering if actually HN is stupid.
  - Mistletoe 1y ago
    Never read a thread on HN about a subject you have deep knowledge in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
  - Pikamander2 1y ago
    Reddit has the same issue. Everyone speaks with such confidence that it seems like they know what they're talking about. Then they starting talking the same way about something you're more familiar with and the illusion is quickly shattered.
    - RomanAlexander 1y ago
      similar to Elon Musk talking about pretty much everything software. I don't know why he doubled down on having played poe2. https://youtu.be/cZslebJEZbE https://youtu.be/cZslebJEZbE
seany 1y ago
The amount of gatekeeping in this thread is nuts. The idea here is totally reasonable, it just needs some of the parts more right sized etc
- slipperybeluga 1y ago
  [dead]
- kelnos 1y ago
  "Just" is doing a lot of work there. Maybe the idea is reasonable, but the setup as-is is not safe, and there's nothing in the article that would tell you that, or tell you what you need to add to it to make it safe. Many people might read the article, think that it's all safe (because they don't have the knowledge required to properly evaluated it), and then burn their houses down. Not saying this is the most unsafe thing I've ever seen or heard of, but we have electrical codes for a reason... because buildings have burned down and people have died.
  - seany 1y ago
    It falls into that "soft bigotry of low expectations" zone. There are intro articles and advanced articles; the advanced ones don't need to spend the first 1/3 of the volume talking about safety.
- refurb 1y ago
  I don't see any gatekeeping, I see safety concerns.
matt3210 1y ago
This is hard to share in a lasting way. The post I want to share is just the main page which could change and loose context after some amount of time. I recommend a subpage for articles to help long term sharing.
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
> The secret sauce is that the sunbox is usually off-grid and never pushes power back into the grid. The only reason it's connected to the wall at all is that if it runs out of power it can pull energy from the wall. Ideally we all could push power back to the grid & that ought not be hard, but in point of fact that can be a huge barrier. It's not capable of generating as much power, but I love what Zoltux and many others are doing: attaching current sensors to the main breaker box, and using that as feedback to make sure the solar is never generating so much power that it pushes to the grid. Pretty mild 800w power on the Zoltux. https://zoltux.com/ https://zoltux.com/ The existing DJI Power 2000 added this capability with a recent software update, if you have a compatible energy meter! Can accept up to 1800 watts of solar power. I'm not sure if there's any difference between this kind of setup and a european balcony solar install? https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/pv_solar/dji-power-2000-users-in-europe-can-20250826 https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/pv_solar/dji-power-2... Also, this submission showed up two years ago. 236 points, 230 comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195
simonbw 1y ago
I've been living in a rental for a while, and I have a woodshop in the garage. I've been really wanting to have a 220V outlet to run some bigger power tools, but if figured doing that would require hiring an electrician to come do some work in the breaker box. This has me curious if I can do something like this just to power some stuff in my garage, and also potentially charge an electric car.
- kadoban 1y ago
  Hiring an electrician is going to be cheaper probably, depending on the length of the run and how annoying the location is (and if your panel has enough capacity to spare). Unless your landlord is an asshole they probably won't care, in my experience, as long as you get a qualified person to do it. You're basically improving their place so it's not a hard thing to get approved. Btw for the second part, you _can_ charge electric cars over just normal 15amp circuits you already have. It's just slow, so you'd only want to do it for nightly charging and it may depend on your commuting range if it'll work out or not.
- bob1029 1y ago
  You could get something like an eco flow battery, charge it on your 120v service and then use its inverter to run your intermittent 240v loads. IIRC their models support being in charge and invert mode simultaneously, so you wouldn't have to swap plugs or change settings throughout the day. The Delta Pro series is capable of running a 3 ton AC condensing unit, so if your tools are less demanding than this it should work out.
osejesse 1y ago
[dead]
slipperybeluga 1y ago
[dead]
