“Don’t Look Up”

Just gouging us. Even on the 3DS before they shut the shop down, digital download games were the same price as buying them on a cart.

hackaday.com mostly.

Everything else is “big tech adds [anti-feature], shoves AI more places no one asked for”.

Not just France. Saying that in the US, too.

Yes!

I was really hoping you’d edited the subtitle to have him say “Nice Beverly” lol

Oh, well, silver lining: the misinterpretation of that comment inspired more discussion than it would have had it been interpreted correctly as grammar pedantry lol

Yeah, A/C is a power sink; I’m not arguing that. But people are increasingly in need of it for survival. No one needs AI (the biggest datacenter power suck to date).

🫡

That one’s actually what I’d consider affordable considering something like this beast (solar inverter / charger) was what I was originally looking at.

Exactly. Except I’m trying to avoid those kinds of “cigarette lighter” style adapters, but I’ve used them before (which is why I’m trying to avoid them this time around lol).

That looks a bit overkill for camping, but yeah, definitely what I’m after / trying to achieve. I guess I could justify the expense if I set it up at the house between trips. Actually…that’s not a bad idea.

If you want an integrated charger

Not for this, but I’m eventually looking for a 48v lithium charger for solar panels. The ones I looked at weren’t terribly expensive but were designed for larger systems than what I have (I just want to safely charge my 48v 20AH multipurpose ebike battery from solar)

It’s in storage since I moved a few years ago, but I had a 1.2 KW ground mounted grid-tie setup at my old house (basically a proof-of-concept before moving to something bigger). Looking to dig that out for either a bigger grid tie setup or possibly feeding something akin to a PowerWall. Probably going with LiFeP04 for safety / peace of mind reasons.

Cool guide! Skimmed it, but saved it for later to read through in more detail when I’m not on mobile.

I’ve got two sets of solar panels and two different use-cases.

The panels my power banks use are all regulated 5v output (3x 6 watts, one 20W, and one 12W). I take one or more of those backpacking.

The 12V->USB PD adapter I’m looking for is to hook into my 12V 50 or 100 watt panel I take camping (which one i take depends how many people plan to charge from it). In addition to being a charging point for my laptop, it would also charge my power banks much quicker since they support QC/PD charging at higher voltages than the 5V panels produce.

But yeah, PV panels “open circuit” voltage is closer to 17-21 volts, but once you put a load on them, they’re closer to 12-14.

That’s exactly what I do.

I’ve got a 2-port 100W GaN PD travel charger that I use for pretty much everything. When I travel, my laptop and phone are hooked into that, and the laptop acts as a charging hub for all of the smaller stuff.

Something like that, but closer to 45 to 65 watts and capable of 20v. There’s one I saw a while back (can’t find it now), but it’s up to 100W PD and uses MC4 connectors straight to the panel. It was…expensive.

This is what I’m currently looking at (and it lists the voltages unlike the other ones that came up in search results). Only problem with this one is reviews say it defaults to “off” and you have to press the button to turn it on. Not ideal when it’s going to be hooked to a PV panel.

Looks like revision 2 of the PD spec requires all of those voltages, but in revision 1 it doesn’t require 20v. And if they’re not listing the voltages, they’re prob not listing the PD spec revision it adheres to.

RavPower was my jam before they got booted from Amazon, but yeah, I stick to Ankler for the most part (unless I just need a dumb power bank to dump solar into that’ll charge my better power banks - e.g. the 50,000 mAh behemoth I’ve got charging outside right now).

The reason I had to stray here is because I’m looking for a 12v -> USB PD adapter I can hook to a 12V solar panel. Not the “cigarette lighter” kind, but the kind you hard wire. No-name is about all you can really buy unless I want to crack open an Ankler or fuss with a cigarette lighter-style adapter (those are a PITA sometimes lol).

Yeah, I get the “SEO” aspect of it, but they could at least include the actual specs somewhere.

Should be, but not all of them support 20V. I’m less concerned with the wattage (I usually buy a minimum of 20W) since my laptop is designed for 45W but is smart enough to throttle and not charge the battery if supplied with less. I’ve tested it down to 20W (which the BIOS warned me about) and it works about the same as when it’s in “Battery saver” mode. However, if I put it to sleep or power it down, it’ll charge from 20W just fine.

Yep. It’s for an outdoor weather node on a metal pole, so damage would be fairly minimal if it had a bad day. It’s also only charging at like 200 mAh (max) since it’s got only a small 1W solar panel hooked to the charge controller. The only other concern would be summertime temperature, but I worry about that regardless of the cell.