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Hiya,
I'm considering using part of a new shed as a bit of a home office. Basically, I'd like to be able to run a couple of lights, a computer monitor and charge a laptop once a day.
Facebook keeps advertising these rechargeable power stations that have various usb and 240v outputs, and I was wondering if anyone had any experiences?
Ideally I'd like to be able to add a couple of solar panels in the future, to save dragging it back to the house each day, so capacity for that would be preferable.
Thoughts from the STW hive mind?
You should be able to run lights, a monitor and charge a laptop from 12v so you can just use a battery. No need for one of those power stations. A leisure battery will do it, and a car battery charger to charge it. Easy to add solar to later, plenty of camper van systems. That said, still worth looking at running a cable from the house. Less fuss in the long run
A portable power station still be very expensive. You don't need the portability so a couple of 6v golf cart batteries in series and a decent (ideally full sine wave) inverter, then you can add solar panels. I use this set up in my campervan. Much better than leisure batteries.
PS Extension lead seconded, you could buy caravan hookup style cable that will be more resistant to UV and cold weather if you want to leave it out.
How far away from the house and electricity supply is your shed OP?
If it’s typical garden-sized then an extension lead would be a good tryout.
If it’s 1km away across the hill on your country estate then the battery options suggested sound worth trying.
Wouldn’t the STW solution be to dig a trench put in conduit & cables or put in armoured cable for AC & conduit for CAT6 cable and put the shed on the mains?
Thanks, I'm specifically looking to avoid dragging a cable across the lawn, or digging up the garden for a permanent cable route.
Ultimately I could use it as-is, and just bring the laptop in to charge at lunchtime, but having a second screen would be a massive benefit.
Antony know what sort of capacity would be sensible?
I'd lie a cable neatly round the edge of the lawn and leave it there semi-permanently.
As for capacity, what's your laptop battery? Something a bit bigger would give you a single re-charge, LED lights are about 10W so a couple of those for 10h would be around 200Wh. Not a particularly huge battery to lug around.
My lappy doesn't need a lunchtime charge, you could also upgrade to a decent one 🙂
Ecoflow?
you can work this out by adding up the total power use of what you want to run (Watts) and multiplying this by the time you want them to run for (hours), this will give you a figure in Wh so you just need to buy something with enough capacity.Antony know what sort of capacity would be sensible?
I have a Goal Zero yeti which is near the top-end price wise. Extremely useful and versatile device - I can use it to run tools on site, sling it in the van or car to run a fridge, etc on holiday, even has enough oomph to power my espresso machine or cook dinner in the event of a power cut! If you don't need the versatility/portability then it would actually be far cheaper just to get an electrician to run power to the shed properly!
yes you can charge off solar but unless you have a fairly serious install this will just be a trickle charge really versus what you're using unless really optimal conditions!
With the cheaper units you have to make sure that their peak-power output is enough for your needs as often they can be quite low. I certainly would do research before buying anything off a FB ad!
Wouldn’t the STW solution be [s] to dig a trench put in conduit & cables or put in armoured cable for AC & conduit for CAT6 cable and put the shed on the mains? [/s] onsite tokamak?
I'd personally look at a cheap solar solution from the get go if a cable is too big an ask. My lifetime experience of human nature tells me your sufficiently large to do the job battery with no on site means of charging it will be a paperweight and the ext lead permanent by week three when you're fed up of moving it into the house to charge or pulling the cable over there every other day anyway.
I have an Ecoflow River 2 Max. I doubt it would cope with that, might do, depends on laptop and monitor demands. If it's for something like that I'd probably go for the next size up or two. Solar inputs work well
Bought mine for day trips and camping use - i.e. run a fridge in the van, charge devices, power anything needed at home. You could build something with a battery but it's a lot more faff. Budget would help, £500 and a £1500 gets you very different capacities
I used a 25m caravan power cable to get power to my shed.
Ran down the side of the garden, couldn't see it and it sat there for 3 years without an issue.
I've got a small Ctechi 240WH thing from amazon. LiPO4 batteries so its safer to charge and longer lifetime. its ok for using in the van/camping but I wouldn't try and run an office from it. it was £150 ish.
unless its for occasional use, I'd run a cable
My lappy doesn’t need a lunchtime charge, you could also upgrade to a decent one 🙂
LOL, my extremely expensive business machine with an extra large battery needs a lunchtime charge if i spend anytime doing heavy (digital) lifting, typically compiling or 3D rendering. Thankfully i don't have to do that often.
The 6 month old mobile workstation my ex has can kill the battery in 90 minutes.