Questions and Answers


Many preppers feel that depending on electric devices are a mistake if things go south of us and they do have some good points. But for devices like the Kindle and the IPad, I feel we are not thinking far enough ahead. My retreat already has a fully charged + 700 amp battery pack with 400 watts running into it daily. While not a big load is on it yet, it is there 24/7 for me to charge things without having to worry about losing the mains. Currently my Kindle DX (b/w) has over 700 books and manual on board it at all times and its battery is good for about 6-8 WEEKS on standby and about 3 weeks on daily usage. Recharging it using a USB port uses about 5 volts- 10 volts depending and about 5-10 watts total. So even a very small solar panel will charge it for years of use.

My IPad is the first generation one but has all the features of the IPad 2 except the cameras and works really well for everything that I do online plus it is my main Kindle reader because of the color screen and ease of use. Again it charges at 5 to 10 volts and about 10 watts but does have to be re-charged every day or so because of heavy use.

I have a new laptop and a desktop as well for everything else, mainly school work as I am a doctoral student in Psychology, and I have mostly written this blog on the laptop. But, even so I feel that in an emergency I can run a small refrigerator, my laptop and IPad, and lights on a daily basis without running low on electric power. And while I have already planned in 2-4 more 200 watt solar panels, it is the battery backup I am most concerned about long term because they are normal 12 volt deep cycle batteries and not good solar ones. This I do hope to correct this spring as we spend more time at the retreat.