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Thread: Sun Direct Power (formerly Sound Wisdom) SG-1 5,000 Watt Solar Generator

  1. #1
    LHBA Member Timber's Avatar
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    Sun Direct Power (formerly Sound Wisdom) SG-1 5,000 Watt Solar Generator

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BitkypLc4WU

    I saw this ad and watched the video...sounds and looks great!

  2. #2
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    It's a box with a battery charger, built in charge controller and cheap 5000 watt inverter with surge to 10,000 momentarily,if that's a heavy duty drill press,table saw and micro wave I'll eat my shorts. It may be able to power stuff for a little while but it can't have much in the way of reserve capacity,it takes way more batteries than could fit in there to run things for an extended period,if you need stand by power for when you lose electricity a generator is still your best choice,Honda makes a line of generators that are make little noise and they come in handy for many things besides emergency power,you can get a generator that runs on propane also that way you wouldn't have to worry about gas going bad
    Last edited by lilbluehonda; 04-20-2011 at 06:14 AM.

  3. #3
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Agreed. Anything advertised as "Solar Generator" is pretty much going to be nothing more than a waste of your money. They prey on the public's ignorance of how solar equipment works. Yes, you can have all that stuff shown running, but that battery is getting beat up by drawing way over it's rated discharge rate. By the end of that video, it was probably nearly dead. If he pushed any harder on either the drill or saw, I bet the inverter would have dropped out on low volts. (notice how slow he cut/drilled that little board) Overall battery life will be very short continuing with that type of abuse.
    All my bad forum habits I learned from LHN

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  4. #4
    LHBA Member StressMan79's Avatar
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    but it comes in a wood case, with three different finishes no less!

  5. #5
    LHBA Member Timber's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by StressMan79 View Post
    but it comes in a wood case, with three different finishes no less!
    marketing ... sure seemed good to me
    Last edited by Timber; 05-15-2011 at 08:56 PM.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by lilbluehonda View Post
    It's a box with a battery charger, built in charge controller and cheap 5000 watt inverter with surge to 10,000 momentarily,if that's a heavy duty drill press,table saw and micro wave I'll eat my shorts. It may be able to power stuff for a little while but it can't have much in the way of reserve capacity,it takes way more batteries than could fit in there to run things for an extended period,if you need stand by power for when you lose electricity a generator is still your best choice,Honda makes a line of generators that are make little noise and they come in handy for many things besides emergency power,you can get a generator that runs on propane also that way you wouldn't have to worry about gas going bad
    Start munching, lilbluehonda. You watched that inverter power 3,960 watts of equipment at once, and it did it over and over for take after take while we shot that video. The microwave's 1200 watts, the table saw pulls 1800, the drill press takes 960at sound-wisdom.com you can watch the latest model drive 5,000 watts of equipment at our veterinary dealer's cattle barn in Seminole, OK.

    You're also dead wrong about the inverter. We tested "cheap" inverters, and the one we selected was the most expensive. We didn't choose it because it was expensive, we chose it because it passed the most sensitive equipment test: driving an LCD projector of 1600 x 1200 resolution. All the others made the image shimmer; with that inverter, it looked exactly like we'd plugged it into the wall, even up close.

    You're also wrong about the surge being momentary. Yes, running an inverter at peak power will kill it fairly quickly, but that one has balls and backbone and will take a lot of killing.

    You're also wrong about the charge controllers. They're built into the solar panel cables, each controller running one panel. If we'd built them into the main electronics, you couldn't add solar panels because you'd be beyond the amperage the controllers could handle. Did you even pay attention to that video?

    You also didn't bother to listen to the part that explains that you can add as many batteries and solar panels as you like. OF COURSE a portable system never has the reserve capacity for long haul work, but ours is the ONLY one in the world you can add as many batteries and panels as you like, even from other companies. Our manual even shows you how to hook them up, even if you didn't buy them from us. Most people can't write a check for twenty two years' electric bill (the average cost) to simply switch to solar. They have to start somewhere, and ALL the other solar generators on the market limit your growth to "nothing very useful." Ours gives you a starting point that you can build on, even up to taking your whole house off the grid.

    Your advice on a generator being the best bet is also little short of stupid. Gas generators put 4,000 Americans a year in the hospital, and 400 in the morgue, partly due to people like you giving "advice." When the power goes out long-term, you then have the problem of dangerous gasoline storage: if you have enough gas to go a week, you're breaking laws in most states, and inviting a very nasty fire. Oh, and if the power's out for very many days, the water often goes out, too, because it's on the same 120v grid in most places. How do you put out a fire then?

    Then, if the power goes out for very many months, which is ENTIRELY realistic given NASA and NOAA's warnings about the solar flares next year, you need to rebuild your genny. Where will you get parts? Who will do the work? Have you even thought beyond the gadgets you find so familiar but require an entire industrial civilization to keep running?

    It doesn't sound like it. How about you leave technical questions to people who know something, eh?
    Last edited by Admin; 08-24-2011 at 09:49 PM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by rreidnauer View Post
    Agreed. Anything advertised as "Solar Generator" is pretty much going to be nothing more than a waste of your money. They prey on the public's ignorance of how solar equipment works. Yes, you can have all that stuff shown running, but that battery is getting beat up by drawing way over it's rated discharge rate. By the end of that video, it was probably nearly dead. If he pushed any harder on either the drill or saw, I bet the inverter would have dropped out on low volts. (notice how slow he cut/drilled that little board) Overall battery life will be very short continuing with that type of abuse.
    No, Rod, we use golf cart batteries that are designed for that heavy load, and have yet to have one fail. 5,000 watts is only 416 amps of 12v DC, and our batteries, cables, and terminals don't even get warm on that load. The customers that draw lightly on their system use only one pair of golf cart batteries, and those that really work their systems have banks of up to twelve pairs. The "discharge rate" you used to sound smart is only used as an example to show how long a battery will give off that amount of power before being drained. The battery in your car gives up several hundred amps every time you start it; does it die from that "abuse?" Of course not, and our batteries are designed to take that much power and give it back, day after day.

    And we originally tried the video with thicker wood (2 x 6), but it added almost twenty seconds to it, and we needed it short. No, the inverter did NOT sound a low voltage alarm. Do you actually know anything about this stuff, or just like to impress people by deriding what you don't know?

    When you build something for someone, are you preying on their ignorance of how to build? Kinda depends on how well you build it, doesn't it? Call us sometime, don't tell us who you are, and start asking questions, and you'll see pretty quick that not only do we NOT prey on anyone's ignorance, we educate them. Our sales cycle is about four weeks from the first phone call to the purchase, because our customers go away and research everything we told them, and find out it was rock solid truth. 918/612-4090 sound-wisdom.com
    Last edited by Admin; 08-24-2011 at 09:59 PM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by StressMan79 View Post
    but it comes in a wood case, with three different finishes no less!
    Actually, it comes with any Minwax oil-based stain you like. We can also trim it in several colors, now. sound-wisdom.com
    Last edited by Admin; 08-24-2011 at 10:01 PM.

  9. #9
    LHBA Member StressMan79's Avatar
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    yeah, lilblue. you are dumb.
    Last edited by StressMan79; 08-24-2011 at 09:08 PM.

  10. #10
    LHBA Member StressMan79's Avatar
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    rod is a huge moron...!
    haha
    (guess I am too)

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