Lovely IKEA Havsta Cabinet SPEED BUILD and Review... It's a bit of a beast! With a HACK!

I take on the IKEA HAVSTA glass cabinet to transform a "dead corner" of our bedroom. My son and I tackle a speed build of this solid wood beast: complete with kung-fu cardboard fighting, tricky plinth, and a battle with the spring-loaded door hinges. Once it’s upstairs, I show you my custom DIY lighting IKEA hack using 12V LED strips and a hidden switch to illuminate my wife's stuff. 

It wasn't the easiest IKEA build, but the final result is a definite Dad Delivers success!

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Lovely IKEA Havsta Cabinet SPEED BUILD and Review... It's a bit of a beast! With a HACK!



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello. Welcome back to the channel where we try new things for your family. And welcome to to my bedroom. Uh this is where the magic happens. But in the corner is really where the magic happens because my daughter's filming this and she is absolutely cringing. This is the magic. I don't know what you're thinking. This is the magic. The magic of IKEA. You can't say here's my bedroom. This is where the magic happens. So, not only am I going to do a speed build, but keep watching to the end because afterwards I'm going to show you how I've added an extra button to do this. It lights up. And this corner was absolutely dead. It was just a pile of junk and a mirror and a little picture shelf. And my wife had the brilliant idea of filling it with furniture. And I thought it would be too much. I thought it would just, you know, fill the alcove. But actually, it looks really good. But before I tell you all about this great use of space, let's go downstairs back in time to do a speed build on this. Look at this. This is the IKEA HAVSTA cabinet. This is just another one of the IKEA dad videos. Here is me building this from scratch in time lapse. And it's it's a difficult one. So, uh, I guess we'll just get started then. This one's a really tricky one because there's lots of glass involved. Uh, so I got my son to help me. Uh, I think we get a little bit distracted and start fighting each other with the packaging and then get into some kung fu style attacks on the cardboard, but then we focus. We focus and manage to somehow put the bits on the floor on the rug like uh they show you in the pictures. Usually we don't bother with the rug, but this time we did. And oh my goodness, I'm glad that we did because this this is a bit of a beast. So, we got the frame together. You can see we have to line up the the dowels and uh push the whole thing together. Then we've got to find the the way that the back goes on. And this stumped us for a bit. And actually, a chunk of it came out. I can see right now that uh there's a little bit in the middle that missed the thread that it's supposed to go through. And it's I mean it's a bit of cardboard as well, so I didn't think it'd be that difficult, but somehow we managed to get the thing straight and slide it in. Next, it's uh kind of a screw free put together, which uh on the upside is quite good to do because you get these special plastic pins that you push into the holes and then you push another pin into that hole and it kind of expands the plug and that's what holds it into place. And you do that instead of do you remember in the old days with IKEA where you'd uh you'd hit with a hammer about 60 nails in the back. Some of them would go in straight, some of them wouldn't. But this clip system does seem to work. It seems a bit iffy, but it actually looks like this will hold. And with a few more hits and pushes, I think this is the main frame that's been put together. It took a while to orient it against the IKEA instructions. As always with all IKEA stuff, uh you're trying to match up the picture with the real life scenario. And we pretty much got it for the frame. But the plinth, oh my goodness, the plinth is is deceptively difficult. It's just four bits that you just push together, but nowhere in the instructions does it make it clear which way round the really heavy bit. There's like one bit that's got like an iron bar on the side. And you'd think they'd make it really obvious in the instructions which is the heavy bit, but no, we got to guess from this illustration. So, we wing it. And of course, the winging it doesn't go to plan. When we got to this stage, we realized we've done something wrong. And this took us a while to figure out, but we've we worked out that we put there's like a plastic feet that you push in to the holes that we put the wrong way round. So, now we've got to get the plastic thing out. And my poor son, he's uh sent me off for a spanner or some pliers. I've come back with the pliers and yeah, he's just managed to injure himself on the pliers. Really