Kickstarter: One Fridge off the Grid - or - How to UNplug yourself

[Lee72]

Hello All,

Today my Kickstarter campaign, on which I have worked for over three years, has finally gone LIVE - and when I reach my funding goal, thousands of fridges will come off the grid, and tons of CO2 will be saved! Here is the link: [

It is a DIY project using equipment you might already own: Solar panels, batteries, and inverter.

Please support my KICKSTARTER Campaign in any way you can - LIKE / SHARE / Chip in.

Thank you all
Markus

[solar pete]

Hello,

One would have thought that having been around a while you would know how the forum feels about those who seek free advertising or crowd funding. Not on my watch mister.

[inetdog]

Note that people who really want to find your Kickstarter page still can, but you will not be getting any page references from our site.
The two things that caught my eye immediately on that page were:

1. No mention of UL listing, or even CE, making it a bad choice for US users as well as much of Europe. If you can get UL listing by the time you start delivering, it would be great.
2. The system uses batteries to time shift the solar input. Based on the unavoidable cost of battery replacement, your solution will cost far more per kWh of "off-grid" power than if your customer just left the fridge connected to the grid. The power fail backup is a credible advantage, but that does not require you to cycle your batteries full time.
For almost everyone who has a grid connection the only economically viable option is a grid tied inverter, and I do not think that your product works that way.

[Lee72]

1. No mention of UL listing, or even CE, making it a bad choice for US users as well as much of Europe. If you can get UL listing by the time you start delivering, it would be great.
2. The system uses batteries to time shift the solar input. Based on the unavoidable cost of battery replacement, your solution will cost far more per kWh of "off-grid" power than if your customer just left the fridge connected to the grid. The power fail backup is a credible advantage, but that does not require you to cycle your batteries full time.
For almost everyone who has a grid connection the only economically viable option is a grid tied inverter, and I do not think that your product works that way.

1. Good suggestion! I will go thru UL but have this written up only in the press release and the 'Project Timeline' at the end. I will make this more clearly.

2. No, the batteries are just there to offer enough surge power for something like starting a fridge. The discharge is limited to 10% capacity. I have tables that show 10+ lifetime with very shallow discharge rates.
The Grid connect is out of the question the most economical approach but only if you don't produce way more than you consume and you have to be willing to invest $10k or more.

But this will be all changing soon if people start to install Teslas Powerwall...

[Sunking]

Hello,

One would have thought that having been around a while you would know how the forum feels about those who seek free advertising or crowd funding. Not on my watch mister.

Then why did you not pull the plug and Nuke him and his post? It took me 2 seconds to find his Kick Starter Link. You are giving him free advertisement on your watch.

[russ]

Then why did you not pull the plug and Nuke him and his post? It took me 2 seconds to find his Kick Starter Link. You are giving him free advertisement on your watch.

Better to ban him, leave the post and point out how stupid the idea is.

This is another kickstart sucker play - collecting money so he can live well while doing nothing maybe?

The concept serves no purpose and totally misreads the public requirement.

[solar pete]

Then why did you not pull the plug and Nuke him and his post? It took me 2 seconds to find his Kick Starter Link. You are giving him free advertisement on your watch.

yeah, thing is I couldn't be bothered looking at his link, just don't like advertising outbound links. I thought there was a possibility he has a new product so I didnt delete the thread or post, I must be getting softer as I get older