I really like NetIO’s products. I also have one of their 4-port rack-mount devices that has similar functionality. They are reliable, and don’t need an internet connection or stupid app to control it.

(I have used the Android app though, and it’s reliable and responsive)

Sorry for the delay. I’ve not been on slrpnk for a while as all their CSS was messed up for me and it was difficult to read anything :( It seems to be fixed now. Maybe my browser caches have timed out or something.

I mean that the cables from the DC system to the inverter will have to be thick if you want to power high-wattage devices. For example, we want to use an electric (AC, sadly) water heater in a camper van we are renovating, and to power the inverter, we have been told that on the 12V system, the cables between the battery and inverter should be maximum 1m long, and each one will be about 1cm thick! For 24V, the cables will probably be half the diameter, and you can probably run them longer, but it could still be quite restrictive.

I wish I could find 24V DC things, at least I would only need a DC-DC converter and not an inverter, but as mentioned, i’ve only found a kettle, fans and fridges that work at 24V :(

Still, if you’ve already got a lot of 24V stuff, it may be too much hassle to change to 48V (although DC-DC converters could be used, but that’s yet more things you would have to buy).

I started at 12V, but only because I was new at it all, there’s a lot of 12V stuff around, and knew at some point I would probably have to change to 48V for a “serious” system. I managed to get a lot of smaller DC-DC converters (eg for USB, lights or 12V things) that would work at 48V too when I made the change a few years later.

Some induction hobs have a timer function which could help. Our cheap oven also has a timer on it, and the rice cooker flips to “warm” mode when things are cooked.

Also, we have all our kitchen appliances connected to one of these: https://www.netio-products.com/en/device/powerbox-4kx, which you can program to turn off and on at certain times.

I’ve got mine set up to the travel kettle, so i can fill the kettle, press the kettle button and then leave it ready for when I want a cup of tea. I then have a small script I run from my laptop to turn the power on. When it’s boiled and turned off, I get an alert that it’s time to go to the outdoor kitchen and make myself a cuppa 😋

Over-engineered? for sure. Does it feel good? also, for sure :)

We have a small flight case on wheels that we use as an outside kitchen with the following appliances:

• 1 induction hob - 1.9KW max
• 1 rice cooker - 400W, which also works as a slow cooker
• 1 small oven / grill - 800w
• 1 “travel” kettle (0.5l) - 900w

They are all plugged into a 2500W low-frequency inverter which is connected to a 48V 5KwH LiFePO4 battery, and is serviced by 3 PV systems, two 800w and 1 360w in various position.

I would recommend not using 12 or 24v for cooking, as your cables will have to be really short and thick.

We can use all the appliances at once on the inverter (athough the inverter is rated for 3kw over 4 minutes max which helps) without problems.

Last year, we cooked on it every day for around 2 weeks when the weather was good (and I was working from the garden), and it was very reliable.

All those ratings are max, and the induction hob worked really well, and pulsed from 900w to 1.7kw during cooking pasta sauce once it got up to temperature, for example. It was only £35 from some dodgy chinese make, which has an advisory on it from our regulator about fusing problems, but we use it outside and there’s various fuses between it and the battery, so we should be ok :/

I really wanted to get DC equipment so I wouldn’t need to use an inverter, but finding any is difficult. The best DC kettle I have found is only 1L and 24v with a “din” connector, and I haven’t had chance to try and set that up with a DC-DC converter yet. A friend of mine modified a little oven like we have to work off ~42v DC, which worked, but I don’t know how he did it :( I did buy a 48v immersion heating element, which I wanted to use to heat water for washing up etc, but I’ve not tried that yet either :(

There are various DC fridges you can get for camping, but we don’t use them on the system .

Hope that helps!

It’s just started getting warm and sunny here, so we will start using the system again when I am working outside. We have only used it once this year so far.

There’s also plasma hobs coming out from China, which look interesting, and might behave more like cooking on gas. I would like to try one sometime, but they aren’t very common yet.

Thanks! I will check that out. It’s a shame, as their hardware is otherwise pretty reliable. I expected better from them.

Haha! I reported it to ebay. Man that was a faff, there’s no category to report dangerous / lying listings. The chat system was crap too. I had to say “I want to speak to a human”, and it put me through.

no kidding. Even 35A is enough to melt a 12v plug spring into the plastic surround… don’t ask me how i know…

I’ve never seen that connector in a car…

Yes, I first found out about MorningStar when I was trying to find a charge controller that had a proper network port and didn’t need a stupid app to configure it. I bought one and I really liked it, so I have 4 of the now.

I’ve spent a couple of years trying to find a decent inverter (eg. not cloudy and supports standard protocols), and it has been hard work. So far so good with this one, although their modbus support is buggy :(

Sorry! Added 😊

True, but it still seems rather excessive…

I like camping and festivals, and it was fun to get a small solar panel to charge my phone etc. about a decade ago. My parents were in to gardening, and used a lot of water butts to store water at our house. My other half and I watched a lot of Doomsday Prepper episodes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Preppers) during Covid lockdowns, and while some of them were a bit crazy, others had really good ideas. It felt like a sensible idea to try and be a bit more self-sufficient.

It will all take a long time to pay for itself, but I am learning about DC circuits and it feels good to have a backup for everything, even though we live in a city and are grid-connected to water, electricity and gas.