painful injury there. I'm on my own now and I'm trying to get the plints together and the plints the right way round. And now I can get the plint onto the bottom of the main frame of the cabinet. So with a bit more dowel and a few more push pins, this whole thing is held together with plastic pins. It's uh that's quite incredible, isn't it? And now I can push the the whole cabinet the right way up. I put these things on the back. These things are supposed to space it from the wall. If you're pushing it up against a skirting board, I think these big round things space the back so it it rests on the wall and then you can screw the cabinet securely to the wall. Now I'm putting in the pins that will have the shelves on them. The shelves will rest on these 12 pins. And this this bit is weird. So I've got these frames and these fra shelves basically with holes in them. So, I'm putting these holy shelves up and uh just putting those in. Three shelves you get with this one. I I've got to get this thing up the stairs as well. So, I'm demonstrating all of this for the camera, but uh I've going to have to somehow take it all down again so I can get it up the stairs. This is all for demonstration, showing off on the channel. Now, this is my nemesis. I completely mis misunderestimated I completely underestimated the difficulty that I thought I just whack the doors on. They're like, you know, all kitchen doors, all cabinet doors, they've got these spring-loaded things. But first thing to trip you up is the spring-loaded things have got to go the right way round, and they're different. They have to go in the specific holes. Oh my goodness. I am now struggling. I cannot get this door on for love nor IKEA money. I just can't do it. I don't know if it's that the holes aren't drilled properly or the the screws just aren't biting. The thread through the metal does not work. And the only way I can get this to work is to completely take it apart and put it back together again. And then just screw it in from scratch. And I'd had enough by now. I was upset my son got hurt. And I'm just fed up with the whole thing. And look, I mean, look at the time. I mean, this is like well over an hour. This is really speeded up. The final touches are these really nice knobs, the doorknobs that go on, but for some reason the thread doesn't go into the door knob. Again, it's a metal thread problem. I... I don't know what's going on. I think this might be it. So, there you have it. So, somehow we managed to lug it upstairs. Sorry, Casper's down there. He wants to be a part of this. Somehow we managed to hoist it up the stairs. It is really heavy, especially the plinth to stop it from falling over. But when it got here, it looked great, but it looked like this. Once my wife had filled it with stuff, I wanted to illuminate the stuff. So, come closer and I'll show you how we did this. If I take the camera. Thank you. So, what I wanted was a button on the side. And I managed to get this off Amazon. When you press the button, it lights up and it lights up the the cabinet. And I just wanted to show you closer how I've done this. Inside the shelves, there is a piece of glass. So, that's good. But I didn't know where to put the lights. I didn't want the lights showing. So, I managed to buy a strip of 12V lighting strip. It wasn't that expensive, and it comes fitted with a USB cable, and you can cut it up. So, what I did was I cut it to size. Don't if you can see it under there if I poke the camera under. And it's got an adhesive strip on it so you can stick it to here. So, I cut it to the right length. And then, oh my goodness, my soldering is not very good. It took me hours. It took me about 4 hours and made forge strips behind there. There is uh all kinds of spaghetti to this really dainty switch and it goes on and off. And then that cable goes down here to an old USB cable. And I just cut the end off and bured the wires and used those wires to go into the switch to control the lighting strips. But it's all done on really low voltage. It's sort of 5 V to 12 V. I've just used an IKEA USB port. It sort of came to life. Not only does it illuminate the stuff in the cabinet, but it also brings the cabinets to life and I don't know makes it kind of a a lighting source in its own right. I am calling this IKEA HAVSTA cabinet dad delivers success. If you've reached this point of the video, thank you for uh any comments or questions or just saying hi in the comments would be great. And I really appreciate you hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button cuz it really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here is another video that YouTube knows you want to be watching next. Can you please help my daddy get 10,000 subscribers? Just click on his face. Thanks. Bye.