Hadj-Tayr 1y ago
[flagged]
LikeBeans 1y ago
We get 2-3 power outages every year where I live. Mainly due to trees with ice/snow/wind. My solution was to buy three power banks. A 500Wh, and a couple of 300Wh. I have a pluggable camp fridge too and a gas fireplace. So one battery powers the fan in the fireplace, another for the cooler to keep the food from spoiling. And the third one for a couple of the lights (with LED bulbs). Works great and we can handle an outage that lasts about 4-5 days. Also we got 4 of these rechargeable lanterns for lights around the house. I just keep the batteries and lanterns charged. Really easy and my investment is about $1000.
- bkettle 1y ago
  Do you mean 500Wh rather than 500kWh? 500 kWh would be around 10 EVs worth, and looks like it costs around 700k [0], but 500Wh seems to be a common size for portable power stations [1] [0] https://www.backupbatterypower.com/products/516-kwh-industrial-battery-backup-and-energy-storage-systems-ess-277-480y-three-phase?srsltid=AfmBOoosqoVQf5xC1t8z__98iLdGHyX1YQzUtByMSCfTLFoo3aZhUppB https://www.backupbatterypower.com/products/516-kwh-industri... [1] https://www.ankersolix.com/products/535?variant=49702434931018&ref=power-stations-collection https://www.ankersolix.com/products/535?variant=497024349310...
- LikeBeans 1y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah I meant Wh not kWh. Oops. I fixed my post.
- layla5alive 1y ago
  I think you're off by a couple of orders of magnitude... 500Wh and 300Wh maybe? Or 5kWh and 3kWh if you got a very great deal? Your investment would be orders of magnitude more than $1000 for around a total of 1MWh!
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Site not available This site was paused as it reached its usage limits. Please contact the site owner for more information. If this is your site, please visit Netlify’s Billing docs page or log into your Netlify account to upgrade your plan.
RagnarD 1y ago
Hmm. "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to sunboxlabs.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details."
- lgats 1y ago
  site was deleted / removed https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...
- weinzierl 1y ago
  Safari too.
madduci 1y ago
The website has been taken down, now GitHub pages returns 404
- lemonlearnings 1y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...
kittikitti 1y ago
They took this down so quickly. Bad examples are great to learn from. I don't get all the hate, and it just seems like a bunch of bullies found out and put the red tape on it. Don't you think "burning a house down" is a vast over exaggeration? I wouldn't trust any professionals using such intimidating tactics. Do they not teach "the boy who cried wolf"? It doesn't get worse than claiming this stuff will burn someone's house down around with everyone around them.
computersuck 1y ago
link shows github 404 page
lemonlearnings 1y ago
If I was paying 55c/kWh I'd freaking hire someone to pedal to generate the power. Thats insane. No wonder it pays off quickly!
Pikamander2 1y ago
Looks like the site's SSL cert is having some issues. Actually, the whole page appears to be 404'ing now?
- bronco21016 1y ago
  Glad I'm not the only one. I was disabling ad block, switching devices and browsers. It's gone.
psychoslave 1y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...
bilsbie 1y ago
The US really needs to get onboard with "balcony solar" or "plug-in solar." > small solar panels that can be easily installed on balconies and plugged directly into a standard wall outlet, allowing users to generate their own electricity. I believe this is common in Europe. They’ve figured out some way to make it safe for the grid and line workers.
turtlebits 1y ago
The more common term for the unit is a solar inverter or off-grid inverter. I run a few of these on an off grid property and they're totally fine. I would be wary of a cheap no-name brands. I'm also be wary of running extension cords all over the place. If you have the space (a mechanical closet?). I'd suggest getting a separate inverter and charge controller. These all-in-one units have fairly high idle inverter draw.
spaceballbat 1y ago
The battery is the scary part. How do you know you’re not getting some cheap ass china junk that’ll burn your house down?
e2e4 1y ago
related YC discussion about solar batteries on balconies in Germany: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806
BizarroLand 1y ago
I would consider doing something like this if the specific placement of trees around my place didn't make it so that I get around 4 hours of sunlight on a good day.
MisterMower 1y ago
Who is paying $0.55/kWh? That is crazy to me. Living in the Midwest I pay $0.15/kWh. Payback period for me would be 7+ years with my electricity rates.

209 points by nikodunk 1y ago

leakycap 1y ago

Refreshingly straightforward! The wires would drive me insane, though.

pinkmuffinere 1y ago
Ya, this all seems good except for the custom wiring, which seems like hell.

lazide 1y ago

screams in fire marshall

apimade 1y ago
This is like a guerrilla solar recipe from the anarchist’s cookbook. The author doesn’t explicitly dissuade people from plugging in another multipoint/powerstrip/plugstrip into the end of the extension cable you’ve run into the other room. So I will. Don’t do that. There are plenty of low gauge, cheap extension cables out there which will degrade fast in this setup, and may cause a fire. Also, if your landlord is okay with seeing this setup they probably don’t have insurance they’re worrying about, and are simply making sure you’re not actively destroying the property (rather than potentially destroying it with the fire hazard).
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  I often downvote posts like this, on the grounds that excessive safety nannyism doesn't belong on a site called Hacker News... but having seen what they call a "2500W power distribution strip," yeah... have an upvote or three.
  - stavros 1y ago
    I can't find a mention for the voltage, but if it's 240V, that seems like about 10A, which is standard for these strips, no?
    - solid_fuel 1y ago
      All the prices are in USD, and the outlets are US standard, so this is likely 120V. So 20 Amps, not 10.
    - trollbridge 1y ago
      It's 120V. Pushing 20A continuous through that kind of wiring is less than ideal. First of all, let's assume less than ideal conditions so base our calculations on 115V. 2,500 watts is going to be 21.7 amps; assuming a continuous load (which is pretty reasonable for a whole house) is going to need a breaker and wiring that's rated for 125% of that, or 27.2A. That means the supply needs to be #10 wiring and should be fitted with a 30A breaker at the disconnect. A temporary power tap is not a suitable disconnect. And I highly doubt it's got 10 gauge wiring.
      - stavros 1y ago
        Ah yeah, at 120V that is definitely not going to cut it.
  - tpmoney 1y ago
    Assuming the linked products are the products in the picture, the strip is a product from Southwire that is claimed to be rated for 20 amps / 2500W and southwire is an established and known brand. It is listed as being for “temporary” installations and I’m not sure I’d want to run that load through it all the time, but it’s probably not that bad.
  - lemonlearnings 1y ago
    Dont fuck with electricity. I think the intuitions people have are based on home installations with RCDs, fuses and earthing and proper cabling before it gets to that socket. You then plug in a distribution to draw 100w for your devices and maybe the occasional 2kw for the vacuum cleaner for 5 minutes if too lazy to use another socket. Yoy not running full house load through it all day.
    - pshirshov 1y ago
      Eh, what about importing at 15Kw, exporting at 5 and charging batteries at 500A@52V?
- toast0 1y ago
  > There are plenty of low gauge, cheap extension cables out there which will degrade fast in this setup, and may cause a fire. But I used the highest gauge I could find! I looked hard, but I couldn't find any with more than 16 ;p
  - lazide 1y ago
    Good news! I looked on Amazon and I found one that goes all the way up to 18! It also says ‘fully copper coated’ so you know it’s good. (/s, please never do this)

dang 1y ago

Related: Show HN: My $1k self-install, off-grid solar backup build for renters - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 - April 2024 (229 comments)

thrtythreeforty 1y ago

Suppose I own my house and don't feel like running a new set of wires thru my house, so I'm comfortable separating the panel into a downstream solar-capable subpanel and a real battery stack, but want a similarly thrifty and red-tape-free setup (which never backfeeds the grid). What other pieces of equipment could I substitute?

toast0 1y ago
You can pretty easily setup a subpanel with a feed-in outlet and an interlock so you only have the feed-in or the grid breaker closed, but not both. Something like this [1], but you need to shop to match your panel. That's thrifty; changing a panel/building a subpanel probably needs a permit, but shouldn't need utility approval. A transfer switch is an option too, but not so thrifty, and if you an automatic transfer switch, they usually work the other way (use grid if available, fail to local generation), but you could probably make it work. [1] https://www.geninterlock.com/product/generator-interlock-kit-abb-100-and-125-amp-panels/ https://www.geninterlock.com/product/generator-interlock-kit...
reilly3000 1y ago
Get a transfer switch. It’s a 30 minute install by a utility or electrician. Victron multiplus ii cx could be a good option.
Rebelgecko 1y ago
Depending on where you live, systems that you just plug into the wall are legal up to a certain wattage as long as they don't backfeed into the grid

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

Great for sheds? Or for addressing a high use area like kitchen or your server room?

Rebelgecko 1y ago
If you don't need/can't use the grid backup you could probably get away with a cheap-ish Ecoflow/anker/etc battery with some solar plugged in and save a few hundred bucks
rudedogg 1y ago
A setup like this seems perfect for a little shed to code in that has solar power. I've wanted to build something like Roald Dahl's writing shed: https://youtu.be/AsxTR09_iWE?t=294 https://youtu.be/AsxTR09_iWE?t=294 for a while. I live in a climate with cold winters though, so I hate to invest in something like this and not be able to use it for a significant part of the year. I guess I could put a small pellet or wood stove in it..

thetoon 1y ago

Does that mean all of your appliances, which should supposedly each run on a separate line, now are all plugged on a big single-line powerstrip? Sure, this single-line is only used when battery and sun are out, but when it happens...

nine_k 1y ago
Since the inverter is 3 kW, and the battery is 2.5 kWh, you don't run many appliances off it. Hopefully it shifts your air cooler's peak of consumption away from the most expensive evening hours. You can probably cook at daytime directly from solar power. When the battery is depleted, you, I suppose, just pull the plug from a battery-fed power strip, and push it into a regular socket. I would put 3x the battery capacity, which would add about $500-600 to the cost.

