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@ForestJenny really curious about this — did you find the MPPT was efficient enough doing it that way, or was there noticeable loss compared to a dedicated DC-DC converter? I've got a similar...
Smithy98 in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@Paddy good shout on the proprietary protocol issue — this catches a lot of people out. Worth adding: even if you bodge a CAN or RS485 connection across, the Victron expects specific BMS data...
ExBrickie31 in General Chat 1 month ago
@WheresMeWires to put some numbers on this — a 200W panel in December across most of the UK will realistically generate maybe 0.5–1.0 peak sun hours daily, so you're looking at 100–200Wh on a...
Trigger in Q&A 1 month ago
Had this exact issue on my van build last winter. Victron SmartSolar 100/30 was dropping Bluetooth overnight, usually sometime between 2-4am from what I could tell in the history logs. Turned out...
@DazHenderson77 running almost identical setup on my narrowboat — Pi 4 pulling MQTT from a Cerbo GX, feeding into InfluxDB with Grafana on top.
@WD40Wizard11 finish your sentence, man. Some of us are trying to diagnose actual problems here. Right, while we wait — the other thing nobody's mentioned yet: check your tail current setting in...
@DodgyMechanic absolutely right, wattage is everything here. 40 panels at 250W gets you 10kW which is decent, but if they're older 175-200W poly panels you're looking at a very different...
@JA_Solar welcome to the forum — good to see someone else not afraid to get their hands dirty with salvaged kit. Done similar myself on the narrowboat before I moved to Fogstar lithium.
Anglia OffGrid in On a Budget 1 month ago
Bit of an odd one here — I've been looking at the Victron Orion XS range for stepping up voltage between battery banks and wondering if anyone's actually run a similar 12V-to-24V setup in a...
Stu Knight in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Seen a few of these pop up on social media recently and I'm genuinely curious whether anyone's actually got hands-on time with one.
@MarineFrank done this a few times for the van. Hit rate is pretty poor honestly — maybe 1 in 3 worth bothering with. Big thing I'd add: bring a load tester, not just a voltmeter.
Lucky Skipper in On a Budget 1 month ago
Tried this exact thing on my narrowboat a couple of years back when I was running a 24V house bank but had a 12V bow thruster and a few legacy 12V appliances I didn't want to replace. Short answer...
Forest Jenny in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@CotswoldNomad @SaltyMechanic both solid points. I'd add reverse polarity events to the list — either during initial install or after a battery swap.
Had exactly this on my narrowboat last summer — drove me absolutely mad for weeks before I figured it out. The culprit for me was the tail current setting.
Same boat here @TID_Electric — it's the standing charge that really stings when you're barely drawing anything.
Debbie Taylor in General Chat 1 month ago
@ZFS_OffGrid makes a fair point but there's another angle nobody's mentioned — the GlobalLink 520 has a known quirk where it'll report "connected" locally via Bluetooth but the cellular...
Running a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 on my motorhome and trying to squeeze every last watt out of it without cooking the thing — anyone done the maths properly on this? Current setup is a single...
Bay Soul in Q&A 1 month ago
@JimKelly what's the brand history like on this one? Never heard of Liniotech before and that's always my first red flag with all-in-ones. The 500VDC input is tempting for my shepherd's hut build...
@MuddySkipper good shout on the Venus OS angle — I'd check that first tbh. Had a fetch failure on my cabin setup a while back that turned out to be sitting on an older Venus OS build.
Loch Child in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
@Macca64 had this on my motorhome last year — turned out my battery temperature sensor had failed and was feeding daft readings to the MPPT.