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I Put Two Dehumidifiers in My Wet Car (Here’s What Happened)

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I Put Two Dehumidifiers in My Wet Car (Here’s What Happened)

Can you use a dehumidifier to dry out a car? 

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I Put Two Dehumidifiers in My Wet Car (Here’s What Happened)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello. Welcome back to the channel. It's another experiment day. It's winter. I'm going to pit this against this. Our family car, the Ford Kuga versus Well, I'm going to actually use two dehumidifiers. We've already got one in the in the back there. This is the Meaco Dry desicant dehumidifier, the DD8L. And in the boot, I've got an EBAC 4850 21L dehumidifier. Now, I made a video about this. So, I needed to dehumidify our car. It absolutely stinks at the moment. It's It's taken on a lot of water from from Casper, who's watching over there, and my daughter getting drenched while playing football every Saturday and Thursday. And I think I've got footage here of of the problem. This is actual footage of our family car windscreen. We can't go anywhere. We've got to wait for 20 minutes for it to clear on Max windscreen. I've done this before. There was a video, it was in slightly warmer conditions, and on that last video, you very kindly left some uh messages. One message was, "Well, of course your car sucks because it's a Ford." And that I'm not doubting that for a second, but I don't actually think we've got a leak. I think this is all from us being wet. I knocked my drink over the other day into the upholstery. The other comment was because it's colder conditions, you need to use a desicant dehumidifier. And that's what this is. I didn't have a desicant dehumidifier, but now I do. And I'll put on screen now a little AI picture of how desicant dehumidifiers work. This has desicant in it, which apparently soaks up moisture and then you use heat to get rid of that moisture from the desicants. It's all very complicated. So, I thought I'd pit the two dehumidifiers against each other. But we're in cold conditions and these are supposed to work more efficiently in colder weather. So, let's just get let's get the experiment started and I'll explain it as we go. So, this is where the magic happens. I've got the Ebac 4850 here. I've only had it for a few weeks and already because it's so powerful, it has attracted all this dust onto it. So, I'm going to put that there. I'm going to put them in the back because I'm hoping it is fairly airtight. Oh no. So, we've got the 21L dehumidifier on this side. This is the desiccant dehumidifier, but it's only 8L. And I've got a special Let me move the camera around. I've got a special setup here to measure the power. So, I'm actually going to compare the power use as well. It's a bit of jeopardy today because I don't know if I'm going to need the car today. So, I don't even know how long this test is going to run for. So, I'm going to put the ebac onto the right hand side. I'm going to put the Meaco on the left. I'll plug the Meaco in. And this will measure how many watts, but it will also measure the cost. I've set it for 26p per kilowatt hour. We'll have a total there, but I'll measure the kilowatt hours here. And then on the right hand side, I've got the ebac 21L dehumidifier. Now, as soon as I plug it in, watch this. So, I plug it in and it just starts going and frustratingly it always turns on in smart mode whenever you plug it in. So, I'm just going to turn it off. Set it to target mode and I'm going to set the target to something low. So, it will just keep going continuously. The Ebac is ready to go. Let's switch on the Meaco. So, the Meaco powered on and then turn it on by pressing the button there. And we're going to set that to a low. And we could set it let's set it to infinity. And I'm going to set it to manual because I want as much water sucked out as possible. And then I've got the power lead going into the house. But I think if I close this, I think it's fairly sealed. It's just a little cable coming out of the the back of the car there. I've even taped up the number plate so I don't have to edit it out. Please do not let me forget to take that off if I need the car today. So, it's it is reasonably sealed. I had a really snarky comment saying it's not sealed, but look, come on. That's just a little cable going through the rubber ceiling there. I haven't turned them on, so I'm going to turn them on. This look, we're at the forefront of science here. So, we'll switch that one. Set that one going. Got it on infinity. It's on max manual. And then I'm going to turn the ebac one on. I'm going to set the fan going to high. That's on high. And the air is being drawn in from the back of the units. I would fold the seats down, but I actually want the seats to dry out. So, just going to run it in the back here. We've got both meters going. Just in case you're interested, what kind of power are we looking at? So, on the Meaco Desiccant one, this is while it's sampling though. It's currently on six. Oh, there we go. 280, 600, 700 Watts. Great. And then the Ebac is on full power. And that's looking like about 147 watt. It's just going up and up and up. So, I'll let them do their thing. I'll show you the measurements at the end whenever the end is. Let's seal it up. And I'm... I'm really looking forward to this because I'm so sick of having to wait to wipe the windscreen when we go anywhere. Um, you've said in the comments, just put the air conditioning on, which I've done. I just don't think it's strong enough to to dry out the car. The other thing you you've suggested I've done already, which is to set the heating on high, really heat it up, and then open the windows to let the moisture out. I've done all of that. Let's see what the dehumidifiers do. We're going to see how much water they collect and how much power they use and which which one the will it be the desiccant 8L or the 21L normal compressed dehumidifier that sucks more moisture out of my car. Come on boys, you've got this. So, as predicted, the car was needed to pick my daughter up from a school trip. So, this kind of wrecks the experiment. It's been running for 5 hours now and I can tell from the dehumidifiers there's a little cheeky cheeky shake. I can tell it has actually picked up some water. So, this is good. So, I'm going to get the dehumidifiers back into the car and we'll set them running again. They've been going for 5 hours. So, it's already done a good chunk of the dehumidifying I need it to do. But, let's see how many hours uh left I can uh run on this experiment. It is nearly 10:00 and we've been going well over 10 hours with the dehumidifiers in the car. Let's see how they're doing. And have to do this with one hand. And I've completely ruined the number plates with the tape, by the way. It won't come off. Let's see how we're going. Oh, they're roaring away. So, we will stop dehumidifier one. That's going to cool down. So, that's still going to use some power. and the ebac 21L or how much is inside. Before we take them inside, let's check out the power. So, the Meaco, which is the 8L model, but it's a desicant dehumidifier. We're looking at it took 37p today and it used 1.4 kW hours. This one's measured the time. It's been going for 10 1/2 hours exactly. That's handy. And this Oh, interesting. That's really surprising. So, the 21L, the Ebac dehumidifier has used 1.6 kW hours. So, this used more power. I really thought that was going to go to the desiccant uh dehumidifier. And it says that it's cost 41p. The desiccant dehumidifier used about 37p's worth of power, but I did have the ebac going full power, absolutely full tilt. So, it wasn't on auto and it wasn't on smart mode. Which dehumidifier has caught the most moisture from the car? Let's get these indoors and we'll start measuring. How much water did we remove from the car? Let's find out. So, this is the 21L EBAC dehumidifier and this is the 8L desicant dehumidifier. And there's all kinds of problems with this experiment because I picked up the eback dehumidifier and I could hear this water. This water actually in the machine still left to drain into the jug which I hadn't quite captured. So all of this is off. It's just a ballpark figure to see how much water I can collect from the car in 10ish hours. I'll tip out the 21L dehumidifier. And there's some still in the machine, but that's coming out at 400 ml. I think this might be more than last time. This is the desicant dehumidifier.

