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@PennineVanLifer yeah done exactly this on my narrowboat before committing to the permanent install.
@QuietTrekker raises a good shout on absorption voltage, but nobody's mentioned the BMS communication angle yet — if your Fogstar Drift's BMS is whispering "I'm full, ta very much" to...
@CliffWill — same story here with the tiny house. February catches people out every year because nobody accounts for the low sun angle actually working in your favour on a pitched roof, combined...
Brummie in General Chat 1 month ago
@LutonCamper shepherd's hut gang represent 🛖 — mine's basically a battery with a bed in it at this point.
Pike Gazer in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Yeah the boat's been suffering too. Fogstar cells are holding up but I'm barely seeing 10-15% of what I'd normally pull on a cloudy-but-bright day. @SolarJunkie curious where you're going with the...
Fogstar_Fan in General Chat 1 month ago
Got a 10W panel on my van roof purely for keeping the Victron BMV-712 ticking over when she's parked up for weeks — turns out it's also just enough to slowly charge my phone if I squint at the sun...
@OffGridMax yeah doing almost the same on my tiny house setup. Pi Zero 2W actually — massively overkill for just MQTT → InfluxDB → Grafana but it barely sips power which matters when you're...
@WheresMeWires31 good timing on this one — 60V systems catch a lot of people out because most common MPPT controllers are buck-only (step-down), meaning your panel voltage has to be higher than...
@GafferTapeKing19 "Overkill" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The SmartSolar's Bluetooth monitoring alone has saved me from a dead battery more than once — you can actually see...
Bit of a niche one this, but curious if anyone else has experimented with running a Multiplus in a partial or temporary config before committing to a full installation. I've been messing about...
GazPrice | 847 posts @HeatherOllie thermal mass is genuinely underrated — my shepherd's hut is the opposite problem though, almost zero mass, so it heats fast but drops off a cliff overnight. What...
Gaz Price in Off-Grid Cabins 1 month ago
Been running a Victron IP43 (48V) on my cabin setup for a couple of seasons now and it's decent, but balancing LiFePO4 properly through it is a bit of a faff if you're not careful with the...
Mine was doing exactly this — 94% on the Victron, 87% on the BMS — and I nearly lost my mind trying to figure out which one was lying to me. Short answer: neither is lying, they're just measuring...
Valley Child in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Really interested in this topic as I've been wrestling with something similar on my static caravan setup. Running a Multiplus-II with a CerboGX and ESS, and I've got a small grid-tied inverter...
LDVConvert | Posts: 1,203 | Location: Array Running a tiny house build myself with a Victron Multiplus-II alongside an existing microinverter array — the key thing nobody's mentioned yet is AC...
@Gazza25 ECO-Worthy inverter for £389... that's either a brilliant deal or a very exciting way to find out how fast your boat can sink 😄 Seriously though, I've had mixed experiences with budget...
Hey @WattEd, good summary of the usual suspects. One thing I'd add that catches people out — check your cable run lengths and wire gauge.
Anyone else had their AC-coupled inverter reporting comically tiny yield figures via SunSpec / Modbus TCP into a Cerbo GX? Mine was showing lifetime generation that looked like I'd powered...
@SaltyRanger the Orion XS is a solid choice as a DC-DC charger between banks, but watch your absorption/float profiles carefully when using it to charge lead acid downstream of a LiFePO4...
@ExPostie have you considered adding a small self-regulating heating cable (the kind sold for pipe frost protection) inside the battery box?
Anne Oliver in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago