Product Review: Power Whisperer

This version of the Power Generator is no longer available. For the updated version of this product, please CLICK HERE to read the review.

If you plan to use an usual generator as a backup power source in case of EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) or grid-attack, think twice. The noise most generators make makes them looter magnets.

But the PowerWhisperer is a mobile power system designed with prepping in mind. This stealthy power supply provides power for a family when the lights go out; whether due to a storm or an EMP. Since it isn’t powered by a gasoline engine, there is no noise to alert the neighbors that you have power, while they are sitting in the dark.

Typical power generators are noisy, letting everyone around know that you have electrical power. In the aftermath of an EMP or attack on the electrical grid, that could be catastrophic, inviting attack from those who didn’t bother preparing for the emergency. As a silent system, the PowerWhisperer won’t give you and your family away.

The system consists of a high capacity, 100 amp hour, deep cycle lead-acid battery.

The battery is charged by two 50 watt, Second generation, flexible solar panels; which are stored in a compartment in the unit.

45 foot leads are provided for the solar panels, allowing you to put them on the roof or some hidden area, without giving away the presence of your PowerWhisperer.

A 2,000 watt voltage inverter provides sufficient power to run any home appliance or power tool. You can also use the 12 volt output for powering devices that are designed for plugging in to a car’s power system, such as for recharging a phone or other portable electronics.

generatorA power station, enclosed inside the unit, provide breakers and connections for drawing power from the unit, as well as a LED readout to tell you the status of the unit and its charge. Connection for the solar panels is provided in the storage compartment. You can also attach additional solar panels for faster regeneration of the system.

The entire unit is housed in a rugged, 1/16 inch thick aluminum case, mounted on two wheels, for movement like a hand truck. Lightweight and compact, the PowerWhisperer can be used for bugging in or if you are bugging out to a prepared bug-out retreat, it can be brought along.

The aluminum case is a perfect Faraday cage, protecting the components of the system from EMP. A woodland pattern camouflage net is provided for help in concealing the unit from neighbors while in use.

A compartment for storing the solar panels is also big enough for storage of radios and other small electronic devices, keeping them with the power supply, while protecting them from EMP. Made in the USA, you can be sure about the quality of this unit.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

Written by

Bill White is the author of Conquering the Coming Collapse, and a former Army officer, manufacturing engineer and business manager. More recently, he left the business world to work as a cross-cultural missionary on the Mexico border. Bill has been a survivalist since the 1970s, when the nation was in the latter days of the Cold War. He had determined to head into the Colorado Rockies, should Washington ever decide to push the button. While those days have passed, the knowledge Bill gained during that time hasn’t. He now works to educate others on the risks that exist in our society and how to prepare to meet them. You can send Bill a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.

Latest comments
  • I agree a gas-powered generator isn’t the best choice due to noise and all, but this can be reduced if surrounded by noise-absorbing materials (always being aware of fire and carbon monoxide hazards). Many gas-powered generators can also be fitted with propane attachments (without drilling or removing existing carburetor) which is often quieter, and gives you a two-fuel option. I prefer propane because it stores indefinitely. These solar generators are good, but if there is an EMP, I have heard that the electronics (inverter) will be fried making the generator (probably all generators) useless unless protected with a Faraday system. I would use a propane-powered generator to charge up my solar generator on cloudy days, then shutting it off and running the solar unit. Just some thoughts….

    • Silicon solar panels are also likely to be damaged by an EMP if not protected with a Faraday cage at the time of attack. I understand that such an EMP is just as likely to come from the sun as it is from a nuclear device.

    • Hi all,
      Just for your info, solar panels work full time whether it’s sunny or cloudy. That’s why they are such a good item to have to charge batteries and the smaller ones in your car during the winter when the cold lowers your cranking power.

      • This is bad information. Solar panels generate almost nothing on cloudy days. They will even quite producing is a tree branch or even a shadow from a power line crosses them. 25 years of experience in the field has shown me this. Please do your research before you plan on depending on this type of power.
        I can see little or no value of having this expensive unit that actually stores very little energy. Remember having the power to charge your computer or cell phone is pretty useless when they will not connect to anything. Power is a work saver, and you need a decent amount for it to be of much use.

