The battery can stay connected to your system while being charged by your new charger and your new charger never needs to be disconnected from the system. The battery can be charged by the new charger while the system remains in use.

Yes, your solar panels should stay plugged in all the time. Yes, your solar panels provide a trickle charge anytime the sun is on them.

I went to the gz website and looked up the physical specs for your system. It says it will fit a group 27 battery so buy a 27 if you want to fit it inside the box.

The problem is your gz yeti system isn't designed for off grid living and we're trying to put lipstick on an overpriced pig. The product description even states it's designed as a backup system:
Your system is designed to be kept plugged into a wall at all times to keep it charged for when the power goes out or you go camping with it. If your plan is to continue to live off grid this system is going to be an ongoing struggle since it's not intended for your use and isn't easily expandable so it can't grow as your needs grow.



GZ Yeti important specs:

1. (1) group 27 battery
2. 60 watt solar panel
3. 5 amp battery charger
4. 1200 watt inverter
5. LOL battery monitor w/ out voltage display
6. Charge controller for solar panel
7. Some wiring, terminals & a fancy box
8. $1499.95!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Now lets build a Goal Hero Bigfoot:

1. (2) Group 29 batteries $220.00 incl. core charge
2. 100 watt solar panel w/ charge controller, battery monitor & voltage display $140
3. 30 amp deep cycle battery charger $55
4. 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter w/ built in voltage display as well as a remote display + wiring $175.00
5. We've already got 2 battery monitors w/ voltage display as well as a remote display
6. Charge controller for the solar panel was included w/ the solar panel
7. (2) 12" battery cables $9.00
8. (2) Group 29 battery boxes $29.00
9. Designed for small scale off grid living & easily expandable
10. 2 hours to connect everything
11. $628.00


The Goal Hero system advantage:
> double the battery capacity
6x the charging capability
300 watts more inverter
40 watts more solar power
2 voltage displays vs. none
$872 cheaper

That $872 savings is enough to buy a wind generator + an additional 400 watts of solar panels which would provide enough power to run the system without ever running a generator.

A high quality, like $100, battery charger meant for car batteries can do some amazing stuff. They can recondition batteries that seem like they're toast. It just takes several cycles. I had a second car that the battery died in because I hardly drove it. Charged it up overnight or sometimes 2 nights until the charger said it was fully charged. Disconnected, and 15 minutes later it was dead again. Went through 10 cycles of this, and then the battery worked like when it was new.

Of course you would need 120 ac to do it, but it might save a battery.

That's true. The difference being that with a car battery it can "work like new" again because you're only using it for a few seconds at a time to start a car and then the car's alternator fully recharges it each time so capacity doesn't matter as much. With a deep cycle battery that is being discharged 50% or more (the "or more" part is the killer) every day of it's life capacity is very important and it's nearly impossible to regain lost capacity.

Yes ... this is one of those spots where I should have done more work. Thanks for helping me get some lipstick on it.

How does chaining two batteries work, in a setup like this? If I got two new deep cycle batteries ... if I'm trying to live on the top 50% of the energy, does chaining batteries mean it draws them both down at the same time or does it deplete one and then move to the second?

Damn.

I think you mentioned you weren't sure how much longer you plan to live off grid but if you're planning to stay for a while you might consider selling your gz system and using the $ to upgrade. If you could get even 1/2 what you paid it would be enough for a significant upgrade. I would think there'd surely be someone interested in buying it, replacing the battery and using it as a home backup or for going camping. Just a thought.

"Chaining 2 batteries" in this case would be "connecting 2 batteries in parallel". You buy 2 battery cables and connect the batteries positive to positive and negative to negative. When you do that you've created 1 battery out of 2 batteries which will draw them both down simultaneously

The Kickstarter is winding down, finishes in a couple of hours. I still don't know how to market anythiing--generating interest seems like the highest hurdle. I can see why companies hire people to do this.

I am really excited to see that just over 21 people have chosen issues 1-4, which means an audience to build on. There's a lot of things I want to try and do in & Ranch, and knowing at least a few are going out makes me want to keep doing it.

I've been looking at comic book stores that take consignments. They all seem to have different policies.



Two hours to go ...

I think I said earlier, but reddit. There will definitely be some subs interesting in your work. Good luck!

yeah...i agree there is likely a sizeable reddit contingent that would jump all over this.

edit: if they were aware of your complete backstory from the beginning (as posted in this thread), there is a chance they would catapult you to the moon.

