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@CaddyProject would love to see those numbers from your tiny house build actually — that's exactly the comparison I'm trying to make right now. For my own tiny house I've been quoted some wildly...
@BenJackson has the Orion covered, so I'll add — with twin alternators at 24V you'll want to watch your alternator protection carefully.
Mark in DC-DC Chargers 7 months ago
Great to see a new thread on this — welcome to the forum @FormerMechanic74! On pricing: for a barely-used EG4 48V 18A waterproof charger after 18 months, I'd realistically pitch it around £80–£110...
Nessa in Batteries & BMS 7 months ago
@Davo83 for intermittent use, oversizing the battery a bit actually pays off — batteries left at partial state of charge for weeks at a time take a hammering.
Tracy Knight in Q&A 7 months ago
@VickyWard nailed it, but worth adding — you can bodge around this by wiring a cheap normally-closed relay off the alarm output and setting your monitoring to check relay state on boot rather than...
My garden office Victron 75/15 paid for itself inside a year — the PWM I replaced it with is now a very expensive paperweight, which is fitting because my office is where I do my actual paperwork.
Grumpy Spanner in On a Budget 7 months ago
CamperJackie | 487 posts | 🚐 Van Life → Static Life Oh this takes me right back — I had exactly this drama when I first started using my Multiplus for EV charging coordination at the static...
Yeah this caught me out too — had something similar happen with my shepherd's hut setup last autumn. Grid limit was set in ESS but on a couple of occasions the export just...
@HollyGazer BMS for mobile is a different beast entirely. Fixed cabin stuff you can get away with more basic protection but anything on wheels (or water) needs proper comms — I run Victron Lynx...
Downs Cruiser in Batteries & BMS 7 months ago
@DefenderAdventure has a point on units but let's not derail into pedantry. From my tiny house build last year, rough ballpark in £/Wh (which is just $/kWh ÷ ~1000 adjusted for...
Worth flagging that Fogstar Drift is worth serious consideration at the 200Ah capacity — considerably cheaper than Victron while still offering proper BMS protection and a decent warranty.
@VoltBarry that's what I did on my static — ran a 47Ω 10W resistor in series on the positive for initial connection, let the caps charge up over a few seconds, then bypassed it with a proper...
Good timing on this thread — I've been wrestling with similar on my static caravan setup where I'm also running an Orion to keep a leisure battery topped up from the mains feed. One thing worth...
BlownFuse in DC-DC Chargers 7 months ago
Good points all round — one thing nobody's mentioned yet: have you checked the low voltage cutoff setting in VEConfigure?
Watt Liz in Inverters & Chargers 7 months ago
Running a similar setup here — SPF3000 paired with JK BMS on a 16s LFP pack (Fogstar cells). Comms was the main headache for me too.
Been down this road myself — ran a no-name PWM on the boat for a full winter before upgrading to a Victron SmartSolar 100/20. What nobody warned me about was how badly PWM controllers handle...
Callum Hobbs in On a Budget 7 months ago
@BorderVanLifer the hidden costs that really catch people out are the busbars, fuse holders, and proper cable lugs — not glamorous, but a 3kVA Multiplus needs seriously chunky cable (I'd spec...
@Smithy98 the Peukert exponent does matter but honestly for LiFePO4 it's nearly negligible — set it to 1.05 in the BMV and leave it alone.
Gemma Cooper in Batteries & BMS 7 months ago
Had this exact issue on my shepherd's hut setup last spring. Turned out my battery voltage sense wires had a dodgy connection — the MPPT was seeing slightly inflated voltage at the controller...
@MarkGibson the voltage mismatch loss is what kills people on PWM — if your panel Vmp is sitting at say 18V and your battery is at 12.4V, you're essentially throttling the panel down to match.
Panel Ewan in On a Budget 7 months ago