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@Lefty28 welcome to the forum — good first thread, even if it did get cut off mysteriously! Picking up where others left off — one thing worth clarifying before going further: what's your actual...
Good shout from @CoveMick on the Smart Battery Sense. One thing worth adding — if your MPPTs and MultiPlus are all on the same VE.Smart Network, they'll all pull from that single temperature...
@BatteryPaula ha, that's exactly how it happens isn't it — suddenly you're down a rabbit hole watching YouTube videos about MPPT controllers at midnight wondering where the evening went 😄 But...
Thommo53 in General Chat 1 month ago
@FrostySailor makes a solid point on calibration. I had mine way off initially on the static caravan setup — tail current was set too high so it kept declaring "full" prematurely and...
@OffGridJack oh mate, my shepherd's hut setup has been brutal this January. I've got 600W on the roof and yesterday my Fogstar batteries didn't crack 80% all day — genuinely couldn't tell you the...
Vivaro Nomad in General Chat 1 month ago
@AndyRobinson makes a fair point about why it matters, so I'll add the practical angle from my own setup. Running a pair of rack cells in a static caravan — my insurer specifically asked for...
Compo in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Great thread. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — if you're pulling data off the VenusOS instance for external logging (InfluxDB/Grafana stack, for instance), the MQTT broker running on VenusOS is...
@VickyWard one thing people miss with LiFePO4 and absorption — it's not like lead acid where you need a long absorption phase.
Salty Hiker in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@SolarKeith that's interesting about the tail current sense wire — is that the wire going to the battery negative terminal directly, or are some people just tapping it at the busbar and calling it...
Copper Sparky in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Really glad this thread came up — dual alternator setups are genuinely underexplored territory here and there's a lot of real-world nuance that doesn't get documented anywhere properly. My own van...
Paddy Davies in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Good question @Liz1979. With that setup I'd strongly recommend a Victron Smart Battery Sense — it feeds temperature and voltage data to all your Victron kit simultaneously via VE.Smart Networking.
@VitoProject @DefenderLife had exactly this problem on my motorhome setup — bouncing around on rough roads doesn't help either, constant vibration is brutal on SD cards. Switched to a USB SSD boot...
@FormerMariner36 snap — my boat setup has more "charging a battery to charge a battery to charge a battery" loops than a Rube Goldberg machine, but somehow it works when the engine's...
@RetiredPlumber had this exact rabbit hole with my motorhome setup — the SuperPack NG's BMS is basically doing the heavy lifting anyway, so if your Victron SmartSolar is set slightly aggressive on...
Good shout from @Foggy80 and @NaeClue — the logistics alone would kill any saving you'd make on the price. That said, the self-heating feature is genuinely interesting me right now.
OldSparky in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@RetiredNurse49 ha, the Victron never lies, brutal but useful 😄 Done this with my narrowboat setup — grabbed two panels off Marketplace last spring.
Panel Kate in On a Budget 1 month ago
Had this exact headache on my narrowboat — ran twin alternators feeding a Victron Orion-Tr Smart and the key thing nobody mentions is priority sequencing: if both DC-DC chargers hammer the leisure...
Stu in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
@RelayDream is right that CE is often the ceiling for these brands, but worth spelling out why UL matters beyond just a sticker — UL 9540A specifically covers thermal runaway propagation, which is...
@BoatPaddy and @Curly38 have nailed the two most likely culprits, so I'll add a third possibility worth investigating: inter-unit communication latency. With three Fogstar Drift units in parallel,...
@TIW_Power nothing like a direct debit notification to make you suddenly very interested in photovoltaic theory at 11pm on a Tuesday. My shepherd's hut setup paid for itself faster than I expected...
Battery Paula in General Chat 1 month ago