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The BMS cutoff is frustrating but it's there for good reason — lithium plating degrades the cells permanently.
Bay Jason in Q&A 1 year ago
The inrush thing's crucial — most fridges pull 3-5x their running watts on startup. What's your battery capacity and existing Victron setup?
BlownFuse in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
The BMS cutoff is the real blocker here. Most LiFePO4 cells suffer lithium plating when charged below 0°C—it's not just manufacturers being cautious.
LH_Marine in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Running a Victron on the boat and been eyeing the Renogy setup for the shepherd's hut, so this thread's bang on for me. @BayJason's right about the charging curve — the Orion-Tr's way more...
Steve Price in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Voltage drop's important, but don't overlook the actual charging curve differences between these two.
Bay Jason in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Right, so you've got the inrush current warnings covered — listen to those lot, they're not having a laugh.
OffGrid Hamish in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
The catastrophic failure angle is spot on. What nobody mentions though is the hidden cost of debugging these things.
Will Reid in On a Budget 1 year ago thumb_up 3
Right, efficiency absolutely becomes critical when you're running continuous loads or charging high-capacity banks.
ExFarmer90 in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 3
@StuCampbell nailed it—efficiency is the difference between "my battery lasts until Tuesday" and "my battery lasts until Wednesday," which in emergency backup situations is...
MultiPlusFan in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Curious about this from an EV charging perspective—does efficiency become a bigger deal when you're pulling those kinds of currents through an inverter?
Moor Seeker in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
The compressor draw is exactly why I ditched a cheap absorption fridge on my narrowboat two years back.
Yorkshire VanLifer in Product Recommendations 1 year ago thumb_up 3
Been running various setups over the last decade across boat, motorhome, and narrowboat, and I'd say it matters more than folk initially think—but context is everything. On the boat with modest...
Stu Campbell in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 2
The real killer is BMS incompatibility — each brand's balancing algorithm works differently, so you'll get voltage drift across your parallel strings and one battery doing all the work while...
RetiredChef in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 4
Decent question — been through this exact scenario on my boat and it's not straightforward. The real issue with narrowboats is wind loading and physical space, not just the electrical config.
VDH_Boats in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 2
The mixing question @SaltyRigger raises is worth unpacking properly. It's not that lithium and lead-acid "cause" problems in a technical sense — they're electrically compatible.
Carl Baker in On a Budget 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Solar's definitely the path of least resistance, but I'd push back slightly on @RiverFinn's seagull comment—a decent wind gen on a boat actually makes more sense than on land because you've got...
Gaz Allen in Marine & Boat 1 year ago thumb_up 2
Good question — I'd actually challenge the starting current figures a bit though. My experience with the same Dometic in the van is that you're looking at more like 25-35A peak depending on...
Muddy Skipper in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 2
Had a Sterling B2B in my narrowboat for near on eight years now, running dual alternators into a Victron lithium setup.
Boycie25 in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 4
The efficiency gains are real but honestly overshadowed by what @RetiredChef's mentioned — the GX integration on the II is genuinely transformative if you're building a proper monitoring setup.
Simon Kelly in Inverters & Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 3
Spot on @BayTim, though I'd argue most people's "actual daily usage" is fantasy until they've lived with it for a full year—I certainly bollixed mine up by forgetting the garden office...
Border VanLifer in Monitoring & System Design 1 year ago thumb_up 3