cpfohl 1y ago

So this is terrifying for all the reasons mentioned below, but the _core_ setup where it is not connected to the utility and acts (basically) like a solar powered UPS is really attractive to me. All the commercial solar setups out there spend a lot of effort pushing power back to the grid, when all I really want is this configuration to all my outlets. Does anyone know of a setup like this? Basically a power bank that charges primarily from solar, secondarily from the grid, and provides my normal panel with power through an inverter (or panels/inverters, I actually expect). Feeding back to the grid seems more trouble than its worth...

yummypaint 1y ago
This isn't exactly what you want, but you could get the same kind of breaker interlock used for traditional generators and use that for the solar inverter. The downside is that you can't blend grid and battery power at the same time, but this may not actually be a problem in a practically sized setup where solar is the primary.
amluto 1y ago
Ecoflow will sell you rather respectable boxes that contain a battery, and MPPT charge circuit, and an inverter-charger all in one. And those boxes have real BMSes inside, too, unlike this sketchy setup.
lambda 1y ago
Isn't that just... the setup in this article? Like, yeah, there's some sketchy stuff with connecting those loads to this over extension cords snaked all around the house, but this setup is basically what you're asking for.
- andreareina 1y ago
  GP is asking for the non sketchy way, that lets them use their outlets etc. Which is not trivial because if you still want to be connected to the grid you need to make sure you don't feed power back into it when it's not expected, like during a power outage.
1y ago

benjiro 1y ago

Its a interesting setup that indeed can bypass the red tape.... but your going to have a few other issues: * Fire insurance or well, potential no-payout if your installation creates a fire. * What about grounding? Does it also feed back over the invertor to your breaker panel * How about power fusing... I doubt that he has individual fusing to his different rooms. So yea, electricity compliance is a mess. See fire insurance. * Hanging cables with plugs hanging on them.. yep, very code compliant... * A yes, 2500w rated distribution box with then multiple heavy loads on them. This is one of those, interesting but big risk of burning down your own home, and neighbors in the process. It needs a ton of improvements for safety, what drives up the costs. Imagine everybody doing this, ...

MountDoom 1y ago
> * Fire insurance or well, potential no-payout if your installation creates a fire. This is pretty much a myth. Insurance pays out even if you cause a hazard, as long as it's not intentional (i.e., not insurance fraud). Talk to any insurance adjuster: undisclosed DIY is not enough to deny a claim. What happens instead is that if you make a claim and the damage is due to stuff you didn't tell the insurer about, they will drop you right after they pay. Another possibility is that if they do any proactive inspections (e.g., drone fly-bys), they can decline to insure you or drop your policy. A more substantial problem is that this page sort of oversells what they're pitching. 1.2 kW of solar power is a fraction of typical household usage. 2.4 kWh battery storage also isn't a whole lot. And yeah, it's cheaper than paying someone, but if your roof starts leaking, it's gonna cost you and you have no one to sue.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  > What happens instead is that if you make a claim and the damage is by some stuff you didn't tell the insurer about, they will drop you right after they pay. Another possibility is that if they do any proactive inspections (e.g., drone fly-bys), they can decline to insure you or drop your policy. This is also a pretty bad outcome.
- jagrsw 1y ago
  > as long as it's not intentional I think this could be considered intentional, because in most countries, connecting this inverter to anything (source, sink) would require certification (+tests), as it doesn't have standard electrical outlets (it varies from country to country, but in the countries I've seen, either certification is required or connecting wall/ceiling lamps is exempted from this, but verification must be done afterward).

syntaxing 1y ago

I remember seeing this on HN a couple years back. At the time, this made financial “sense”. But nowadays, you can get an all in one refurbished for sub $700. This way, it’s truly portable and all you need to worry about is getting the solar panel power to your battery generator.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

aorloff 1y ago

This irresponsible. Power distribution centers are not power strips and there's a reason for that Yes, we are on the cusp of self-pluggable home solar solutions. No, this is not the way.

ivanjermakov 1y ago
What is wrong with plastic there? I think possible lack of grounding and messy power cabling are bigger hazards.
- alt219 1y ago
  Two things come to mind: 1) if any arcing occurs, a metal enclosure will shunt to ground and (hopefully) trip a breaker; 2) in the event of an overload, plastic melts which might result in a fire.
- MountDoom 1y ago
  I think plenty of folks just have a vague understanding of electrical codes and say stuff like that to impress others. Generally speaking, you're just not supposed to do permanent electrical wiring with extension cords and power strips, especially not for stuff that goes into or through walls. This has nothing to do with plastic - you have plenty of plastic in electrical boxes, outlets, PVC conduit, etc. Cable insulation is plastic too. The electrical code doesn't want you to put extension cords in the wall mostly to make sure that the connections can't come apart, that the comparatively softer and more delicate wires aren't easily crushed or abraded, and so on. This project definitely isn't done the way you should do it if you had a real budget dedicated to it. Is it a death trap? Meh, I've seen far worse extension-cord contraptions in US homes.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
tpmoney 1y ago
Assuming the linked products in the article are the items in the pictures, that power strip is a metal enclosure, not plastic
1y ago