  • If I remember my physics correctly (and I think that I do) a Faraday cage must be constructed of a ferous material. Magnetic energy isn’t affected by aluminum any more than it is by air (same dimagnetic rating as air). Aluminum won’t force the magnetic flux *around* anything, like ferous materials will.

    • The damage caused by an EMP is the “E” part as in Electro… The “M” part is not a big problem for anything smaller than a football field.

      An EMP damages things very much like a lightning strike. No, not like you think a lightning strike works, like it actually works. I use a nonsensical term I coined to illustrate the process. I call it an “electron vacuum”. Essentially an EMP is very much like a heavy uber-superbolt lightning near-strike spread over a wide area (several million square miles). …and it happens everywhere all at once, electrons streaming to the sky in general off of anything that will conduct and even the ground itself. This EMF (electromotive force) coming from the ground goes through everything. Most things are shielded so, unless the EMF flows through wires connected to things with EMF there won’t be any damage.

      99% of people don’t understand lighting strikes so they don’t understand EMPs. As such the general public is terrified of those three letters. In reality, the scariest part of an EMP will be a grid down situation. Mostly, things will burp, but then start working again. Your ECM in your car, your computer, etc. However! It will bust the grid, bigtime. All that EMF moving through the electrical grid at once will blow thousands of transformers and long-line trasmission equipment. It could take years to put it back. I mean, like, 20 years! So, don’t hear me say its not a problem or its not scary, but, you need to be scared of the proper things.

      If you get warned about a bear and some moron tells you its his tail that is the problem, well, you’re gonna get eaten if you try staying away from the tail! Be worried about the right thing and you’ll stay safe.

      Also bear in mind that this device is simply a battery, a charge controller, a couple solar panels and an inverter. I don’t know how much it costs but I’m guess its way higher than a $100 battery, a $25 charge controller, $100 solar panel and a $50 inverter and a rebuilt 2 wheeled hand truck. Not running the product down, just saying. Also bear in mind that with a 100ah battery, you have 1200 watts to work with. You can use 1200 watts for close to an hour (actually, its about 80% of that with most batteries, so lets say its 1000 watts). So, break that down:

      1000 watts (hair dryer on low, space heater on low, etc) for 1 hour.
      500 watts (small microwave, tv and vcr/dvd/player) for 2 hours.
      100 watts (10, 10 watt LED / 60 watt equiv light bulbs, laptop computer, fridge/freezer) for 10 hours.
      50 watts (iPad / phone charger, small fan) for 20 hours.

      With the supplied panels, you could probably run the thing continuously if you averaged 50 watts and your panels were in bright sunshine all day. The nice thing: you won’t run out of gas! Well, at least until that night… 😉

      So, there you have it.

      I would love to see the price but I’ve searched on the net and cannot find this item. Dear Author: please give us a link.

        • I’m glad to see that someone else had viewed this video and site, interest in this device is what brought me to this site. In the video,Lee Bellinger speaks alot about a total electrical grid breakdown. An EMP nightmare scenario on the grid, this device will not power your home, only chosen devices or appliances for a limited time, that time depends on how you can charge your battery. Also in his video he makes available many reports and tips about the power whisperer, and survivalist guides to a grid shutdown, smart meters, rolling blackouts. He also includes hints to cut your own utility bills, all these things can be found online somewhere. What it comes down to is can you afford to have someone else do the work for you or not, and how afraid are you

        • What a rip off. Almost $3000 for a couple of hundred dollars worth of readily available stuff that anyone can put together with the aid of one of the hundreds of books about solar energy that are out there.

      • Would chicken wire or rabbit cage wire work as a good Faraday cage?

