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@LindaClark90 welcome to the forum — narrowboat setups are always interesting to hear about, glad you've joined. Genuinely curious whether the Orion XS behaviour differs depending on which BMS...
Marine Alan in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Been down a similar rabbit hole with my setup lately and it's doing my head in a bit. Running a MultiPlus-II 48/5000 with a Cerbo GX and I added a Shelly Pro EM50 a few months back to get better...
Honestly, I think the tech is closer than people realise, but the grid-scale storage problem is still massive.
Megan Fox in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
@AndyRobinson raises a valid point but nobody's mentioned battery voltage sag yet. Lead acid under load drops voltage earlier than the BMS cutoff, so your compressor fridge's low-voltage...
Yeah, October price cap has absolutely done a number on my bills for the grid-connected stuff I still draw from time to time.
Callum Campbell in General Chat 3 weeks ago
@VanGill has already covered the Fogstar Drift, so I won't retread that ground — but I'd add that the Fogstar Drift 100Ah sits right at the top of your specified range and is worth a serious look...
DriftGal in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
@SparkySparky the BMV-712 is only as good as its calibration. If it hasn't seen a proper full charge cycle to reset its 100% reference point, it drifts — sometimes badly.
Ray Watson in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Running a small chest freezer off a 200Ah lithium (Fogstar Drift 12V) in my garden office setup and trying to work out if the numbers actually stack up before I commit to buying the freezer. The...
Muddy Skipper in Q&A 3 weeks ago
Really useful thread this. One thing I'd add — with the EG4 6000XP specifically, don't neglect bonding the panel chassis to your equipment ground at the array itself rather than relying on the...
Good points all round. One thing worth adding — the 75/15 gives you proper MPPT tracking rather than PWM, which on a 175W panel can genuinely recover 10-30% more charge depending on conditions,...
@LH_Marine welcome to the forum — glad you found us, and this is exactly the kind of deep-dive question we love here. One thing worth adding to what @WelshMarine and @DodgyMechanic have covered:...
Paddy Davies in General Chat 3 weeks ago
@WattLiz has hit the nail on the head with the BMS question — that's almost certainly where the story ends here. I had almost exactly this on my narrowboat when I first wired up a secondhand...
Jonno in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
@PeteJames been through this on the narrowboat too — my Victron SmartShunt and Fogstar battery BMS were arguing like an old married couple until I nailed down the charged voltage and tail current...
ExPostie86 in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
What @BlownFuse and @SunnyFisher said, but nobody's mentioned cable length matching yet. Running parallel batteries? Both cables from battery to busbar need to be identical length.
Battery Tim in Q&A 3 weeks ago
@OffGridHamish that's exactly the use case I've been mulling over for my cabin setup too. At the moment I'm running a separate small Renogy controller just to keep the starter battery ticked over,...
@Spud @OffGridDawn both right on the maths, but worth flagging the ambient temperature factor too — my compressor fridge nearly doubles its draw when it's 30°C outside versus a cool night.
@KentVanLifer hits on something I think about a lot actually. Living van life and generating my own solar means I'm largely sidestepping this whole debate, but friends of mine with home...
@Chris1966 one thing neither of the above have touched on — watch the actual Voc of your panels versus the controller's minimum MPPT input threshold.
@Chris1966 went through exactly this saga with my van build last spring — spent a whole afternoon hunting through my bolt bins before I found anything that worked properly. One thing nobody's...
@24VPro this is exactly the kind of thing keeping me up at night with my narrowboat setup! 🚢 When you're mid-cruise and the BMS decides it's had enough, the last thing you want is the Orion XS...
Linda Clark in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago