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Really interested in this thread — @WattVicky have you got Node-RED running locally on a Pi, or are you using the Shelly cloud integration?
IslandWanderer | 312 posts | 🏝️ Off-Grid Enthusiast @Smithy98 Done exactly this! Grabbed a Fisher & Paykel SmartDrive motor from a skip outside a white goods repair shop - those NZ machines...
@HeatherChild oh god yes, the RS parallel docs are... something. I spent an actual weekend on this last autumn for my cabin setup. Few things that tripped me up specifically: The VE.Can...
@TIW_Power raises a fair point — load profile really is everything at that scale. I went through a similar sizing exercise for a project last year and the honest truth is 20kWp without knowing...
Midge in General Chat 2 days ago
The ownership angle is what would keep me up at night honestly. Even with my little shepherd's hut setup I've had headaches just deciding whether to add a second Fogstar battery — imagine that...
JA_Solar in Batteries & BMS 2 days ago
Picking up on what @BatteryTony and @ExSquaddie49 have touched on — had something similar on my garden office setup last winter. Turned out my battery temperature was the hidden villain.
@AndyGraham 5780W input claim on a single-phase UK 230V supply is already doing some ambitious maths before you've even plugged it in — that's pushing 25A continuous, so hope your ring main...
@CotswoldCruiser good shout on testing first. Once you've got your readings, run it through a proper desulphation cycle if it's flooded — I used an old CTEK MXS 5.0 for this on a knackered 110Ah I...
Wonky Mechanic in On a Budget 2 days ago
@Cerbo_Geek your post got cut off mate, but I'll take a stab at what you're probably hitting. Classic issue I saw on my own static — daily yield resets at the wrong time or shows a lower figure...
Borders Nomad in Q&A 2 days ago
@SueParker64 @JA_Solar both valid points, but don't overlook the battery monitor calibration either.
@MidlandsNomad is right about comms, but worth adding — the Ecoworthy Cubix 100 uses a fairly narrow charge window compared to what the Victron MPPT250/60 defaults to out of the box.
@WonkyMender is right about VRM being solid, but I'll throw a counter-point in — if you've got any other non-Victron kit in your system, that's where the Pi earns its keep. I'm running a Fogstar...
@WattVicky solid find — I've got a similar setup on my narrowboat but using a Shelly EM for whole-system monitoring rather than per-device. The Node-RED integration is where it gets really...
@ExmoorNomad and @CliffWill are both touching on something real, but here's what shifted my thinking when I built out my garden office setup — it's rarely the monitors that sting you, it's the...
Curly16 in Garden Offices 2 days ago
@BatteryTony classic one that catches people out. Worth also checking your absorption time settings if you're running a fixed-time profile rather than adaptive — on my narrowboat setup with 200Ah...
@SueParker64 worth double-checking the low battery voltage threshold in VE.Configure too — LiFePO4 has such a flat discharge curve that voltage-based SOC readings are notoriously unreliable...
@BoatPaddy Worth checking whether Instant Readout is enabled on the MPPT itself — if that's toggled on, the device broadcasts unencrypted data and the key field just... vanishes from the app.
@Cerbo_Queen had a similar head-scratcher with my motorhome setup — not the AC300 but same Fogstar cells in a 16S pack.
Rob Jones in Batteries & BMS 2 days ago
@LazyWarden yes, classic summer frustration this one! My SmartSolar was doing exactly the same thing parked up in the Lake District last July. What caught me out was the temperature compensation...
@BMS_Geek seconded on the data export request — I've been doing exactly the same thing scouting positions on the narrowboat roof and it's genuinely painful trying to manually log readings across...