Emergency cooking - power hot plate direct from 2 -100 watt panels?

[Matt Gruber]

After a hurricane power can be out for 2 days. Years ago i tried running a freezer to keep meat fresh. 8) Had 2 100 watt panels, a free UPS inverter, solar charger- hooked to 2 car LA's in series. Worked but frankly it was a PITA as i had to keep moving the 2 panels to follow the sun
Since i found out that heart disease can be REVERSED by avoiding meat, dairy, and high fat foods, i cook lots of vegetables and low fat foods, like potatoes, lintels, black beans. So i don't plan to run the freezer. New plan is to hook the 2 panels in series directly to a hot plate Want to slow cook the bean dish 2-4 hours 8)
I know the 1000w hot plate doesn't need much power to slow cook, i did a test years ago cooking off a makita pack 8) but i forget the power it needed, so i'll guess 100w average will do fine (will take maybe an hour to boil a pot of water, then it will slow cook, 8) But my guess is it will burn the beans :lol:
Any comments? pretty simple way to make some hot food with no power, and easier than trying to cook with a fire. Clouds won't bother the food- i often turn off the stove to keep from burning the food. So i don't plan to aim adjust the panels to get full power. After it boils, less power should be fine.
Anybody ever hook anything DIRECT to panels?

 

[Matt Gruber]

found my old posts from years ago:

One thing i learned is, it takes 12 minutes to cook a burger on a hot plate on 2p10s and, it cooks so slow it does not shrink! that 1000w hot plate put out 100 watts at 40v.
was about to try 2p15s, 60v when the pwr came back on. takes 2-3 minutes on 240v, 1400w stove. 1 minute on, then off til done.
.
So i'll have to test this out- not sure it will work. panels are 12v but 20v no load.
.



Re: 2 Solar panels to run old freezer after hurricane


IRMA blows out the lights!
at first, on day one, it looked gloomy. no pwr for 16 hrs and no sun. gen's humming in the backround.
So about noon, i hooked the 2 cars in series, and ran 24v to the ups. ran freezer for 1/2 hr, was about to shut it off, and the sun popped out! so out came the 2 PV's and ran 20 more. clouds and sun for the rest of the day, got 2 hrs run time. had to let LA's charge as they are not deep cycle.
Day 2 full sun 8am, but it is weak early, so ran 40 min on, 40 off. clouds rolled in/out, but got another 2 hrs by noon.
Grid back on at noon! was off for 38hrs.
Learned a lot, and for the 1st time a pwr outage was fun!

AND

UPDATE 9-14-17
34% still without pwr in Volusia county after 4 days! There was not much damage to buildings, just a lot of wires down. it is easy to imagine 2-4 weeks without pwr with a cat 3. this is why i went solar instead of gas gen- a gas gen is going to run out of gas in a few days, as i'm not going to stockpile a huge supply.
solar, while erratic, won't run out, no carbon monoxide, and no NOISE 8)
freezer still has ice after 4 days, but not much. next time i'll make twice as much ice. it really makes ice fast, about 25-30 lbs /day, given pre-cooled water from my fridge at 52F.
Thanks for the comments!
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