I’m building a little “solar garden” to harvest some photons from the sun to put in the “tank” of my wife’s Ford Mustang MachE. Soon after we got the car and the free Level 2 charger installed by Ford, we started to notice how much power an EV requires.
My wife’s commute is about sixty miles total four days a week and when she comes home at night, she basically drains the Tesla Powerwall 2 we have as part of our solar array.
Also, over half of our electric bill is from delivery charges so any solar power that we can store, means avoiding delivery charges on it.
We looked into adding another Tesla Powerwall 2 but they are discontinued. We also looked into adding more rooftop solar ($17K) but we are limited by the 10KW transformer on the pole and Eversource is dragging their feet about upgrading it to a modern 25KW one.
So a bunch of research led me the off-grid solar route. A separate system with a few solar panels and a lot of battery storage. The batteries will help store excess solar power for when the Powerwall 2 is full and store some solar power from some attached panels feeding the off-grid solar system.
Then it’s just a matter of flipping a transfer switch for the garage outlets when we need to charge the car.
I ended up with a Pecron F5000 and two additional batteries. This power station simplifies the setup because it is an inverter (for converting DC power from solar panels or the battery to AC power), charge controller and battery management system all in one.
You just need to plug it in and plug in a few panels (optional).
Here is what I got for the setup:
With a bargain price tag, the Pecron F5000 packs a lot of power and features in this 125-pound beast of a power station or battery generator. It could be used in a power outage to power all kinds of things – phones, CPAP machines, lights – it even has a RV plug and a 240V output. It can be used as a UPS.
Note: They seem to ship these in batches as they come in. Mine took about three weeks to arrive via FedX Ground after I ordered it.
I was attracted to this mostly by its huge battery – 5120Wh and the price point. My Powerwall 2 can back up our house for 6 to 14 hours, depending on what’s running and that has 13.5 kWh of usable energy storage. I ordered two cascading battery packs for the Pecron so my set up of one powerstation and two extra batteries creates a total of over 15.3 kWh and you could add another three battery packs if need – expandable to 35.8kWh.
The Pecron F5000 can also be charged in a number of ways. From a regular 15 amp outlet, from the solar input – up to 6400W Solar Charging Power (two 3200W solar input plugs) or from a 30 Amp RC plug.
Solar Power for the Pecron F5000
When shopping for solar panels keep in mind that the Pecron F5000 needs 30 volts to wake it up. So looked for a panel that has more than 30 volts of Open-Circuit Voltage.
To get started right away, collecting some solar in my Pecron F5000, I purchased one of these 400wt bifacial portable solar panels. I managed to get a peak input of 451 watts out of these panels on the first day I tried them.
Traditional panels:
Portable panels are easy to ship, lightweight and easy to store. But for longevity and durability, you’ll probably want some more traditional rigid glass panels.
I ordered two of these 400wt bifacial panels:
It took several weeks for them to arrive via common courier freight and unfortunetly one was smashed and had to be returned. Note: they are very heavy and unweldly for one person.
I think I should have gotten 200 watt panels just to make it easier work with as a single person trying to wrestle them around.
Using the Power
You can plug loads directly into the front of the Pecron F5000. DC loads like cell phones or AC loads like a fan or refrigerator. But to use it as a backup power source for your home, you’ll need a transfer switch.
A transfer switch takes the electrical branch, say your bedroom or office, off the grid power and lets a gas or batter generator power that branch. There is no back feeding to the grid.
I installed this Reliant transfer switch several years ago for use with my small gas inverter generator.
This Reliance Controls Corporation 31406CWK 30 Amp 6-circuit Pro/Tran Transfer Switch Kit for Generators (7500 Watts) is the perfect match for the Pecron F5000s power station.
Since I had already installed this unit years ago, the input box was mounted outside for the gas generator so I ordered a socket for the front of the inside unit. So I put a plug on the wire leading from the outside unit so I can either plug in the Pecron powerstation or the gas generator.
Charging with a 30 Amp RV Outlet
The Pecron F5000 can be charged with a 30 Amp RV outlet which is much faster than the 15 amp standard input. I have a new sub panel just a
bove where my powerstation sits so I figured why not install a 30 amp RV outlet. I got this one just because I liked the looks of it over the boring metal ones even though it will be installed in my basement. https://amzn.to/4uVChmG
