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Update: I spent $400 on a 'green' home battery that was just a fancy paperweight
I saw an ad for this home battery pack last fall, said it could store solar power and keep my lights on during a blackout. The whole idea of being more self-sufficient felt good, you know, with all the weird weather and grid stuff lately. I ordered it online for about four hundred bucks. When it showed up, I realized it only held enough charge to run my phone and a small lamp for maybe three hours... not my fridge or anything useful. The company's claims were really overblown. Now it's just sitting in my garage, and I feel like I got tricked by my own worry about the future. Has anyone found a backup power setup that actually works without costing a fortune?
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emmaclark1mo ago
That's a bummer, but honestly, most of those small, cheap battery packs are basically just big phone chargers. For a fridge, you're looking at a much bigger system, like a proper power station or a generator. It sucks that companies make those wild claims though, they totally play on people's worries.
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sage3081mo ago
Yeah, the "big phone charger" thing is spot on. I learned that the hard way trying to run a mini fridge during a blackout. You need to check the actual watt-hours, not just the big number on the box. My little power bank said 300 watts, but the fridge needed that just to start up, and the battery was empty in like an hour. Ended up getting a proper jackery-style unit, and that finally did the trick.
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milarodriguez1mo ago
My uncle bought a similar thing for his fishing cabin, a little box that was supposed to run a small fridge. It couldn't even keep his beer cold overnight! He ended up getting a secondhand gas generator from a yard sale for a hundred bucks, and that thing has saved his bacon during storms.
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