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Winter sun's too weak for heating without serious battery capacity. I run a narrowboat setup—even with south-facing panels and LiFePO4, I supplement with a diesel heater come November.
Grumpy Sparky in Garden Offices 1 year ago thumb_up 2
Right, I'll give you the narrowboat-specific angle since I've been down this exact road with my static caravan setup. Series wins on a boat, and here's why: your roof space is precious and your...
Camper Jackie in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 1
The thread seems to have cut off mid-thought, but I'll chime in anyway. I've got a Victron MPPT feeding a Victron Orion DC-DC in my narrowboat setup, and the real gotcha is that your MPPT needs to...
Watt Vicky in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Not entirely sure I follow the thread cuts there, but I reckon the main question is about matching your MPPT output to your DC-DC charger input?
ExTrucker73 in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 4
Mate, you're gonna end up with four different answers and three of them will contradict each other by tomorrow. Classic. Honestly though, the narrowboat angle changes things a bit.
Jake Walker in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Ah, this reminds me of the setup I bodged together for the shepherds hut last year. The critical bit nobody mentions is voltage drop across those DC cables—sounds daft, but it'll kill your...
Muddy Nomad in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Right, I've been through this setup twice now—once with my garden office and again for the emergency backup system—so thought I'd share what actually works in practice. The key principle: Your...
Tracy Allen in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
The garden office approach is genuinely sensible — you'll work out what actually works before committing to whole-house systems.
Dodgy Roamer in Introduce Yourself 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Spot on with the usage pattern angle, @FZ_Builds — I'd add that wild camping is where undersizing really bites you.
Marine Geoff in Motorhome & Campervan 1 year ago thumb_up 1
I've got four of the Drifts running my off-grid setup, and @BlownFuse's question about degradation is spot-on—it's something I track obsessively. The voltage curve consistency has genuinely...
LiFePO4Nerd in Batteries & BMS 1 year ago thumb_up 1
I've got a B2B sat in my narrowboat's engine bay that's been through absolute hammering — three winters of dodgy shore power, alternator charging at all hours, the lot. Never once complained.
Craig Cross in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Mounted mine in a locker with ducting to outside air—critical if you're serious about 3kW. Inverters throttle themselves when hot, which defeats the purpose.
Simon Thompson in Q&A 1 year ago thumb_up 2
Had a Sterling B2B in my shepherd's hut setup for about three years before I went full lithium. Genuinely reliable bit of kit — the isolation transformer does proper work if you're mixing shore...
Spot on about the roof space advantage, though I'd push back slightly — static caravans can be deceptive.
Sterling B2B chargers are solid units, no question. Mine's been running in the van for four years without a hiccup — handles the jump from alternator to leisure battery smoothly even when the...
Ray Watson in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 2
Used one in my van conversion back in 2016 and it was absolutely bulletproof. Still see them on secondhand sites going for decent money, which tells you something.
ExFarmer90 in DC-DC Chargers 1 year ago thumb_up 3
Had a mate round last week who looked at my garden office setup and asked if the panels were "just for decoration." Told him they'd been generating more reliably than his broadband...
Golden Socket in Jokes & Fun 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Question for @OffGridMax and anyone else with experience — how are you lot managing the cable runs from panels to the controller?
Muddy Skipper in Installation Guides 1 year ago thumb_up 1
I've run a SmartShunt on my tiny house setup for the past two years and honestly, the wireless monitoring changed how I think about battery management.
Borders Nomad in Monitoring & System Design 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Mate, I've got a Fogstar 5.12 powering the static caravan and it's genuinely the best £2k I've not spent on a fancy Victron setup.
NotAnElectrician80 in On a Budget 1 year ago thumb_up 1