trollbridge 1y ago

On the one hand I like this... on the other hand, the electrician's assistant in me that tries to be as NEC-compliant as possible is absolutely cringing at a few of the pictures on there. With that said... a few hundred more dollars, and this could be a proper setup with a proper load centre, breakers, and so on. Simply replace a lot of your home's existing wiring.

starkparker 1y ago
> Simply replace a lot of your home's existing wiring. Seeing as the entire project is by and mostly for renters, that's not feasible.
- pixl97 1y ago
  Do said people plan to take everything down when the landlord comes over? Otherwise said renter will quickly find themselves in violation of most lease agreements for creation of hazards on the property.
  - NegativeK 1y ago
    I've never had a landlord come into an apartment or house I'm renting. (Except when the landlord also lives there.)
  - kelnos 1y ago
    The article author claimed they got their landlord's permission first, so I doubt they'll be taking it down when the landlord comes over. They'll just take it down when they move out. Also... I lived in rented apartments for more than 15 years, and the only time a landlord entered my unit was one time when I explicitly asked her to (there was a water leak, and I was about to leave town and wouldn't be around to let the workers in to fix it). Is this a normal thing? Are landlords constantly visiting their tenants?
    - aianus 1y ago
      They don't do smoke alarm inspections? AC filter replacements? I've never lived anywhere where they didn't come in multiple times a year just for those things.

Waterluvian 1y ago

I’m amazed that you can legally sell any device that plugs into a normal receptacle and generates power for that circuit.

caymanjim 1y ago
Why? It's just a battery charger. They are basic-ass components and there are a zillion UL-listed lithium chargers that are perfectly safe and in common use. There a many problems with this article, but the fact that it includes a battery charger is not one of them.
sowbug 1y ago
None of the equipment in this article does that. It takes power from the grid the way any appliance does; it optionally charges by solar; and it provides power the same way a UPS does, using ordinary female power sockets. But there are devices out there that do feed power over the exposed prongs of a male plug. They're called "suicide cords" for good reason.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  Ah. I saw a whole thing about solar panels for balconies that did exactly this. I skimmed the article and thought I saw the same idea. I missed that it’s just charging a battery.
  - Waterluvian 1y ago
    Ah! These… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806

jagrsw 1y ago

As someone with an electrician's ticket (non-practicing, but the exam was no joke), this is a "not-so-good" idea. A 3kW inverter powering a fridge through extension cords (fridges/compressors can have serious inrush current). You can't just snake "yolo" cables through a house for anything drawing serious amps (say, more than 5). I'm willing to bet zero impedance or insulation/continuity tests were done. I hope the inverter has the RCD protection included. This "works" 99.9% of the time. Now multiply 0.1% by every person who sees this and thinks it's a clever hack. Update: He's plugging an extension cord directly into the inverter's output terminals? A 3kW inverter at 120V can push 25A continuously (and likely no RCD in the path). That can melt a 10/15A cord. The inverter's own breaker (say, 30/40A) is there to protect the inverter, not the cord. The cord may "become" the fuse long before the breaker trips on an overload (it doesn't trip at 30A instantly, more like at 100-200A if it's equivalent to EU class B/C). Update2: I'm against overregulation and panicing at every perceived threat, but I must say, I wouldn't mind an inspection taking a look for the sake of neighbors. Update3: The PDF (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0746/0415/1079/files/POW-LVM3K-24V-H_User_Manual_V1.3.0929.pdf https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0746/0415/1079/files/POW-L...) says that the AC input "maximum bypass overload current" is 40A. If he plugs the inverter into a wall outlet for charging/bypass, it will let his appliances pull 40A through a standard 15A socket. The main apartment panel will eventually trip, hopefully.

caymanjim 1y ago
This can be done safely if you know how to compute the correct wire gauge for the distance, and don't overload the circuit. You can easily and safely run 15A via a proper-gauge extension cord from a 3kW inverter to a fridge or any number of other individual appliances at once. Where this is potentially going to cause trouble is people who don't understand how electricity works, or that different wire gauges exist, or how many watts various appliances use. The kind of person who takes a tiny lamp extension cord and plugs a power strip into it, thinking that more sockets will provide unlimited power. The photos in this article are scary. A 2500W power strip with a bunch of crap plugged in? Exactly the kind of scenario you don't want to see. And talking about running a fricken induction cooktop off that, along with a fridge? The photo and text imply that you have near-unlimited power.

