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I want to get my PC off the grids power; any decent solutions for an apartment that has access to a roof? (lemdit.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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As title says. I think my PC is using like a max of 500w when it's juicing but idles for less. I was thinking of using an ecoflow high grade setup for this. Anyone have experience doing something similar?

I might switch to a small micro tower setup by Dell or Lenovo that uses like 120w max. The new Mac minis seem to cap out at 39w though which is crazy.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There are off the shelf options for emergency power supply, even with the option to add small mobile solar-panels. But they tend to be really expensive.

For low powered laptops there are even fold-able camping solar panels that have a USB plug. I have used that to power and recharge my Pinebook Pro on some extended trips in the past. Probably also works with chromebooks and some low powered ultra-books.

If you want to try your hand at a DIY solution: the best way is to get a PicoPSU ATX power supply that can be directly connected to a 12V/24V battery. They are meant for automotive computing, but work fine with a regular battery, a cheap solar-charge controller and some panels on the roof or balcony.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cool the hear someone using pinebook, how is your experience with it so far?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

After the first shock of all the import fees and taxes, which made it actually 50% more expensive than advertised, I got some good use out of it. Obviously one has to keep expectations in check, but 4GB ram with zram buffer turned out to be sufficient for all my usual tasks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have to ask how do you like the pine book pro?

I have one of their phones but the software at the time was really under developed so it mostly sat for a few years

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It is basically just another Linux laptop. Small caveats with not all software being available for ARM64, but for the most part it works fine. Contrary to the PinePhones there isn't much complicated hardware in these laptops that needs special drivers, wake on notification or other battery-optimizations.