        • Dear Jason,
          The simple answer is NO! Thispulse can be best described as an extremely broad (frequency) range event It could be visualised as an “electronic tsunami” hitting electrical & electronic hardware over HUGE areas of the globe (I cite the Starfish tests, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as my source on this one). If you were worng on specific type of radio transceivers, such as Citizens Band radio. THEN MAYBE. But unless you can afford the high end protection (earth/ground bonded copper sheeting, soldered to carefully overlap & form “the perfect box”). The best we good folks could achieve, would be the 2 metal ammo box solution. Buy 1 ammo box which can fit inside a second with about 2 inches/50mm air gap between the 2. Line the inside of the larger one with pieces of timber, that will allow the smaller box to sit snugly inside the bigger one. Ensure that this 2 inch gap is kept. Now drill a hole through the larger one & pass a welding cable through it, connect it up with metal screws or nut & bolt. Also the lid of the 2 ammo boxes should be connected to the main box in the same way (continue earth/ground sheilding). Connect the outer box to a separate lead & connect the same way. Earth/ground the 2 boxes to separate points & you’ve a crude, if effective Faraday Box. I have seen this system proven work, inside RAF radar control stations in the UK. Spare components, which would be needed immediately were stored in such a way & part description &NSN number clearly stencilled onto the top of each Faraday Box.Remember to wrap your electronics in electro-static discharge bags before placing inside the box.

        • Sorry, the mesh has to measure in 600 + wires per inch, that is Military specs. And it has to be ferrous material. Picture in your mind making it water tight. electrons are mighty small.

      • Price is slightly above $3000.
        Lee Bellinger publishes Lantern Press

    • A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conductive material or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks external static and non-static electric fields by channeling electricity through the mesh, providing constant voltage on all sides of the enclosure. Since the difference in voltage is the measure of electrical potential, no current flows through the space.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

    • The problem with magnetic energy is that it does react with non-magnetic metals/conductors, if it didn’t your generators wouldn’t work but, it takes rapid change in magnetic strength and a long conductor to make high voltage. If you take a cow magnet and drop it though a copper or aluminum pipe and compare the time to a plastic pipe you will see the effect of magnetic reaction to nonferrous conductors. The same type eddy currents are also created in ferrous metals, and eddy currents create opposing magnetic fields.
      But the job of a Faraday cage is to act like and antenna grab rf energy, etc. and keep it from creating voltage imbalance in the device inside that will harm it or interfere with it operation (the reason he invented it).

      • This is correct, and I would like to use it to point out that some people have posted things here that simply are not true.

        An EMP (from a nuclear blast for example) is primarily a MAGNETIC pulse, not electrical.

        Any change in a magnetic field will generate a voltage in a wire that the magenetic field encounters. And an EMP is a MASSIVE field fluctuation that happens VERY fast.

        Therefore, contrary to what others have written, it can generate a very high voltage and cause a high current to flow very briefly… even in wires that are not connected to anything! The longer the wire, the larger the electrical pulse that will be generated by the magnetic pulse. Wires can literally explode.

        If it’s a big pulse, anything with a coil in it will be toast. Ignition coil in a car, choke coils in electronics, etc. Microchips are particularly vulnerable because even though wires are very short, the internal “wiring” is very delicate. Even chips that have inputs that are diode-protected against static electricity might get fried.

        Don’t let anybody tell you it’s not something to worry about. They’re wrong.

  • The PowerWhisperer sounds a lot like a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) with solar panels added. Many people throw away their old UPS units when the battery is no longer serviceable and if you find these they are usually free for the asking. Most are 12 volt battery systems but they also come in 24v, 48v and other numbers of batteries. I have one from a computer room back up that is 3 phase 440 volts AC out with 44 (12 volt 17 a/h) batteries making it a 528 vdc battery pack. I got it for the above mentioned price. Great for running a small machine shop. Someday I would like to add solar to it.

