Dan O'Shaughnessy Sr., IT Support Analyst at Seventh Generation, is off the Grid at his desk
Here is what he did:
I took an off the shelf RV solar panel (up to 15 watts of solar power) to charge a deep cycle marine battery (12 volts, 125 amp hours) with a 7 map charge controller to keep the panel from over charger when there is a no load situation (everything off).
From the battery I clipped a 400 watt DC to AC converter and plugged in a Kill-A-Watt meter, and then my desktop power strip. On the Power strip I plugged in my ViewSonic VA1703wb monitor and Sony Vaio with docking station. With both the laptop and monitor plugged in, I am drawing 50 to 60 watts and with just the laptop it’s 25 watts on average.
The next step will involve placing a meter to see how much charge we get from the solar panel in full sunlight, partial cloud cover, etc. Currently the sun has not come around the building’s west side for the afternoon blast of sunshine. With a partially cloudy day today, we are still seeing the ‘charge’ light on, but I doubt it’s keeping up with the discharge rate. The entire setup was less than $300. Here are the pictures to prove it:
