Prepping 5 Charging Your Batteries

Charging your batteries and devices is something we all have to consider as while I may have a pond/lake and springs combined with a dam and water turbines producing electricity, most people haven’t which complicates things slightly, so which way to go?
Many American preppers have large multi fuel generators and by large I mean large enough to run their entire homes as normal and while they may have 10-15Kw generators they also need 10-15Kw generator fuel and in the UK there are limits on fuel storage; and generators of this size need a lot of fuel and while they can run on petrol or various gases they are fine until you run out of petrol or bottled gas and you cannot power anything. Reality checks kick in as many of these Americans buy for vanity or one upmanship and while the large generators are available the much smaller inverter types are often better in the UK as they are smaller and use much less fuel and if you abide by the storage limits you can run for longer; one question, in a meltdown scenario is anyone actually going to check how much fuel you have stored?

If you go down the generator route you can get small 2Kw units as invertors for less than £200 from places such as UK Home Shopping and running at 1800 watts means you can connect 3 or 4 battery chargers to it and it only uses 1 litre of petrol per hour to run these as digital chargers and charge your 12 volt batteries up as well as run your freezer.

Solar panels are the next option and before I begin I would like to make a valid point, if you buy something such as a solar panel kit and run it you will generally be fine, but some kits come as two solar panels and one such kit was 2 x 170 watt panels giving 340 watts maximum, but is it the best way to go? I will explain why. If you actually read the adverts and do a little maths you will see the kit comes with two solar panels at a specific price, but if you buy two single panel kits you get two of everything, or a spare kit which could be beneficial as a back up. When I looked at the price of a kit with two solar panels giving 340 watts, then the price of a single panel kit with one solar panel and looked at discounts I found I could buy these for the same price if I bought two kits and I would have 2 x 170 watt solar panel kits, so why is this beneficial?

If you have two kits you also have two charge controllers and two lots of cables along with any junction boxes and this means you can charge lithium cells from one charge controller and NiMh from the other charge controller and be charging two types of batteries which gives you flexibility and this extends to your battery charging as you may have a single cell lithium charger and a fairly standard 4 way NiMh charger; you have to decide.

Solar generators are currently big news or is it simply marketing? I would say marketing as all they are is an expensive lithium battery in a housing with a few inbuilt gimmicks such as USB ports and an invertor, and the one thing generally missing is the solar panel assembly, you already have an overpriced solar generator and you are being asked to buy a set of folding solar panels, so why? Because they are overpriced for what they are, never deliver on their claims, and cost you a lot of money for very little which includes very little run time which under performs. People rave about them because they were duped by slick marketing and fell for it, they parted with a lot of cash and got little in return and their pride won’t let them admit their failure.
Compare the price of a suitably sized solar generator and its output and look at solar kits and how many you can buy and how much less they would cost, add in the price of batteries and a decent invertor and it is usually cheaper than a branded name solar generator. What do you think your solar panel kit and battery is, yes it’s a solar generator.

Power banks are extremely handy and extremely limited in that they can really only power small devices and while they may charge your mobile phone, they will not charge your batteries; their only saving grace is the amount of charging options you have and their ability to charge very small torches.

Wind turbines are often overlooked in favour of solar and this may be a mistake if you live in a windy area as it can provide a useful source of power to charge your batteries, and unlike solar they work 24/7/365 so can charge your batteries while you are asleep at night, so why have they been overlooked? Generally because solar is cheaper to produce and can be sold at inflated prices which means more profit for the sellers and they are NOT there for the environment, only the profits.

Water power is another overlooked power source and like wind it can provide lower peak levels of power, but for much longer which is 24/7/365 and again it can be harnessed to provide consistent power from manufactured kits to home made equipment and the benefits are the same as wind, they produce electricity while you are sleeping.
Wind and water can be very useful for battery charging as they charge batteries while you sleep and do not need lighting at night when you are in bed and this spread of charging often means you can dedicate the whole system output to charging batteries and nothing else.

This sections significances cannot be overlooked as they dictate so many things such as how long does it take to recharge my 12 volt battery, the rechargeable AA or AAA batteries from my USB port on the charge controller, or the lithium from my USB port as this combines to have a direct bearing on everything battery. If you can run everything rechargeable through the winter which is the worst time for lighting as you use it the most and things such as solar take much longer to recharge them then you can go nearly fully rechargeable and with a minimum of dry batteries; if you do not have enough charging capacity to keep up with your demand you need fewer rechargeables and many more dry batteries.

You could take a more pragmatic view and if you can afford it you can get both solar and a small wind turbine along with a charge controller with several input channels allowing you to combine wind and solar power in the same charge controller to charge your 12 volt battery as solar will be the primary power source during a sunny day and this will change to wind on a dark and windy night.