Solar pc setup

[yourTypicalKid]

Linus can u plz build a all solar powered gaming setup In one of your vids I am a big fan of yours channel. Its good for the environment and I am doing a school project about it

[MedievalMatt]

6 minutes ago, yourTypicalKid said:

Linus can u plz build a all solar powered gaming setup In one of your vids I am a big fan of yours channel. Its good for the environment and I am doing a school project about it

the problem with this is solar consistancy.  You would need a battery capable of putting out enough power to power a gaming system.... which is a pretty serious battery.

 

Then you need to be able to generate upwards at 1100 Watts of solar energy.  thats likely just to break even.  2000 Watts if you plan on actually charging said battery while you play.

 

Thats a massive solar array.  Also... rainy day gaming would be worse than having a gaming laptop.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, MedievalMatt said:

Then you need to be able to generate upwards at 1100 Watts of solar energy.  thats likely just to break even.  2000 Watts if you plan on actually charging said battery while you play.

lol what?

he said a gaming setup , not a bitcoin miner. a tablet playing minecraft is a gaming setup.

you don't need more than 100 watts to get going playing a game on something

[MedievalMatt]

Just now, emosun said:

lol what?

he said a gaming setup , not a bitcoin miner. a tablet playing minecraft is a gaming setup.

you don't need more than 100 watts to get going playing a game on something

i was assuming when he said "gaming setup"  He was thinking along the lines of a 8700K and a GTX 1080.

 

which is roughly 600-700 watts under load... excluding monitors, peripherals.  etc.

 

then you have to factor in efficiency losses between the battery to the system, and fromthe array to the battery... so 1100Watts.

 

but yes...to power a tablet you need a handful of solar panels and a power pack... and you can play mobile fortnite.

[Mullens-Servers]

Wouldent you just need a heap  fot hem CELL's a link em all together that should keep a charge to power the rig no issues

[emosun]

3 minutes ago, MedievalMatt said:

but yes...to power a tablet you need a handful of solar panels and a power pack... and you can play mobile fortnite.

yeah.... you make a system that meets the power requirements.

not build a solar power plant to meet stupid requirements

[MedievalMatt]

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

yeah.... you make a system that meets the power requirements.

not build a solar power plant to meet stupid requirements

I dont know about "stupid"..... but if you wanted to play something like GTA V on PC using only solar power..... you would need a serious setup.

[emosun]

13 minutes ago, MedievalMatt said:

I dont know about "stupid"..... but if you wanted to play something like GTA V on PC using only solar power..... you would need a serious setup.

there are plenty of laptops that run gta 5

even a q6600 can run gta 5

an xbox 360 with 2004 era hardware can run gta 5

 

[MedievalMatt]

8 minutes ago, emosun said:

there are plenty of laptops that run gta 5

even a q6600 can run gta 5

an xbox 360 with 2004 era hardware can run gta 5

 

again, i was airing on the side of "runs well"  and also i said PC, not console.

 

I never said you were wrong.  but there are two sides to what OP stated.  the Low power, almost mobile type gaming.  and the higher power, all the eye candies type of gaming.

 

Unless OP clarifies, we can speculate and argue all day.

 

Even so, solar inconsistency will make any type of gaming long term spotty at best.

[Froody129]

5 hours ago, MedievalMatt said:

i was assuming when he said "gaming setup"  He was thinking along the lines of a 8700K and a GTX 1080.

 

which is roughly 600-700 watts under load... excluding monitors, peripherals.  etc.

 

then you have to factor in efficiency losses between the battery to the system, and fromthe array to the battery... so 1100Watts.

 

but yes...to power a tablet you need a handful of solar panels and a power pack... and you can play mobile fortnite.

Lmao no way. Maybe 400w under high overclocked Load. There's no way that a consumer PC needs 1100 watts anymore.

 

@OP the problem is going to be the battery, not the panels. Depending on how you use your PC you could probably be fine with like a 200w panel and then playing off the battery charge. 

[atomburst]

16 hours ago, MedievalMatt said:

the problem with this is solar consistancy.  You would need a battery capable of putting out enough power to power a gaming system.... which is a pretty serious battery.

 

Then you need to be able to generate upwards at 1100 Watts of solar energy.  thats likely just to break even.  2000 Watts if you plan on actually charging said battery while you play.

 

Thats a massive solar array.  Also... rainy day gaming would be worse than having a gaming laptop.

Your right, but remember, its linus were talking about here. hes a complete mad man and this is just the thing he would try  

[Yoinkerman]

As a guy who does solar sometimes,

 

There's two main issues here.  The first is even a modest computer load of 400w puts a huge strain on a battery setup.  You need some serious wiring and serious batteries to consistently draw 30+ amps.  

 

The second is solar is always designed to be able to charge and operate at the same time.  If the load is 400w, the solar generating capability needs to be 800+++ watts, preferably more because it will never last once the sun goes down.  Without doing this the video is essentially just "gaming with a battery bank and inverter" and that's lame.

[MedievalMatt]

12 hours ago, Froody129 said:

Lmao no way. Maybe 400w under high overclocked Load. There's no way that a consumer PC needs 1100 watts anymore.

 

@OP the problem is going to be the battery, not the panels. Depending on how you use your PC you could probably be fine with like a 200w panel and then playing off the battery charge. 

You have to factor in efficiency losses.  There is no system in the world that is 100% efficient.  90% at best.  and thats 90% at each stage.  So, from the panels to the battery is a 10% loss.  then 10% OF THAT is lost when going from the battery to the computer.  Not to mention the PCs own 80 - 95% efficiently.  to thats at best another 5% lost.

 

You are talking about still needing to produce 30-40% more power than you actually need to account for losses and be able to charge while playing.

[trufret]

You could run an  i5 laptop with a gtx 1060 off of under 200W.

That level of performance would be more in line with what the vast majority of PC gamers are running anyway.

 

It might be an interesting video to show just how much it would cost to have a solar panel setup that could power a moderate gaming laptop for off the grid use.

 

Camping LAN party anyone???

[Yoinkerman]

Eh $2000 all in prob

[geo3]

22 hours ago, yourTypicalKid said:

Linus can u plz build a all solar powered gaming setup In one of your vids I am a big fan of yours channel. Its good for the environment and I am doing a school project about it

Solar isn't all that great for the environment as it may seem on the surface. The operation of a panel may be completely green but when you consider the production and disposal of old panels it fall way behind other green energy sources.