Hello Operators
It’s probably become obvious by now that emergency power, portable power, battery backup power, and the off grid ham shack are all interesting yet critical topics on the channel and blog.
In my last video, about the DIY solar generator, someone noticed the pedal generator I used to charge the generator, while sitting inside my home. That crank generator is the K-TOR Power Box 50.
The K-TOR Power Box 50 puts out 14.3v 3A, perfect for charging our battery box or solar generator when the Sun isn’t available.
If we take a brief moment to talk about pedal generators or crank generators in general, the usual argument is “they require a lot of calories to generate power”.
Of course we would like to use some passive way of energy generation if we can, but I always go back to the grid down disaster in Puerto Rico as an example.
- If you don’t have solar panels,
- if you don’t have grid power,
- if you don’t have a motor to generate power,
yet you still need 12v power to refrigerate your grannies medicine, because she’ll die without it. At that point a crank generator doesn’t look like a bad option at all.
In this short series of videos below this paragraph, I’m charging up my 10 amp hour Lithium Iron Phosphate pack with the K-TOR Power Box 50, straight through the solar charge controller input, I use with my solar panels. This means I can’t overcharge the battery, I just need to mindlessly Pedal away to top up the battery.
The K-TOR is available from Amazon. There are different versions.
Full disclosure. I reached out to the company and asked if it would be possible to use a Power Box 50 as an alternative means of charging the DIY solar generator, or any of the other battery packs we’ve built on the channel. So far this was an incredibly good call.
A battery is useless when it’s dead. So it’s extremely awesome having options.
73
julian oh8stn
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73
Julian oh8stn
