BB, it could be operator error but my Honda 2000 watts will not run my pellet stove. The big generator (idk, like 5000 watts) will run it. Test it and keep your receipts
PS, talking with you over the years since you bought that house leaves me quite impressed lady!!! Off the top of my head is garage floor, taking mural down, the stairwell project, heat pump, and now self sufficient in emergencies. Like is said. You're and Impressive Lady!
That is plan A - charge the batteries and test. I'll test it first straight from the battery pakc, then with the UPS between the stove and battery pack. The 2000 watt generator may not have been pure wave, and pellet stoves (at least Harmans) don't like that. Supposedly the Ryobi is pure wave, but as I said, testing will be done to ensure it can do what I want it to do. Thank you, I do what I gotta do. Plus, keeps me off the streets at night
If "all it did" was store power it would be useless. Solar generators are power stations that use solar energy, instead of fossil fuels, to create/generate electricity. Solar generators consist of four main parts: the solar panels, the solar battery, the inverter, and the charge controller.
Some UPS are quite sensitive to frequency variations from some generators and "freeze" / stop working if the 60 hz goes out of their tolerance range. +2/-0 hz is too common. Signature Solar in Texas is importing some Lithium Iron Phosphate Server Rack batteries that get good ratings for build quality and bang for the buck. Shop All - Batteries - EG4-LiFePower4 - Signature Solar They also have an all-in-one charge controller/inverter/switch with the same brand with wifi control. A 48 volt system is what I'm considering, but I have to have the grid-tied system first before I go partially off grid or the partially off-grid system will be factored into my grid-tied system system allowance. It's not cheap and it's not portable. What I want to run off it is a fridge and a small freezer - maybe my heat system boiler. 24/7.
Maybe I’m ignorant here but I live in Nh I have a grid tied solar array that was installed by the previous owners. As far as I know there is no way for me to use the solar panels when the grid is down? So this battery would only be good for a few hours? Am I missing something?
Most portable solar generators are aimed at campers/boondockers that are sipping energy. Laptops, 12 volt coolers, etc. They usually want units with built in charge controllers and DC inputs from solar panels, not AC inputs, although some campers do that, too. Think Socal, Arizona, New Mexico. But yeah, this Ryobi generator is likely to only run a pellet stove for 12 hours. Continuous. You might live with running the pellet stove on and off and get some more time out of it. How long does the power usually go out for, if there is an average time ? How fast does your house cool off in January ? What you really want is an RV size system, which gets pricy, can be a ten year ROI, but you don't have to store any fuels . Even trying to fool a grid tied system into working off-gris is expensive. That's the trade-off you make with a grid tied system. The ROI is short. 99.9 % of the time it works fine.
You can have a system battery installed in which they would also convert the system so that it will shut down your tie to the grid in case of a power outage. Again, that system is quite expensive by itself. Bit, could be worth it if your circumstances are right. Also, some systems will use energy during the night so you are really close to being off-grid, but can still draw from the grid if needed. I only need a couple of hours worth of time for minor power outages which I experience every couple of years. In almost 9 years the longest I ever was out was for 4 hours for a planned outage.
except what the OP posted is not a generator, it has no solar panel so it can't generate anything. It is a fancy battery pack with a buzzword attached. and no that ryobi isn't going to run no stove for 12 hours at 3 amp loads. Unless you swing by every 3 hours and swap batteries out. Which was why I recommended a 200ah lifepo4 battery, it's becoming the standard size for travel trailers/rvs except for the monster ones who than usually add several lifepo4's with a capacity of over 1k AH and they have a panels installed. 700 for 200AH battery, 4-500 for 400 watts of solar -300 for a mpp controller, 500-1k for an inverter. You could have a system that will run your stove for 60 hours guaranteed on a full charge. 3 amps x60 hours = 180 AH - a brand new 200 ah lifepo4 should actually give you 210 AH so you could in theory run it for almost 70 hours. You could also run your refrigerator for several hours on this system, you won't get the 60 plus hours running both the stove and fridge but figure on at least 12 hours of running both. just rough guesstimates on pricing you could spend more or less dependent on the brand name/quality you settle on. You could go cheaper and just get a 100ah lifepo4 which are going for about 325 +/- and you shorten your run time as well.
Yesterday afternoon the Ryobi Power source showed up. Let it charge the batteries overnight. Pic is after I unplugged it this morning and brought it upstairs. Later today I will plug the UPS for the P43 into it and see if the stove is happy enough with it to start up and run. Although I won't be able to tell total hours it can really run the stove, the each battery has an indicator for the level of charge inside, so should get a fair idea. Literature says it should be able to run a garage fridge (200w) for 3 hours.