Well, there was no moon catapulting. But about 30 people supported the Kickstarter, which helped pay for most of the first printing (this accounting is wrong, since the funds really go to support 4 issues, but it gets things moving).

In a mix of bad-good news, I'll be getting another 1,000 copies of the book because the printer should have identified a resolution issue. The first printing is not unusable, but four text-only pages are slightly "off." They're reprinting them, which not only wins me as a loyal customer but lets me price these things basically wherever I want, since I will have paid like $0.70/copy now.

Of course, it doesn't matter how cheap it is if you can't find an audience. ... I found a guy in California who runs a 'zine subscription service, and he took 55 of them @ $2.50/each. That's the sort of deal I need to find more of ....

Alright. I'm about to hook the battery charger up to the GZ system and see if I can save the mostly-dead battery inside. I'm not even comfortable jump-starting my jeep, so this is kind of creepy to me.

Currently the charger reads around 15 volts, or 13, it jumps around but is higher than those numbers. Also, charger says its about 90% full.

Still reads 90%, but 13.6 volts and is holding there. Manual says that's its "floating" charge.

The voltages I listed do not pertain to the battery while it is being charged. The voltage chart simply tells you how much charge is left between charging.

It will need to charge for some time on float before it's fully charged. Leaving it charging while it's on float is what will help bring life back into the battery.

This is why it would be ideal to take it to an auto parts store, or now that you have a decent charger take it anywhere you can leave it plugged in for 24hrs straight if possible.

Couple of questions on this ... I'm thinking of selling my current setup.

How large of an inverter do I need? 1,500 seems like overkill.

Is the most basic battery system essentially just: generator-charger-battery-inverter-load?

How similar do two 12v batteries wired in parallel need to be?

1. Bigger is better and allows for possible future needs. The prices have come down so much I just don't think it makes sense to buy a smaller one but only you know your needs and possible future desires.

2. Yes

3. The same. It's not recommended to even hook 2 batteries of different ages together. When you buy batteries you replace them all and they need to be the same. That said, dissimilar batteries will work together but not as well and it decreases their lifespan.

Has the new charger decreased your daily run time significantly?

I actually just got the new battery installed today.

My small generator is dying. It starts and runs just fine, but it spews oil, eventually running down to the point where the low-oil warning trips and it shuts down.

I took it to the shop, but they don't want to work on it more--they say the thing has obviously got some use on it and the seals may be failing and it could take $200~ in time and parts to get it going again, only to have something else fail ....

I'm still mulling my options.... Running it into the ground; opening it up and trying to learn about small engines (I also have a 2nd, cheapo, broken chainsaw someone gave me); or selling it.

I feel like someone would give me $100~ ...

So anyways, the whole battery thing has been stressing me a bit, but the other day I was in Farm & Tractor and just said screw it and bought a random 105 amh 12v deep cycle marine battery for $100. Group # was less than 31 so I figured it would fit.

The whole swapping of batteries has been a sticking point. Talking thru much of this, and looking at what I'm actually using and doing, it seems clear that the GoalZero was a massive money-sink. It is certainly overpriced from a component standpoint, but there is a simplicity and form-factor that add value to the right buyer.

And hey, they buyer was me and it worked for two years. So I can't ***** too much, I did say I was lazy, but now I can see it as a fancy box for a not-fancy car battery.

BTW, the battery in the GZ was an RA12-100 100amh/10hr from a Chinese manufacturer.

So the thing is, now that I have a charger and a battery I'm really just an inverter shy of what I had before in the GZ setup, albeit ugly. Which makes me think to follow much of the advice in this thread, sell the GoalZero and then just make what works for me.

The whole battery thing just seemed really complicated when I was doing this two years ago.

So here's the thing: I've got the GZ system, the smaller oil-spewing generator, and the larger gas-guzzling working generator.

My current thinking is to put it all up for sale and just try and get enough out of it top purchase a Honda 1000-watt generator and a couple of batteries and an inverter.

BTW, the battery did fit but one of the terminals had too large a circumference for the lead the GZ was using. The battery I removed had terminals set up differently and with the same size poles. New battery had differently-sized poles and one was a couple mm off.

Anyways, I filed them out, got them to fit and so far so good .... I'd charged the battery to full, before installing it.

The closest shop to me is a Honda dealership and clearly they're aching to sell me one ... but they've been pretty decent folks so far and I don't have any reason to doubt their rationale for not sinking more into the Earthquake

BTW, winter at -5 is WAYYYY different than 25 degrees. Holy crap it has been a rough few days. I'll definitely be shopping for some firewood this month, this cold snap put a brutal dent in my woodpile.

