I figured this would be cheaper than hiring an electrician, and so far it might be haha! It turns out solar is addicting. I’m on my 3rd charge controller after getting the bug (twice) for something more fun.

The next step for me is an additional 100w panel which is already on its way to me, and possibly moving them in the future so somewhere with more sun.

As far as power tools, the inverter I have is only 1000 watts. It turns out that power tools often use more than that! I’ve been able to use an angle grinder, but I had to blip it to get it spinning, let the inverter catch up, then run it up the rest of the way. An additional battery might help, because the problem might be voltage drop.

I’ve used my soldering iron which is no sweat. I’ve also used one of those vibrating multi-tools.

I don’t want a bigger inverter because then I’ll definitely need more batteries, thicker wires, etc.

It’s a good system for charging smaller batteries though, so for someone with cordless tools it would work well. This time of year it’s too cold to charge lithium batteries though.

A lot of people with this type of setup have nice LiFePO4 batteries, but they have the same cold temp problem.