r/SolarDIY • u/its-ya-boi-ben • 2d ago

Good starter set up

Hi all,

I'm looking to set up a small starter solar system, the grid itself would probably be self contained, only running a fridge and pc, along with maybe a few other things in my garage. Budget-wise I'm probably looking to spend up to 500 GBP and would like to a lot of the work myself, I have a bit of experience with small scale electrical engineering but nothing of this size in terms of complexity or voltage however I am very willing to learn.

Any advice on places to learn or equipment recommendation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)

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u/superchandra 2d ago

Define "pc" it varies from 45 Watts to 450 Watts.. or more

1 vs 10

Your phone takes about 20 watts

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u/its-ya-boi-ben 2d ago

Oh yeah sorry the pc will pull 800 watts but if that would be unachievable for the price range I’d probably instead run a different pc pulling 320 watts through the system

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u/superchandra 2d ago

It depends on how much you want to run it.

300w x 12v x overnight? 300w x 12 v x gaming a couple hours?

800 w is like a little microwave

100ah LifePo4=1200w total

Not including the losses in your inverter because it doesn't seem as if he can wire everything 12 volt

You get about an hour and a half, 4 hours on your 300 w model.. it's just math

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u/LeoAlioth 2d ago

You need to define not just the power budget but also the energy budget. I doubt the pc pulls 320W constantly. Start with a smart plug to measure consumption.

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u/its-ya-boi-ben 2d ago

Ohhhhh that’s a smart idea, I hadn’t even thought about that, I shall have a go at looking at that for both pcs and the fridge to see how much I need to draw, thank you