gregable 1y ago

What would change if you wanted to do something like this but for an EV? You already have a large battery, you can make decisions like "I need to be full for my road trip tomorrow, so fill from the grid", but you can just trickle charge from some fixed solar panels throughout the day most of the time. I think amperage can even be negotiated via the standard EV charge cable.

nikodunk 1y ago
You’d need a bigger kit. WIll Prowse has many guides on these. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rRqV8BHE8lY https://youtube.com/watch?v=rRqV8BHE8lY

cavisne 1y ago

Balcony solar kits are popular in Germany which are a more legit version of this. The main thing I would be nervous about is the panels are claimed to be "rated for 120km/h winds". Presumably thats if they are bolted down? Just laying them down loose on the roof seems like a bad idea.

cbdevidal 1y ago
Yeah I came looking for this comment. I’m in Florida, USA where high winds are the norm. A big shingle sitting there not tied down would flip real quick.

Havoc 1y ago

That's a really good price for the sizing. Like others said not sure about that wiring though

amluto 1y ago

Ugh, these two-lead LFP batteries without any sort of BMS communication are fairly nasty devices. The inverter/charger does not know the maximum safe charge or discharge current, the cell temperature, the cell balance state, or really anything else except the voltage. If the actual BMS in the battery (assuming there’s one in there at all) wants the charger to slow down, it has no way to tell it to do so. The charger has no way to know what it needs to do to get the cell balancing circuit (if any) to work. And the BMS (again, assuming it exists) can’t even communicate the state of charge to the inverter/charger. At least this particular setup uses a somewhat dignified 24-ish volt setup instead of the usual awful “12V” that is often seen in this genre of battery.

turtlebits 1y ago
BMS <-> "solar inverter" communication is not required. All LFP batteries that aren't raw cells have a BMS, which have over/under voltage protection. A bad charger isn't going to do anything. There's also nothing wrong with 12V setups (see all the RVs that are out there).
- amluto 1y ago
  > BMS <-> "solar inverter" communication is not required. It’s “not required” in the sense that it works. Poorly. Have you contemplated how balancing between paralleled “12V” LFP packs works? LFP has a voltage vs SoC curve that is very unpleasantly flat for purposes of cell balancing without intelligence, and almost no intelligence is available in these arrangements. > Theres nothing wrong with 12V setups (see all the RVs that are out there). There is so much wrong with them that it’s hard to even know where to start. Let’s suppose you have an RV-like setup that is designed to power one single 15A 120V receptacle. That’s 1800W, which is pretty small by the standards of modern inverters. It’s also 150A at 12V. Want decent efficiency? That means you want to lose less than, say, 2V on the wires, so you need to carry those 150A over a round trip resistance below 13.3mOhm. If you use the ABYC ampacity table, that’s 2AWG or larger wire. Fortunately 2AWG will carry 150A a respectable distance without excessive voltage drop. Now, 150A is a lot of current. 150A will make massive sparks, light things on fire, and weld sizable pieces of metal even if 12V is unlikely to electrocute you. And you’re feeding that wire or bus in multiple places (because you may have multiple batteries and a beefy charger), so you remember to put giant 150A fuses or breakers at all the feed locations, right? But wait, 12V needs below 0.08 ohms to produce 150A. Want to comfortably blow a 150A fuse? You need well below 0.08 ohms total resistance in the entire circuit, including the fault. If you have a high resistance fault (and “high” could be 70 mOhms!), you will never blow the fuse and you can produce literally kilowatts of heat. Crispy! (Your house likely has circuits bigger than 150A, but it’s at a voltage that can much more easily trip the breaker, and in civilized countries there will be some sort of RCD as well.) Oh, and that 2AWG cable is expensive, hard to bend, and requires actual skill to terminate well. And modern systems often target powers well above 1800W. At least in a car, the high current portion of the 12V system is made and tested in a factory. And it still makes amazing showers of sparks if anyone messes up a jumper cable. There’s a reason that car makers want to move away from it. So I stand by my claim: 12V sucks.

