Free electric

Hi all. I am about to try this out. For an investment of 150euro and a little work, I think I can get free electric. Anyone who has tried this or knows better, please post feed back.

Need
A car
2 High capacity diesel car batterys (400-500Ah)
A 12v to 230V DC to AC converter (rated to your lamp)
Toolbox!

Luxury
Quick change battery terminals in the trunk of ur car (like on badass car stereos).

The plan
Simply to have one battery in the car charging while the other is running your lamps via the convertor. When it is nearly flat, switch the batteries.

The proof
Divide the wattage of your lamp by the volts in your house power supply to get the amps (current draw)
Divide the Ah rating of your battery by the amps. This gives running time in hours.
Divide by 18 or 12 depending on veg/bloom and you have days

Example
400W HPS with a 500Ah battery
400/230 = 1.7A
500/1.7 = 294 hours
= 16 days veg or 24 days bloom

Problems
Extra load on alternator. The electric wont be totally free as you will burn a little fuel to load the battery back up.
If you wait too long you gonna be push starting your car
Pain in the butt to change every 2 weeks.

Pros
Money saved
I hate my electric company
Reduced piower draw, one less way to be busted

Would work great with LEDs or CFLs. Not so great for 1000W HPS. Unless you happen to own a truck.

maybe Im just crazy high right now but this sounds amazing, do you have any more ideas on non electric company invlolved ways of powering the grow? this is interesting I was thinking about this earlier, or maybe that was just me reading the thread either way its in my mind now.

I'm way too lazy for something like this. that just sounds way to involved for me and every time you add another unnecessary manual process you just add risk and failure potential. all it takes is being late on replacing the battery a few times and now you have issues with your plants. this is more likely then a power outage by your power company i would assume unless your power company really sucks. hell i don't even like changing my res every 2 weeks lol.

if you do this though take some photos and post them up I'd love to see what the more ambitious growers are up to!

Skunk Monk said:

maybe Im just crazy high right now but this sounds amazing, do you have any more ideas on non electric company invlolved ways of powering the grow? this is interesting I was thinking about this earlier, or maybe that was just me reading the thread either way its in my mind now.

Click to expand...

Actually I do. A friend of mine built some kind of fuel cell to power his electric scooter. Says it cost next to nothing to run. Unfortunately is was confiscated by the police before I got a real look at it.

They said it was dangerous, we say its because of fuel tax. Id post the plans if i can find them, he wont share!

Dutch Grower said:

The proof
Divide the wattage of your lamp by the volts in your house power supply to get the amps (current draw)
Divide the Ah rating of your battery by the amps. This gives running time in hours.
Divide by 18 or 12 depending on veg/bloom and you have days

Example
400W HPS with a 500Ah battery
400/230 = 1.7A
500/1.7 = 294 hours
= 16 days veg or 24 days bloom.

Click to expand...

the problems w/ this is the battery produces 500 ah at 12vdc,when you convert that up to 230,your draw will be 20 times more.
a 400 watt draws about 450 watts so at 12 volts you are drawing 38 amps.
next car batteries are not made to be drawn down like that so you would be better off w/ a RV/boat battery but still they are not designed to be drawn to the last amp so to make it last more than a few weeks,you would need to change it about every 6 hours,my guess is you would need to run your car for that long to recharge to battery.

there are wind generators that will constantly charge your batteries (not cheep) and you can run more that one battery at a time..I have calculated if I selfinstall a $25,000 wind system for my house I can take the meter off for good
A local solar installer has $5 a watt systems they install but I would go with wind as it works at night
But yea using your car/truck to charge is not good...maybe hook up a few wires to a hamster cage and hope the little guys got strong legs hell if they got a taste of what your growing im sure they will run like crazy

Dutch Grower said:

They said it was dangerous, we say its because of fuel tax. Id post the plans if i can find them, he wont share!

Click to expand...

It is surely because they couldn't dig their greedy little hands into your pockets.

so you're saying that you can run a 400w hps light for 24 days off of a high capacity car battery? there is going to be so much loss with that dc-ac converter...
I have been working with high-watt radio equipment installs in cars for a long time, and here's what I know:
running an amplifier with a constant carrier of 400 watts running off a hc car battery, it would die in 2 hours or less.
I know you did the math, but experience tells me this isn't even close to feasible.

but if you can do it, more power to ya! I can answer any electrical questions you may have.

your better off stealing electricity, for a few harvests, then changing locations...... it takes a long time to get caught.

true words chi. Ive stolen electricity before, its a risky business, inspectors might randomly come by for a maintenance check and then BAM your in jail.

All a matter of luck, I have a friends whos uncle been stealing electricity for 20 years straight and hasn't been caught. But thats just pure luck.

alienascii said:

so you're saying that you can run a 400w hps light for 24 days off of a high capacity car battery? there is going to be so much loss with that dc-ac converter...
I have been working with high-watt radio equipment installs in cars for a long time, and here's what I know:
running an amplifier with a constant carrier of 400 watts running off a hc car battery, it would die in 2 hours or less.
I know you did the math, but experience tells me this isn't even close to feasible.

but if you can do it, more power to ya! I can answer any electrical questions you may have.

Click to expand...

Wow i was expecting a loss, but that really is quite a lot. MrMadCow also made a good point that I wasnt aware of. I am informed that charging a battery makes a car use more fuel, something about a reverse EMF in the alternator, im not too hot with electricals to be honest but theres another loss again.

I normally find when I think I have a good idea and no one else is doing it, its for a good reason =)

I think this is a non starter to be honest. Thanks for advice guys u saved me quite a bit of cash.

but this would kill you in gas and
but if it didnt

could he attach more batterys to it so that it would last longer
alienascii (or anyone else) how could he get this to work
i guess really your turnning the car into a gen.

maybe you could rig your car on a timmer and it would cut itself on and off to charge the battery bank

That is one of the stupidest things i have heard all hour.

What is charging the battery, the car? Is fuel free? Where is the car in relation to the grow? Where are the batteries in relation to the grow? Do you know how many watts can be drawn from one of these batteries before it dies? So for just 150 you can buy a car that runs, 2 batteries, tools, an inverter, and wires? Good idea, but tell the 5 year old who suggested it to you that the laws of thermodynamics do not support the theroy.

If it was cheaper to generate electricity this way, then power compaines would be running generators powered by gasoline, not coal or nuclear fuel.

Dutch Grower said:

Actually I do. A friend of mine built some kind of fuel cell to power his electric scooter. Says it cost next to nothing to run. Unfortunately is was confiscated by the police before I got a real look at it.

They said it was dangerous, we say its because of fuel tax. Id post the plans if i can find them, he wont share!

Click to expand...

I highly doubt this.

I know a guy who can get a male plant to turn female, but he wont tell me how.

My one friends sister is a stripper and they are always coming over to his house and practicing. He made a ton of videos of it, but he wont show them to me.

I have a secret passage in my closet that leads to a land where everything is made out of money. Id post pics but my camera is a piece of crap.

I am going to make a fantastical claim then make an excuse why i have no proof, but ill expect you all to believe it, even though you can tell im full of shit.