And it really does collect 8L per day at those reference levels, which makes it about a third of the power of the 21L. And it doesn't even Oh, no. It doesn't even register on my measuring device. Now, even that's too big. But that's coming out at about 100 ml. So, 100 ml, 400 ml. Now, the... the ebac... So, the ebac has lifted out so much more liquid from the car. About four times more than the desiccant dehumidifier. I think this is just down to power. This is just down to dehumidifying power. But I managed to remove half a litre of liquid from the car. I think it cost me about 70p. 70p well spent in the interest of science. Okay, it's the next morning. I've got 5 minutes to get my daughter to another school trip. I'm not going on a school trip. It's just like we have to be at school and get changed before. Oh, okay. It's the next morning and the windscreen. Look, the windscreen. It's clear. We usually have to wait five minutes to wipe this. It's completely clear and it smells much better in here. I am calling this dad delivers success. Thanks for coming along on the journey where the car didn't go anywhere today. I really appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you for the thumbs up or the subscribe button pressing. And if you are into dehumidifiers, I have I've got you covered. I've got so many dehumidifier videos up here if you want to find out more about our journey with the dehumidifying of our house.

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Clearing Out Dad’s Flat: The Emotional Reality of Letting Go a Lifetime of Stuff

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Clearing Out Dad’s Flat: The Emotional Reality of Letting Go a Lifetime of Stuff

Is it possible to clear out a lifetime of memories in a single afternoon? Today is a big day at my dad’s flat as the Red Cross charity shop team arrives to help me let go of the furniture and belongings he left behind. I walk you through the items that are the hardest to part with, from a commissioned round table that cost thousands to a framed movie poster that represents our family history in King's Cross.

I also find a beautiful 1920s "His Master's Voice" 78 gramophone record player and some unexpected treasures hidden in the cupboards. This is about charting the real journey of bereavement and the practical steps of what happens after a parent goes. 

