News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel? by foxhop on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @03:00PM (#28776892)
Sorta related if you don't want to hack that sort of thing yourself -

Hybrid Hot Water Heater Saves 69 Percent On Energy Consumption:

https://russell.ballestrini.net/hybrid-hot-water-heater-save...

Re:How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel? by Gibbon1 on Thursday October 07, 2021 @01:43AM (#28782558)
> Instead of using 4,500 watts for 45 minutes (.75 hours), a hybrid hot water heat pump uses 350 watts for 3 hours.

I saw video of a guy installing one in his off grid house. He was mostly stoked with it because it only drew about 300W. But had a problem because it would do a check of the heating elements on startup which would crowbar his inverter. He fixed that by installing lower wattage elements.

Re:How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel? by foxhop on Friday October 08, 2021 @09:06AM (#28798796)
I watched the same video to inform myself prior to the purchase, if I remember correctly he was off grid in Hawaii.

If your into small scale Food Production checkout my channel: https://youtube.com/c/RussellBallestrini

My house inverter is grid tied so I have a backup for the start up spike in energy.