When I bought my Bitaxe Gamma, I knew its roughly 1 TH/s of hashrate was not going to replace my day job. My goal was to learn how Bitcoin mining actually works, contribute a small amount of hashrate to the network, and stack a few sats along the way.

Then I started wondering: Could I run it mostly on solar power?

I kept the setup fairly simple:
Bitaxe Gamma, drawing roughly 20 watts
Jackery Explorer 300 portable power station
100-watt portable solar panel
12-volt DC cable
Braiins Pool with Lightning payouts

On sunny days, the solar panel charges the Jackery while the Jackery powers the Bitaxe. Depending on the weather and available sunlight, it can keep the miner running through much of the day without relying on grid electricity.

At first, I powered the Bitaxe through the Jackery’s regular AC outlet. That worked, but it meant the Jackery had to convert its stored DC power into AC through the inverter. The Bitaxe’s power supply then converted that AC back into DC.

The power path looked like this:
Battery DC → inverter → AC → Bitaxe power adapter → DC

Every conversion loses a little energy. That matters when the miner runs continuously and the entire system is operating from a relatively small battery.
I eventually switched to powering the Bitaxe directly from the Jackery’s 12-volt DC output using a compatible barrel cable: Battery DC → Bitaxe DC

This bypasses the AC inverter and the Bitaxe’s wall adapter. The result is a simpler and more efficient setup, with less energy lost during conversion. It also helps stretch the Jackery’s runtime when sunlight is limited.

The important part was making sure the cable had the correct voltage, connector size, and polarity before connecting it to the miner.

I initially used ViaBTC Smart Mining, but I did not like having the rewards routed through CoinEx and converted into USDT. Since the project is about Bitcoin, I wanted to receive actual BTC.

I moved the miner to Braiins Pool and configured automatic Lightning payouts to my Speed Wallet.

Now the flow is straightforward:
Sunlight → solar panel → Jackery → Bitaxe → Braiins → Lightning sats

I am under no illusion that this is the most profitable way to acquire Bitcoin. From a purely financial standpoint, buying BTC directly would probably be easier.

The value of the project is in learning how mining, energy use, mining pools, and Lightning payments work together—and in being able to literally turn sunshine into sats.

Has anyone else experimented with a small solar miner or switched from AC to direct DC power? I would be interested to hear how much additional runtime or efficiency you gained.