Life Off the Grid: How I Power My Cabin with Redodo Solar Batteries?

Hello fellow reader. I’m Josef, born and raised in Britain, living in an off-grid cabin for more than 5 years, over in Europe. Recently, I was invited by REDODO to share my story of how I use my two REDODO 12V 100Ah lithium batteries (hooked up in parallel, running as one 200Ah or 2560Wh system). As well as sharing my experience using their 40A MPPT Solar Charge Controller and their 2000W inverter, since more than a year now in my off grid cabin. (Also, have no fear, this blog was not written by AI! It has been written by me, a human!)

For some context, I've been living in my off-grid cabin since five years now. This decision and or lifestyle choice kind of happened all by itself, really. It was strongly influenced by my 4-5 years bicycle touring “round the world” 42,000 km, across Australia, North America, New Zealand and all around Europe... After this moment of “vagabonding” around on my bicycle, and sharing my experience about it over on my YouTube channel. I decided it was important for me to find a place to a call “home” for a while.

In the beginning, electricity was quite bare-bones in the cabin. I used a simple, small 166Wh power station (that I still use occasionally) with a single 100W solar panel. However, over time I went from one power station to the next, going from 160Wh to 280Wh to 500Wh. But then realising, the importance of having more battery storage so that you can then run more powerful appliances for longer. Then, in addition to that, I also was at the time interested in the idea of finding a more powerful inverter as well, so that you can run standard household appliances in an off grid setting. This includes things that I have actually legitimately tested like AC units during Summertime, electric kettles, strimmers (or weed-wackers), washing machines, dishwashers, small electric boilers, ovens, toasters, heaters, pumps and the list go on, etc.

In order for me to run these more powerful appliances, I needed to get my hands on more solar panels, a larger solar charge controller, larger batteries and of course, a higher wattage inverter.

I started off by finding some second-hand 200W panels from a local supplier. Prices can vary, but you can usually get very heavy discounts if you buy second-hand solar panels. Of course, they're not new, and they didn’t come with warranties. I ended up buying 7 of these. Three of which are connected to my 40A REDODO MPPT solar charge controller. This is an absolute must to regulate the power coming from the panels going into the 100Ah REDODO batteries. I also connected a REDODO monitor with Shunt to monitor power coming into the batteries and going out of them.

Once the solar panel's, charge controller and the batteries were set up, I then connected the 2000W inverter (I will leave the list below with links to all the components that make up my DIY solar system).

It's worth mentioning, when it came to installing and setting up all the components from REDODO, that I found the user manual very clear and easy to follow (even for beginners).

One thing I have noticed is that in order to run most of these AC appliances you will need at minimum a 2000W inverter or more. A few tricks that I have noticed is that you can run some low powered DC appliances directly from a 12V or 24V battery, which has been really handy. This means you don't need to run it directly from your inverter. (Most inverters on the market do use some idle power when they're not in use.)

These 12V batteries have been really useful to run simple things like lights and anything running on DC power. I even have one different separate 100Ah battery, set up on its own, running just as a DC unit. This can run things like my 12V fridge and even can charge laptops, which is the very thing I'm using to write this with!

Honestly, once you get into solar off grid living (at least electrically speaking), the only limit is your imagination. I found the REDODO 2000W Inverter to be incredibly useful whenever you're wanting to run high-powered gardening equipment, boiling the kettle, running an induction stove, cooking a pizza in the oven or even to watch movies on the big screen! I even have made a DIY 20L (5.2 Gal) heated shower system (using collected rain water) that uses a 1600W heating element that needs to be run anywhere from 15-30 mins, and it works really well.

Redodo 12V 100Ah Mini lithium battery with 2000W inverter

One big benefit when you're going the DIY route, vs buying an all-in-one power station is that, everything is modular. This means that you can upgrade components over time. For example, your solar charge controller might work very well for your needs. But over time, perhaps you’d like to make an upgrade to your battery storage? This is made really easy with the REDODO batteries.

All in all, I'm very impressed and happy with the quality coming from REDODO. If you're interested in knowing more details about the batteries, inverters etc. and anything related to my off grid cabin setup, feel free to have a look at the reviews and videos that I have made over on my YouTube Channel @TheOneGoodRoad.

I look forward to seeing how the DIY solar sector evolves over time, as well as future releases coming from REDODO, allowing more and more people to get into off grid DIY solar.

My DIY Off Grid Cabin Solar List:

12V REDODO Lithium Solar Batteries

REDODO 2000W Inverter

500A REDODO Battery Monitor with Shunt

12V 100Ah REDODO Battery

40A REDODO MPPT Solar Charge Controller