Anybody familiar with the GoalZero Solar package?

[Tango]

Just saw this little unit at Costco today. Looks like it might be a good fit for anyone who just wants a supplement to their power systems. I don't plan on installing a big, permanent solar package but found this one interesting as a back up for low power use when boondocking.

Curious to hear from those more knowledgeable (which includes just about everyone here in my case).

Goal Zero Yeti 400 Solar Generator | Power Packs | Goal Zero

[sammy]

If you're just looking for something really basic, they're not bad. The non-profit I work for that does well drilling projects in Central Africa uses their setups in Africa (we've used a couple of this exact setup, and a lot of their smaller setups), and they're pretty sweet. You could build your own setup for less obviously, but if you want something simple and portable, I'm a fan of the Goal Zero stuff.

[Hank's P-O-S]

I looked into them a couple of years ago when I was first looking into solar.
I thought that they were a bit goofy, but looked alright.
One of my friends bought one and tore into it after having some trouble with the inverter (iirc) and said that the insides were of less than ideal quality.

I would rather use a half size car battery and two or three 7 watt amorphous solar panels with a 75 watt inverter.

I also think that a 400 watt pure sine wave inverter is unnecessary with a 33ah battery.
A) at 400 watts you would only have around 20minutes of run time as you do not want to drain batteries below 50%
b) pure sine wave inverters are unnecessary for most electronics.
the only exception would be older microwaves, some tv's and electric motors.
basically only things that are classified as inductive loads, excluding light bulbs.

I guess it does have its place, however its purpose could be accomplished much cheaper.