Clearing Out Dad’s Flat: The Emotional Reality of Letting Go a Lifetime of Stuff



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

So, little update on what to do when your parent dies. I haven't updated in in quite a while. So, I'm at dad's flat again, and I think I've got some footage of what it looked like literally in the in the days after he passed away. The it looks a state because we tipped everything out. We got everything out of the drawers. And uh yeah, this is it. This is kind of what he left. And there's obviously all the stuff in the cupboard. I went through that nearly smashed my camera doing it. There's an old film camera. I I've never seen this before. I didn't know we we he had it. What? It's Oh, no. Well, that's irony, isn't it? But today is a big day because uh we've got the Red Cross coming round. Yeah, it's not that bad that the sending Red Cross team. Uh this is the the the charity shop and they're going to get rid of well for us they're going to spirit away hopefully fingers crossed as much stuff as possible. I'll show you what we've got. We've got this this table is and bench round bench. It's... I cannot tell you how this has been in his life for the last I don't know... must be about 15 years. He... he got it commissioned especially he saw it in the Sunday Times. He saw one like it and and thought that would be perfect for his place when he was living in London with uh with Mum at the time. And it costs thousands. It costs absolutely thousands. And it's always been too big for for wherever he's been. It's just too big. It doesn't look too bad on camera now, but it does. I've got a wide angled lens and it does take up most of the room, but it's really nice. and he'd just sit on the end of it and have his breakfast. I think that's probably the most painful thing to let go because I know that it was a big deal for him. And he's got the... the... the "Ladykillers" poster cuz uh we grew up in King's Cross. Uh that's where we lived and that's where he lived in a in a flat in King's Cross when uh when they moved into the social housing there on the King's Cross development. and he... he got this poster but didn't know what to do. So he got it framed um because the the... the movie The LadyKillers is is all based around King's Cross all based around the streets of Kings Cross which is very big in his life that area. Uh got this chair. There's a trouble getting rid of chairs. I mean, it completely works. But the... if you've ever tried to do this, give away a chair or furnishing, you probably know it absolutely has to have a tag on it, the... the fire safety tag. Even though I... I'... I'd say furniture has been made to that standard everywhere for the last 20 years. But, you know, I completely understand. They need the tag. And so I've got a feeling they're not going to take that, which is a shame because it is an absolute brute to get out of the room. I'm going to keep the IKEA armchairs. I actually we actually built them on the channel. Uh this is a bit of a reminisce for the the channel. Um so I'm going to keep those cuz they I like those even if I have them back at my house. I really really like them. We've got an old footstool from the leather chair that we destroyed. There was the uh the footstool which became crucial in later years for him when he sort of was falling over in the last year and a half. That would that... and that would cushion his blow as he... as he fell over and then I'd have to come around and uh uh pick him up if he managed to get a message to me. Uh so and then we've got loads of books. So, I'm hoping all the books, brand new lamp in the in that box that hasn't even been used. Um, what else have we got? Got this table. I'm hoping that will go. I'm going to put this on eBay. It's an It's an act abs It's a working I don't know what I'm trying to say. Uh, 78 record player. So, I might show you that later on. Then in here, finally stripped the bed like, you know, four months after it happened. This was how his room was still as he left it. But we've stripped everything out now. Um I'm hoping that drawers will go. I don't think that will go cuz the drawers are broken. And we've got all this gear from uh council social services. I don't know where it came from. I want to give it back to them because it's in really good condition, but I've got a feeling they don't take it back. I'm sure you'll tell me in the comments your experiences of these things. And then this wardrobe I... I do really want this wardrobe to go, but I don't think that's going to go today. That's okay. I can take that apart. Uh these two nice tables. It's like a little um yard sale I'm having on on camera. His wine rack that was always filled with wine. And that thing that was filled with books. This is from my childhood. Some family photos there. But we've got that. That's from my childhood. I remember that thing. That thing from the 1980s. I'm sure it will come back in again. It's in a bit of a state though. And this big ass table. Um I think is that it? I thought there was more than this. So that's good. So, anything that goes is going to be good because it'll free up space and it's just uh wow, it is quite a wrench emotionally though. I'm not attached to these items. Uh it would be really good to just get them out of our lives for them to move on and serve someone else hopefully. But I just I just some of them have been around since I was a kid and it's just weird saying I don't need it. I don't want it. I really do want to let it go. Especially that mirror. That mirror there. I wonder if I could find you any photos, some family photos of how that featured in our house above the really disgusting three bar fire uh in our in our house in King's Cross. This mirror it... 