    • Hi I have a ? I have a military UPS 3000TRLP/3000VA BY DRS TECNOLIGIES it says 2100 watts Would you know how I could use it as a generator. I trying to build my own generator but I have that here and I know it used but it’s a little different then a regular UPS. Like it has a way the military used it remotely. There are no videos out on using these. Anyhow thanks hopefully you can help

  • With only 2 x 50 watt solar panels, it would take 20 hours of bright sun to recharge the battery if you used 2000 watts for one hours. That would be about 4 days to recharge the battery if you used 2000 watts for one hour or 83 watts for 24 hours. If you had clouds, it would take more than 4 days to recharge the battery. You could not run much with just 2 50-watt panels. The ad does not tell the customer what they need to know about the equipment.

  • Dear Folks,

    It is nice to see that someone else has shown they’ve researched the reports written after the Starfish project was evaulated (around the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy authorised such testing in the High Altitude bursts, to demonstrate to the USSR that Uncle Sam HAD the capacity to take them on – the science behind it, was to investigate the real time effects of radiowave “blackout” and EMP/HEMP). However, this whisperer generator has been around the UK plant rental scene for over 5 years now!
    Logic dictates to me, that “basic common sense” for anyone who believes they’ve wasted money & time investment in getting a combustion engine power generator. Yes, they DO give themselves away at night to looters, et cetera. Sound travels further in the darkness, than during daylight. But you can also “factor in” suitable protective measures to account for these problems. The most basic would be building a sandbag wall (or earthwall, known as a “bund” – derived from the Indian language Hindi, which means precisely that!). Then lay some roof covering over the walls built around the generator – leave roughly a 1 metre gap between the wall & generator. You need to allow air flow freely around such. Then you can extend the exhaust pipe work through sound baffles, similar to the exhaust silencer on your car/truck. If you still have noise coming out of the exhaust, then those humble sandbags are proven to work muting the noise further.
    For those with the capacity & resources. consider installing your power generation hardware BELOW ground level if local geography permits. Outta sight, outta mind, is a phrase which springs to mind. Mounting the generator onto old agricultural tractor tyres, has also proven useful in defeating vibration transmission through the ground (a former missionary to Africa, told me of that particular gem!), the noise issue, was also mitigated with it.

  • So this is just a portable battery bank? Wheres the price? I built an easy one for a few hundred bucks here http://www.survivalpunk.com/building-a-battery-backup-power-system/

  • I hate acronyms. It would be really nice if you are going to use them if you would define them at the beginning of your post. Just sayin

  • Your micro wave oven will protect your electronics from an EMP.

    • A microwave oven will only protect from EMP frequencies or lower, higher frequencies will pass through the viewing window in the door. That is why you can see inside because light waves are higher frequency than microwaves.

  • People will try and sell anything, The battery in this is only 100 amps, assuming 100 % efficiency and a discharge rate of 1/15 of the batteries capacity C-15 as used in the industry standards for not destroying the battery with over discharge. You will get about 80 watts out of this system, The use of a 2000 watt inverter implies that it is capable of supporting that much power, it is for a short time at 166amps but there goes your battery. Now multiply the 80 watts by 80% efficiency and you get an output rating of 64 watts for sustainable operation. Beware of claims and do your homework before you buy any system, just because it sounded good.

  • Having just finished designing an off-grid system, I can tell you that the battery is way overdesigned, and the solar panels are way underdesigned in this contraption. You can easily find out what the insolation values are for any city in the United States. Down here in Northeast Texas, we will only see about 5 hours of sunlight per day average. A 12VDC-110VAC inverter is only 87% efficient. If you were to draw 40W for only 18 hours a day (assumes you get 6 hours of sleep a night and don’t have to run any electricity during that time), and assuming zero days of reserve (no sunshine), you need a 90W solar panel and 38AH of battery. As soon as you factor in one day of no sunshine, that jumps to 180W solar panel and 75AH battery. A 300W solar panel can be acquired for about $300 and would be a much better match for the 100AH battery in this system, and you can probably design the entire thing yourself much more effectively.