IgorPartola 1y ago

I have been thinking lately about what it might take to run a small house entirely off grid. My thought was that if you could build a separate battery shed that is away from everything and then fill it with like 100 kWh of batteries charged by a 30 kW solar array, then you could presumably run power from the battery shed to your house as if it was a normal utility hookup. But then again I have no clue if a town zoning office or building inspector would have a fit over a setup like that.

bombcar 1y ago
The easiest is usually to have wheels on the house, and then power it as a trailer/rv.
- IgorPartola 1y ago
  I am thinking more something that has a high spouse approval factor. 1200 sqft, 2-3 bedrooms, normal plumbing and sensible HVAC.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    I’m thinking something that is technically a large RV trailer “docked” into a non-house structure that provides additional space. All major plumbing and appliances and power are in the trailer, the extra “rooms” have nothing much but lighting. Not sure how it’d work in practice.
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      Powering your house is an advertised feature (with additional equipment) of a few electric cars. e.g. https://electrek.co/2025/09/28/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-your-home-if-its-one-of-these/ https://electrek.co/2025/09/28/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-yo... To go off grid, you'd need a source of power to the car that wasn't your house.

caymanjim 1y ago

The number of people replying to this thinking that this is novel is both amusing and surprising. This is a DIY power bank. You can buy professionally-made ones from Bluetti, Jackery, EcoFlow, and many other companies. Including with solar panels. They've been around in some form or another for decades. Modern ones use LiFePO4 batteries, which have a solid safety profile compared to older-generation lithium batteries. Or you can buy components and build your own, hopefully more safely than the article shows. Go hang out on r/SolarDIY or check out Will Prowse on YouTube.

throwawaylaptop 1y ago
Reading HN regarding tech makes me think I'm stupid. Then I see HN discuss hands on real world things, and I start wondering if actually HN is stupid.
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  Never read a thread on HN about a subject you have deep knowledge in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
- Pikamander2 1y ago
  Reddit has the same issue. Everyone speaks with such confidence that it seems like they know what they're talking about. Then they starting talking the same way about something you're more familiar with and the illusion is quickly shattered.
  - RomanAlexander 1y ago
    similar to Elon Musk talking about pretty much everything software. I don't know why he doubled down on having played poe2. https://youtu.be/cZslebJEZbE https://youtu.be/cZslebJEZbE

seany 1y ago

The amount of gatekeeping in this thread is nuts. The idea here is totally reasonable, it just needs some of the parts more right sized etc

slipperybeluga 1y ago
[dead]
kelnos 1y ago
"Just" is doing a lot of work there. Maybe the idea is reasonable, but the setup as-is is not safe, and there's nothing in the article that would tell you that, or tell you what you need to add to it to make it safe. Many people might read the article, think that it's all safe (because they don't have the knowledge required to properly evaluated it), and then burn their houses down. Not saying this is the most unsafe thing I've ever seen or heard of, but we have electrical codes for a reason... because buildings have burned down and people have died.
- seany 1y ago
  It falls into that "soft bigotry of low expectations" zone. There are intro articles and advanced articles; the advanced ones don't need to spend the first 1/3 of the volume talking about safety.
refurb 1y ago
I don't see any gatekeeping, I see safety concerns.

matt3210 1y ago

This is hard to share in a lasting way. The post I want to share is just the main page which could change and loose context after some amount of time. I recommend a subpage for articles to help long term sharing.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

> The secret sauce is that the sunbox is usually off-grid and never pushes power back into the grid. The only reason it's connected to the wall at all is that if it runs out of power it can pull energy from the wall. Ideally we all could push power back to the grid & that ought not be hard, but in point of fact that can be a huge barrier. It's not capable of generating as much power, but I love what Zoltux and many others are doing: attaching current sensors to the main breaker box, and using that as feedback to make sure the solar is never generating so much power that it pushes to the grid. Pretty mild 800w power on the Zoltux. https://zoltux.com/ https://zoltux.com/ The existing DJI Power 2000 added this capability with a recent software update, if you have a compatible energy meter! Can accept up to 1800 watts of solar power. I'm not sure if there's any difference between this kind of setup and a european balcony solar install? https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/pv_solar/dji-power-2000-users-in-europe-can-20250826 https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/pv_solar/dji-power-2... Also, this submission showed up two years ago. 236 points, 230 comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025195

simonbw 1y ago

I've been living in a rental for a while, and I have a woodshop in the garage. I've been really wanting to have a 220V outlet to run some bigger power tools, but if figured doing that would require hiring an electrician to come do some work in the breaker box. This has me curious if I can do something like this just to power some stuff in my garage, and also potentially charge an electric car.

kadoban 1y ago
Hiring an electrician is going to be cheaper probably, depending on the length of the run and how annoying the location is (and if your panel has enough capacity to spare). Unless your landlord is an asshole they probably won't care, in my experience, as long as you get a qualified person to do it. You're basically improving their place so it's not a hard thing to get approved. Btw for the second part, you _can_ charge electric cars over just normal 15amp circuits you already have. It's just slow, so you'd only want to do it for nightly charging and it may depend on your commuting range if it'll work out or not.
bob1029 1y ago
You could get something like an eco flow battery, charge it on your 120v service and then use its inverter to run your intermittent 240v loads. IIRC their models support being in charge and invert mode simultaneously, so you wouldn't have to swap plugs or change settings throughout the day. The Delta Pro series is capable of running a 3 ton AC condensing unit, so if your tools are less demanding than this it should work out.

