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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2021-07-20, 17:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
Batteries are the part that would be most costly for off grid from what I can tell. It all depends on the kind you get and who branded them. Something like the PowerWall is cool, but "sealed" where rack mounted cells allow for individual replacements as needed. Most of those are rated and warrantied for 10 years from what I'm seeing.
EV manufacturers are figuring this out - the Ford F-150 Lightning EV has a 'trim' package that includes the extended range battery, *and* a bidirectional home fast-charger hookup. When the power goes out, the truck is your battery. A big, big, massive battery.

I'm seriously considering it. We've talked about a truck, we've talked about an EV, we've talked about a big honkin' battery backup for the house, and we've talked about going solar. This takes care of 3 of the 4.

I had a colleague a while back who was fanatical about reducing his electrical use, to the point that he yoinked the PSUs out of EVERYTHING he could in his house, and rewired them for DC. His server rack had a 5V DC feed to it, with a single uber-efficient transformer plugged into 120V. He pulled the PSUs from almost all of his AV equipment as well, with regret that he couldn't replace the one in his massive projector, because it stepped up, not down. He was running low voltage lines all throughout his house (with appropriate run lengths for each voltage), so he had 5V and 12V 'outlets' right next to the 120V.

Crazy, but also on to something, since a few of my outlets now have USB-A 5V sockets...
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