    • Careful here, a 300 watt panel will cook your battery in a hurry. For decent battery life a C factor (rate of charge) should be in the range of 1/15 to 1/20th of the batteries rated capacity. Side note: Your batteries should be true deep cycle, not RV batteries, they are a compromise of high discharge and deep cycle, doing neither very long if high discharge rates are applied. It is mostly about how thick the plates are thin plates in auto batteries give high rate of discharge for starting but will fail rapidly if deeply discharged. I recommend golf cart batteries for small systems as they are designed for deep discharge, Large system designers should look to forklift batteries, they are made in many voltages and amps Something to think about is that most solar batteries ie. L-16 size are rate at a 20 hr discharge rate. Fork lift batteries are rated at a 6 hr. discharge rate. At a 15 hr. discharge you can expect 50% more capacity from them. I recently changed out a couple of them for a customer that finally gave out after 25 years. If you can afford the initial cost, they are by far the best deal. Nickel iron are great, but very expensive. Again, do your homework before you invest your hard earned dollars.

      • How does one reach you Joe? Phone, email?

  • I would like to know if these are still available. Thank you

  • Where do we get the 300 watt solar panel ?
    As for the PowerWhisperer, that a 80.00 Walmart deep cycle battery, a Cobra 2000 watt inverter (175.00 on Ebay) a charge controller and 100 watt solar panel about 150.00 = 405.00 plus what the box and cart cost. I seriously doubt if that will run a fridge all night, certainly not the furnace. To makes this system practical you would need 10 or 12 of the 12 volt batteries, at least 4 or 5 200 watt solar panels plus a couple of the 12 volt Wind Blue wind generators (500 watt each). If you are going to that much trouble why not put in a 230ac single phase (split phase 6000 watt (24 volt input) use Edison Iron oxide batteries (1.2 volt each, requires 20= 24 volt) at least 6 or 8 24 volt 200 watt solar panels and 2 24 volt Missouri Wind generators (your off the grid)

  • What is the cost of this compared to a standard generator. Was thinking of a NG powered unit, but in a grid failure or EMT, that would probably be useless! Therefore, have to agree with the propane!

  • I received mine a few weeks ago, and I have to say I’m impressed with the quality. They upgraded the solar panel to a single 100-watt unit. It can generate 8 amps, so it is possible to fully charge the battery in single day. I’m up north (Washington) and the sun is still low in the sky this time of year, but I’ve seen a peak of 4.5 charging amps in February.

    • Let’s see: It can put out 8 amps. The solar panels are 100 watts. That means that in order for you to get those 8 amps, you have to be running something that works on 12 volts. If you run a 120 volt appliance, you have only 5/6 of an amp possible, without going over the 100 watts that the generator can supply. Even a 100w lightbulb will limit you to 1 amp. ONE 40 watt lightbulb will use up 2.5 of those 8 amps. Not very impressive, IMHO.

      • Correction: Should have said that ONE 40 watt lightbulb will limit you to 2.5 amps—not “use up 2.5 of the 8 amps.” Sorry for the confusion.

  • good info!

  • My parents invested in a PowerWhisperer Pro from Lee Bellinger…..Not only did it come with one of the two promised batteries missing, it was missing the two solar panels, and the camo blanket. I’ve called numerous times, and can’t seem to get to anyone who can cure the issue. Talked with James Bell (Bellinger’s tech. rep.) and we verified by the shipping documents, this unit was shipped missing components. Sad, as my parents had the previous M-1 version, and had spent thousands of dollars with Bellinger. Can’t seem to get Lee to even return a phone call. I guess my next move may have to be an attorney. Terrible customer service -(if you can call it that). It seems like he’s about out of money. This unit is still under warranty, but they claim no parts are available. Interesting…..How the hell did you expect to warranty a bad unit?? This has gone on for almost three months now, with numerous phone calls. I feel sorry for Kate, the receptionist, as I feel I’m probably not the one customer with such issues. She should not have to field such calls, with no support. If you are contemplating the purchase of a PowerWhisperer Pro, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. After researching this unit further, it is woefully lacking in doing what Lee claims it will do. Maybe keep your fridge going for a few hours, but not much more…..especially if it’s cloudy. Oh well…I guess that about covers it….BUYER BEWARE!!!!!

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