...every Christmas, so many Christmases it's in all our Christmas photos. I don't even like it. But uh I don't know. It just it just it just feels odd letting it go. But it's got to go. I... I... It's an ugly old thing and it doesn't spark joy when I when I see it or touch it. I've been trying to get rid of it even while dad was here. Uh oh, there's the pictures as well. I should put on some um gallery music, shouldn't I? There's Tenacious. I don't know. He really was into ships. He went sailing before uh me and my sister were born. So I wonder if I don't know sailing was was quite a thing for him. I think um he didn't really do it while he became a family man. But all his pictures are about ships. How... what are the pictures like in your house? They tell something that you've not really noticed? And my sister made these. I'm not parting with these. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but she turned out family life into a photo story, which is kind of cool. Um, some really bad pictures in there. Over here is the 78 record player. Let me uh flip the camera around. And inside I need to pull it away. This was always the problem. So, there's a bit of a design issue with it. I think it's from the 1920s. Uh I don't know if you can see that there. Bit of a design issue with it cuz you have to pull it forward for the cuz the lid doesn't clear, but that locks into place. And there's the arm. It's got a crank handle here. I mean, I used to play with this as a kid, so um I might have broken it a long time ago. And the crank handle goes in there and you you wind it up this way. I don't know if that still works. And then there's a speed control here. So, it's fast and slow. I love this sign here. Close lid whilst playing. And his master's voice.

There's a his master's voice. I don't know what you call it. Tone arm. Look how beautiful that is. And then it clicked in. So it's got some kind of automatic way of playing things. Got some records here. Cool water by Frankie Laine. Oh, I know that song. "All day I Face the barren Waste... Without the Taste of Water. Oh, it's cracked. What a shame. Oh, I'd love to play that. And then underneath there's some storage I guess for records. But is there anything in there? What was in here? It's a new nook and cranny. Oh, I think he was looking for this door stopper. Now we find it. You've got that door stopper instead, which is a... a load of um sort of fake 50 notes. So it looks like you got cash wedging under the door. And then there's a box here. I wonder what's in this box. Let's have a look. Oh, just candles. You always hope that, you know, it'll be like a box of money or something, don't you? Candles. Lots and lots of colourful candles. Oh, that's lovely. And a very old tennis ball.

I just thought I'd share these things with you because, you know, you might be going through this yourself. It's just things, isn't it? It really is just things. And I think that's the biggest thing that um I've learned over the last what is it 5 months. It's only 5 months since it happened. The things are meaningless. They really are. And there's going to be so much. It's going to be so nice to just have some space in here. And uh we'll figure out what we're going to do with this place. But um I just wanted to share this because I'm charting the journey of of what happened from when he died and onwards and what what actually happens from there because we don't really talk about it. I've not really seen much of it on on YouTube. Maybe no one wants to watch it. So if you reach this point of the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up button or the subscribe button. It really means so much to me and really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here are um well, it's what YouTube thinks you want to watch next.

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Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?

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Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?

My FIRST off-grid battery: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 First Impressions Review!

*BUY Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 +100W Solar panel HERE! (commissions earned)

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What happens when you try to harvest free sunshine in the dregs of a UK winter? 

I'm unboxing the Jackery Explorer 1000 portable power station alongside the SolarSaga 100W solar panels. With headlines about power cuts, I think I'm starting some "gentle prepping" to make sure my family doesn't moan at me, I mean stays powered up during a blackout.

I walk you through the simple setup of the 100W bifacial solar panels, including how to use the clever sun-target indicator for maximum efficiency. And even try out direct USB phone charging, generating my first few watts of off-grid energy. If you are looking for a portable, reliable power solution for emergencies or garden office use, is this the right place to start? 

Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

What happens when I buy my very first portable power station and 100W, yes, 100 WATTS of solar panel? What's it like to unbox? Can I just plug it in for the first time? And more crucially, will this be the solution to put solar panels up on the Happy Hut in the background? Hello. Welcome back to Dad Delivers vlog. This is a a big day for me and my family. It's, how can I put this? It's very gentle prepping. There have been lots of really iffy headlines uh recently, especially here in the UK, of vital infrastructure just not working, just things just stopping very suddenly. And it's being presented to us as if it's completely normal. But if it were to happen uh on a bigger scale, I know the first problem for me as a dad would be the family would be moaning at me about I can't plug my phone in. Even though your phone probably doesn't work in a in a big infrastructure shutdown, but I've got to keep my back covered with this. It's the Jackery Explorer 1000. Okay, let's look at the specs, but keep it simple. Under the hood, we've got a 1,070W hour battery. In dad speak, that's enough juice for a portable fridge all day or charging your phone about 90 times, which for my knackered phone is about a day. It pumps out 1,500W of AC power, so could handle coffee makers and even some power tools. Though, I'm not sure I'll be doing that much DIY during a national catastrophe, but it's nice to have that option. I've even tested it by plugging in my Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier in the hut and it seems to work just fine. It's got all the ports we actually use, including a 100W USB-C for the laptop. So, I could do some editing for when the internet comes back on. And when it's empty, it'll charge from zero to full from a wall outlet in under 2 hours. Plus, with this 100W solar panel, we're basically running on free sunshine. Up yours, power company, I'm going to bill my own family! All from a unit that's light enough to carry. Now, I can hold this with with one hand, which is amazing. I mean, it's really heavy. But what I really like about this is its size. And I like it kind of jolly shape and jolly colours as well. I'll be able to find it in the event of emergency in the darkness. So, I might be able to, you know, not trip up on it. But I've also bought these. Let me tilt the camera. The SolarSaga 100. These are 100W solar panels that are bifacial and which open up. So, they're easy to store, but more importantly, they're even easier to put up because they're very light. Let me tell you some more about the solar panels. They are shock resistant. They are waterproof to a rating of IP68 and dust resistant. Jackery explained they are made with the leading IBC technology bi-facial energy generation. I think that means that it can generate power from the sunlight and from reflected light. And they have two really handy carry handles as well. So, uh, that's nice. Makes them really portable. Now, I couldn't quite work out from the videos on YouTube how the solar panels work. of the solar saga 100W solar panels work. So basically this is what the 100W panel looks like and it's magnetic so it folds up really easy and snaps shut. And then on the back they have these two Velcro straps that act as stands. So, if I show you behind here, obviously it' be a lot easier to do this on the ground, but helpfully they're labelled "top" so you know that uh it's this way up and they prop up the panels on the ground. There are I don't know what you call this, cleated holes, so I could use rope, I guess, to hold that in place. Let me know in the comments if I'm uh wrong about any of this, but this is my first impressions having opened a solar panel for the very first time. And there's also this curious device here. It looks like a target with a spot on it. Now, I'm thinking that is some way of targeting the sun. So, the sun at the moment, I'm going to point the camera straight into the sun. Uh it's over there. So, the sun is that way. And I can see from the circle there's like a shadow. So, if I tilt it this way, I'm hoping, can you see there's a shadow cast by that dot? And then you can turn the panels to target the the sun. But I'm thinking if I turn the panels to face the sun. So, I'm assuming this is a clever way. There you go. That's that's bang centre there. That is getting maximum sun if the other half hadn't folded over. It's a lot easier to do this on soft ground. The panels themselves are are really light. It's kind of like if you can imagine this size in heavy cardboard. They really are light. So I think I really would have to chalk them down. If I were to put them up on the on the happy heart, I think I'd really have to kind of lash it to the roof so they wouldn't blow away in the stormy weather we're having at the moment. Now I think the solar panels are called bi-facial that they capture light as well as from the front. the light can pass through and I believe this means that it can pick up reflected light as well. So, it's supposed to pick up more solar to uh generate inter power. It also comes with this lead and I'm going to plug it in for the first time. I've never done this before. So, this really is a test to see how straightforward it is for someone who's new to solar. If I pull this rubber top off, it reveals this socket. On first glance, it has this box on it with two USB connections, USB-A, USB-C, and a light. So, I'm wondering if I could just plug that straight into my phone uh without the need for the power box. So, just to experiment, I've just got the uh the panels out loosely. So, we're going to see if this uh USB output works just by itself. offices panels. There's the output. You're about to plug it into your iPhone. Oh, yeah. Charging. Is it saying how much? And what's the what the number of watts? One watt. It is 3:00. It is an hour before sunset, late November. But we But look, I'm getting a free one watt. So, that works. The only plug that fits this socket is this one here. So, I'm just going to push it straight in. And it looks as if it has a particular way that it goes round. So, it's almost like a figure of eight cable, but there's this notch here. So, I'll make sure that the plug is that way round. I should push it in all the way. Bit difficult to check one handed. That's all the way in. Great. And then I'm assuming I plug this into the power station. And it looks as if there's some kind of adapter. I'll try this one. Right. That seems to look like it works. and so does that one. So, hmm, I don't know why there are two connections. Now, it doesn't actually say in the instruction manual which plug you're supposed to use. What I have found out is that one of these plugs is an 8.0mm plug and the other is an 8.1mm plug. And I can see on the side here it says DC8020. On the cable that goes to the solar panel, there's etched a DC number there, 8020. So, that is the plug that's meant to go into the power port. It would be really nice if that was explained a bit more clearly given the price of this thing. I do not want to wreck it. So, I push it in like that. It goes in okay. Let's see what happens if I stand out of the way of the solar panel so that the solar can reach it. And you can see because it's new out of the box - falling down one of Casper's holes. It likes to bend. So, I'm hoping over time that will open out a bit more so that both panels will face the sun. Only that panel is really super on target with the setting sun here in the UK. So, what I'm going to do now is see if anything is happening on the box. And oh my goodness, the the display has come to life, but it says input 5W. So, am I getting 5 watts from the uh last dregs of the sun? Now, the display's gone off. And I think that's to uh to save power. Let's try press the power button again. See if anything comes to life. Right. So, the the display has come to life. I'm going to try and open up the solar panels a bit further right next to the stinging nettles. Let's pull these back. I've got uh a tree in the distance kind of putting dappled sunlight onto the solar panels. If I just angle it a bit more aggressively towards the sun. Let's see if that improves things. It's gone down. Oh no, it's 6 Watts. I've increased my solar power generation to 6 Watts. This is pretty much the last week of November in the UK where traditionally the sun is probably nearing its weakest. Since I've been filming, the sun is setting behind these trees. There are no leaves on it, but it's enough to probably zap the power. I've got a bit of a shadow from my chair here. Let's move the chair. I got a clump of grass here that's probably not helping. Tread that down. All I need now is for Casper to run up and uh use it as a toilet. And then I think we've got the full set. Let me show you the the dot indicator. Almost bullseye. I won't move it anymore because it is really difficult to manhandle at the moment. It's a bit stiff. So I think that's the best I'm going to do. And I've managed to bring up if I press the power button, I've brought up the input to 7 Watts. This is my very first 5, 6, 7 watts that I've generated in my life. It feels like a a moment. This feels like a bit of a milestone for me. By the way, to charge this up like a regular power pack, you can get the the very nice power cord that comes with it. And I'll just plug the power cord in to the side here. And then let's see what happens. Wrong way. It's lit up. Now, this is completely empty, but you can see that the input is 347 Watts. I was going to put a power meter on. I didn't realize it would actually show it on the display. You can see a percentage and obviously the output's zero but it it looks as if it's giving a uh a rough time for charging. So it says 3.4 hours. There is even a symbol in the corner to show that the power cord is attached. And now we can see it has jumped to 1%. So I've got a while before this charges up. I... I... as I might have mentioned I've really... I'm really obsessed with solar power. Um, and it it just felt like such a expensive thing to to buy. But now that I've... I've got an ability to charge up a phone in an emergency, a phone that almost certainly wouldn't work if we've lost power. Um, I don't know if we'd still have mobile networks, but maybe we could charge up a... a tablet or a laptop to do some local work for local people. Even if the internet has gone down, it does feel good that I've finally provided power for my family and that in... in the unlikely event of a catastrophic uh scenario where infrastructure goes down, at least I won't have the family moaning at me, I'll be able to say, "No, I've got... I've got you 7 watts of power. Enjoy it. This is more than other people have. I feel like I'm providing. I feel like I'm uh creating here. I'm calling this a dad delivers success. Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if this is helping. I'm now blocking the sun, just losing some vital watts, but at the end of the day, but what I did want to say was all my other videos are right here and this is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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