I've previously estimated that once the wood stove stops generating heat, the cabin plateaus and then the temps fall, I lose ~ 2 degrees an hour. These last days it's more like 5-6 degrees an hour.

I've been bunkered in eating an endless brunch of potatoes, sausage and eggs and whiskey and coffee, and feeding wood into the stove.

The cat is really unhappy. He goes out and does whatever he's doing for about five minutes and then runs top speed back in through the cat door. He stands in the middle of the cabin breathing heavily and looking around like he's never seen this place before. I swear he's got dementia or something.

I like your plan of selling off your stuff. If it were me I think I'd try to sell the GZ separately because it is a good unit for the person it's intended for and there's nothing wrong with it. I'd try to sell the generators separately since it'd be kind of shady not to disclose the oil problem. Plus the ideal buyer for the GZ doesn't need a generator, they'll likely be buying it for backup or camping.

I highly recommend the Honda generators they really are top notch. I'm on my 3rd one (which is the 2000). My 1st one was the 1000 which sat on the pitching aft deck during my circumnavigation and ran like a champ despite rough seas, salt water, and daily use.

They're much quieter and smoother running. They also have eco throttle which will save you lots of fuel since you won't need the generator putting out max power most of the time.

If it were me I wouldn't waste any time or money trying to repair your generator. Small generators are basically disposable. Just make sure to do regular oil changes on your new generator.

Good stuff to know. Cool. Thank you.

Also, I would never sell the generator without talking about the oil problem. Just ftr.

I didn't mean to imply that you would. I just think that the customer who will buy a used GZ in perfect condition w/ a brand new battery is not the same customer that'd want to buy a used semi disposable generator that's blowing oil.

That makes a lot of sense and you're probably right. Also, didn't mean to come off as too defensive.

Yeah, so these small generators .... I went back and looked, I paid $300 for the Earthquake and in May 2015. I had a couple of things repaired on it in that time, probably stuff I might do myself now, like changing a spark plug the first time.

These are basically disposable? Seems silly but also maybe makes sense. I suppose that's a lot of wear on a small engine.

I may break this thing apart and try and fix it, if it's really not worth anything. It still runs fine, it's just gushing oil ... maybe there's a catastrophic failure in there that will be easy to ID and repair.

But my real question: If these things are disposable, why spend money on the Honda?

Cabin currently lit by the new battery. ... It's 30 degrees out but that feels damn warm. The seven days that ended this weekend, we got temps from -6 to 26. That was rough.

The Honda will have one of the longest lifespans, it's more fuel efficient and it's the quietest on the market.

No engine runs forever and from the sounds of it your current generator has performed really really well. I don't know how much you're running it every day but let's do a little math and you can adjust the numbers to fit your use. You've had the generator for 32 months. Let's say you run it 4 hrs per day. That would mean you've run it for about 3900 hrs or less than 8 cents per hour. Another way of looking at it would be that is the equivalent of driving a car over 200,000 miles basically problem free. Even if you only averaged 2 hrs per day run time that's still incredible performance for a $300 generator.

In short nothing runs forever.

Have you ever gotten a quote from the utility company to run power to your property? If not you should do that. Some companies charge an arm and a leg but other companies do it incredibly cheap to gain customers.

I recently bought a new property and the power company had to run power nearly 1/4 mile. They put in the poles, transformer, and meter base for less than 1k. Once it's installed you're buying power for a fraction of the cost of generating it, you've increased your property value and increased your quality of life exponentially.

This would be the most cost-effective option, absolutely. I've avoided going this route for a few reasons ... just didn't really want to deal with it, possible cost, enjoyed being off the grid, didn't actually want to see my taxes increase, the less I have to deal with local officials and utility companies the better ...

What did you have the power run *to* on your new place?

****, can I just run an extension cord down to the road? Let them set up an outlet there...

I had them just run power to the property and from there I'll bury a cable to the house I'm building. In the meantime I've run a temporary line to where the house will go and put an outlet on the pole they installed.

It depends on how far away you are from the pole. Yes, you can just run an extension cord but only so far or you'll lose too much voltage. Practically speaking about 200' is the max distance you can run from the meter.

You need to weigh the time and cost you spend dealing w/ your generator, system and ongoing costs against the hassle of dealing w/ the power company. The nice part is dealing w/ the power company is basically a one time thing. Imagine what you would do w/ limitless cheap power at your cabin.

So what did they install? What did you bury a temporary line from?

I believe I've seen properties around here that have power run to an outlet basically attached to a post.