Yesterday morning, after the stove was cold, I set up the power pack at 4:50, turned it on, unplugged the UPS from the wall socket and into the power packet. Then I waited for the thermostat to call for heat. at 5:25 the stove began its start up cycle. I had the display fully lighted the entire time so it actually used a bit more power than if I'd turned of the light, but it doesn't look like it draws much. I didn't even think to look at the power pack readout while the ignitor was doing its thing - so no picture for that I finally thought to look at the display part way into the burning cycle (pic 1). At 5:50 it started the shut down cycle (pc 2 was at the very end when only the exhaust was running), and at 6:45 the exhaust shut off. Hardly touched the battery level so yeah, think I could get 10 hours (or more) of straight time running in the deep of winter. And in milder wweather, wehre the stove doesn't have to run very much during the day, I could get longer.
Only one way to really know how something is going to work out- try it out for yourself (although I love getting insights from everyone) Informative exercise, thanks for posting your experience!
And just yesterday, a new thread was started for the Jackery power station, which comes all set up for solar.
If you use Webster's fine dictionary, you might find that the experts there define the word "generates" with a much broader spectrum than the one you are constraining yourself to.
I got a real world experience from the Nor'Easter. If I run my P43 on the thermostat, I can get almost 4 cycles (start up, heat, shut down) out of the for 40V 6Ah batteries. The first 24 hours of the power outage was a scramble because I didn't have quick chargers for the batteries. And the regular chargers are damm slow (like 4 hours per battery). So I ran up to HD and grabbed a couple of quick chargers and the only other 40V 6Ah battery they had (for a total of 5 plus a 40V 4.0 AH battery I had for my chainsaw). Those quick chargers bring down the charge time to 1 hour per battery. So the next 23 hours and 15 minutes weren't too bad. I am lucky that the elderly guy across the street had power, so I could just go over there and recharge easily (I do some care taking for him, so he was happy to help). After having power for 13 hours, I lost power again early this morning and I decided to actually track. I started from 4 fully charged batteries soemwhere around 12:30 this morning when the UPS on the P43 started beeping that it wasn't being fed. So, the fire was already started and it didn't have to start the stove. After letting it complete its cycle, and shut down, I hooked it up to the P61a (which it did have to start). This picture was taken right at hookup of the P61a right at start up from cold. So it had run the P43 roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes (say it took 5 to swap to the P61a) and the batteries are still pretty full. This pic is after the P61a ran and shut down - approximately 2 hours It had to start and run the P43 - which I shifted to a continuous mode to run the batteries out, and I got a little over 2 more hours before the Battery Pack lbeeped to let me know it was almost out of juice So, nearly 6 hours of run time, including two cold starts (that really eat the juice up). I may have been a bit optimistic in my initial 10 hour thought, but I'm pretty sure that if I had run the P43 continuously instead of swapping around and going thru 2 restarts, another 30-60 minutes would be added. Would it have been handy to have a system such as In the Pines suggests in comment #43? Sure. But it got me thru with heat and that is what I was looking for. This area hasn't had an extended power outage since the 2008 ice storms, so I took a calculated risk to use a system that would be handy in other ways, and it worked pretty well for me.
something is better than nothing in the end, you stayed warm and really that is what counts. Experienced gain is invaluable. Maybe pickup one of those tailgator options from harbor freight so you could run it to charge your battery packs? I think they are 2 cycle and 900 watts? Or maybe straight gas 1500/2k watt one which is overkill for charging batteries but allows adding an extra load on it.
You basically never have power outages, but want backup power? You want stored electricty but do not want the expense of the proper battery to do so. You do not want a suitable and affordable gasoline option, but do not expand reasoning. I got nothin. Is there a pellet fired generator on the market yet?
Expense had nothing to do with how I chose to store electricity. Well, except I was not spending $30k to install a tesla-type 4-day back up that would get used once every 15+ years). Even though I shouldn't have to explain my reasoning about gas generators, here it is - this battery pack was a back up plan to my back up plan. I already had a small gas generator that I bought in 2014. It has never been used. Once the storm cleared and I had a place to set it (18 hours after the power went out BTW), I dug it out from under the stairway, went and got the appropriate 50:1 gas to start with. Plus I bought a dedicated gas can for proper pre-mix and 2 stroke oil to add to regular gas once I got the generator running. AND, what did that get me? Nothing, nada, I could not get it started. I don't know how many stories I heard of people not being able to get their generators running just in my small town. Some were because they hadn't done maintenance after the last use. Several ended up going out and buying another generator to get thru. The battery option I picked was because it would be useful for me in so many ways - running tools I already have, portable so I can use in my shed that was put up last fall etc etc. I was able to set it up immediately, not wait until the storm was over and a space cleared for use. Is it a perfect solution, no? But neither was a gas generator (which was not a solution at all). There is no such thing, but a solution that got me thru and that was the entire goal.