osejesse 1y ago

[dead]

slipperybeluga 1y ago

[dead]

Hadj-Tayr 1y ago

[flagged]

LikeBeans 1y ago

We get 2-3 power outages every year where I live. Mainly due to trees with ice/snow/wind. My solution was to buy three power banks. A 500Wh, and a couple of 300Wh. I have a pluggable camp fridge too and a gas fireplace. So one battery powers the fan in the fireplace, another for the cooler to keep the food from spoiling. And the third one for a couple of the lights (with LED bulbs). Works great and we can handle an outage that lasts about 4-5 days. Also we got 4 of these rechargeable lanterns for lights around the house. I just keep the batteries and lanterns charged. Really easy and my investment is about $1000.

bkettle 1y ago
Do you mean 500Wh rather than 500kWh? 500 kWh would be around 10 EVs worth, and looks like it costs around 700k [0], but 500Wh seems to be a common size for portable power stations [1] [0] https://www.backupbatterypower.com/products/516-kwh-industrial-battery-backup-and-energy-storage-systems-ess-277-480y-three-phase?srsltid=AfmBOoosqoVQf5xC1t8z__98iLdGHyX1YQzUtByMSCfTLFoo3aZhUppB https://www.backupbatterypower.com/products/516-kwh-industri... [1] https://www.ankersolix.com/products/535?variant=49702434931018&ref=power-stations-collection https://www.ankersolix.com/products/535?variant=497024349310...
LikeBeans 1y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah I meant Wh not kWh. Oops. I fixed my post.
layla5alive 1y ago
I think you're off by a couple of orders of magnitude... 500Wh and 300Wh maybe? Or 5kWh and 3kWh if you got a very great deal? Your investment would be orders of magnitude more than $1000 for around a total of 1MWh!

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Site not available This site was paused as it reached its usage limits. Please contact the site owner for more information. If this is your site, please visit Netlify’s Billing docs page or log into your Netlify account to upgrade your plan.

RagnarD 1y ago

Hmm. "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to sunboxlabs.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details."

lgats 1y ago
site was deleted / removed https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...
weinzierl 1y ago
Safari too.

madduci 1y ago

The website has been taken down, now GitHub pages returns 404

lemonlearnings 1y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...

kittikitti 1y ago

They took this down so quickly. Bad examples are great to learn from. I don't get all the hate, and it just seems like a bunch of bullies found out and put the red tape on it. Don't you think "burning a house down" is a vast over exaggeration? I wouldn't trust any professionals using such intimidating tactics. Do they not teach "the boy who cried wolf"? It doesn't get worse than claiming this stuff will burn someone's house down around with everyone around them.

computersuck 1y ago

link shows github 404 page

lemonlearnings 1y ago

If I was paying 55c/kWh I'd freaking hire someone to pedal to generate the power. Thats insane. No wonder it pays off quickly!

Pikamander2 1y ago

Looks like the site's SSL cert is having some issues. Actually, the whole page appears to be 404'ing now?

bronco21016 1y ago
Glad I'm not the only one. I was disabling ad block, switching devices and browsers. It's gone.

psychoslave 1y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlabs.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251005022124/https://sunboxlab...

bilsbie 1y ago

The US really needs to get onboard with "balcony solar" or "plug-in solar." > small solar panels that can be easily installed on balconies and plugged directly into a standard wall outlet, allowing users to generate their own electricity. I believe this is common in Europe. They’ve figured out some way to make it safe for the grid and line workers.

turtlebits 1y ago

The more common term for the unit is a solar inverter or off-grid inverter. I run a few of these on an off grid property and they're totally fine. I would be wary of a cheap no-name brands. I'm also be wary of running extension cords all over the place. If you have the space (a mechanical closet?). I'd suggest getting a separate inverter and charge controller. These all-in-one units have fairly high idle inverter draw.

spaceballbat 1y ago

The battery is the scary part. How do you know you’re not getting some cheap ass china junk that’ll burn your house down?

e2e4 1y ago

related YC discussion about solar batteries on balconies in Germany: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485806

BizarroLand 1y ago

I would consider doing something like this if the specific placement of trees around my place didn't make it so that I get around 4 hours of sunlight on a good day.

MisterMower 1y ago

Who is paying $0.55/kWh? That is crazy to me. Living in the Midwest I pay $0.15/kWh. Payback period for me would be 7+ years with my electricity rates.