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It's not quite as easy as all of that, and it takes practice.

I've spent 2 years living with, and one year relying on an inverter.

It's not plug and play.

/johnny

The OP doesn’t sound like he is advocating and off-grid set-up, just a simple means to power small electronics. That is easily done plug and play through a 12v cigarette outlet.

I’m with you in terms of scaling up the system. I’m running nearly 4k watts off a battery bank that is recharged by generator(C4H10, C3H8, or diesel) solar, and or wind. My cabin is completely off the grid and I’ve never struggled for electricity. A system such as this is not plug and play and not for a novice to undertake - it took me a ton of research and some trial and error to get it right. Charging a laptop in your car, on the other hand, is plug and play.

It's not plug and play.

I agree. Fourteen years ago I installed two stacked trace inverters for our backup power system. I needed the 10KW inrush power for the well. I power 10 critical circuits with 8-L16 batteries and use the generator only to charge the batteries.

The maintenance and setup is much more complicated then most people would understand. The development of the BatteryMinder units has at least reduced the deep cycle battery work.

I cringe when I read stories of people running their gasoline generators 24/7. Most likely the generators will not last and it is a total waste of gasoline. I can get by on slightly less than one gallon a day. In a SHTF scenario the solar panels will go up, but not until then.

People really need to learn about electricity and power consumption. They would be pleasantly surprised to find out that you can live comfortably with 5KW a day or less.