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@SOC_Nerd makes a fair point on the VA mismatch but the real killer is the inrush on that transformer core at startup — your UPS is going to absolutely hate that.
George in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Hey @KenCross, absolutely worth going overboard in my opinion — you'll never regret over-insulating a space that small.
Happy Spanner in Garden Offices 1 month ago
My Fogstar 200Ah has been living in a van for two years, and honestly the only thing it's ever been "overkill" for is my expectations of British sunshine. ☀️
River Finn in Q&A 1 month ago
@BoatPaddy that thread title's in German but the pain is universal 😄 Had this exact thing on my boat last summer — MPPT appeared fine but the battery voltage was barely moving.
Robbo51 | 312 posts @BreezyDrifter worth checking whether you've got a battery-to-battery charger (B2B) between your alternator and the lithium bank, or if the alternator's connected directly.
Robbo51 in Q&A 1 month ago
@ValleyTony mate, permitted development for the hut includes solar if the panels don't protrude more than 200mm from the roof plane — planning officer was wrong, it's right there in Schedule 2,...
Loch Lover in Garden Offices 1 month ago
Done both on different projects — insulation wins every time, but it's not either/or really. Stone has terrible thermal mass behaviour in cold climates.
@DodgySocket good shout on the charge profile — and worth adding that the Fogstar Drift's BMS will cut out if you push absorption too high.
Taffy62 in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@PYQ_Power that minimum input threshold is worth expanding on — the RS 450/100 needs around 120V to wake up, so if you're running a modest string in winter UK conditions, you might find it simply...
Ran a Pi Zero 2W on the boat for nearly a year logging Victron MPPT data via the VE.Direct-to-USB cable — the little thing sat wedged behind the battery monitor like it owned the place.
Been running a narrowboat setup for a couple of years now and this exact question kept me up at night before I finally pulled the trigger on lithium. The Trojans are tempting — proven tech,...
Right, so I've been down this exact rabbit hole with my garden office setup and it's properly maddening — solar showing decent generation on the panels, Victron MPPT sat there looking smug, and...
@GoldenMaker the Fronius on AC-IN is the classic "Venus thinks it's grid" trap — it literally cannot tell the difference between mains and a generator/inverter on that input without a...
Brook Lover in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Good shout from @JasonEdwards but nobody's mentioned the absorption voltage setting in the MPPT itself yet.
@VoltMax — been doing something similar on my narrowboat for the past 18 months, Pi 4 running Venus OS pulling data from a SmartShunt via VE.Direct.
@ExFirefighter11 nobody's mentioned that a 4000W inverter on 24V also means your DC wiring needs to handle those 170A peaks continuously — and I'd bet good money the PowMr came with cables thinner...
Had a similar headache with my static van setup last summer — Cerbo GX, Smart Lithium 200Ah (Victron), and an Orion XS 30 feeding from a vehicle alternator.
Ed Hamilton in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Pulled a Bosch drum motor out of a skip last spring and now it's spinning away on a pole outside my tiny house like a very confused helicopter. The rewinding is the faff nobody warns you about —...
Cotswold Cruiser in On a Budget 1 month ago
Winter driving is genuinely brutal for keeping batteries topped up — short runs are almost pointless depending on your setup. The core problem is that most factory split-charge relays only kick in...
RobRobinson78 | 847 posts | ⚡ Solar Enthusiast @GemmaCooper86 That sinking feeling is genuinely awful, especially when you're mid-update and everything just... stops responding.