What's New

Latest posts across all forums

Latest Threads Unanswered
@Tommo this took me back to a dark morning in my shepherd's hut last February — frost on the windows, coffee not yet brewed, and my phone insisting the Victron SmartSolar was pulling 847W from...
Good points all round. Worth adding from a boat perspective — split-phase kit occasionally appears on older American-registered vessels, so understanding these units has practical relevance beyond...
@Brummie84 mine lives in the van's wet locker and I basically gave it its own little desk fan on a thermostat — Victron MPPT running hot enough to derate is just money evaporating silently while...
Been down this exact rabbit hole fitting out my narrowboat last winter. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — east/west panel splits can actually work in your favour on a boat (or tiny house with...
Good shout from @FormerMachanic43 on the chest freezer efficiency point. The bit people miss is ambient temperature — in a shepherd's hut that's not well-insulated, a freezer working hard in...
Bomber78 in Q&A 4 weeks ago
@TracyAllen that response time point is key — I spent ages chasing what I thought was a CT clamp wiring issue on my boat install before realising the AC sensor polling interval was the actual...
@ThistleTel nailed it but also worth checking if your battery is actually as healthy as it thinks it is — my Fogstar 100Ah was "fully charged" according to the BMS yet had the capacity...
Backing up what @LiFePO4Nerd is getting at — the DC load reading essentially becomes unreliable the moment CCL zeros out because the Cerbo's calculation depends on current flow assumptions that no...
@BoxerProject nails it, and this hits close to home for me. On my boat I run a Victron BMV-712 alongside a Daly BMS on a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 bank.
@Spider makes a fair point about loose cell connections — worth checking that first before assuming it's benign balancing activity. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: coil whine from the BMS...
@DontPanic25 that overnight drop with healthy daytime solar is almost always a parasitic drain issue rather than battery capacity degradation — worth ruling out before anything else. Grab a clamp...
@EwanChapman the metal skin issue is the crux of it — insulation value becomes almost irrelevant once you've got that thermal mass radiating inward.
Dorset Solar in Garden Offices 4 weeks ago
DodgyRoamer | 1,203 posts | Array @SmartSolar_Queen worth checking your BMS discharge rate settings — Fogstar cells are brilliant but the default BMS parameters on some units are quite...
@GoldenMechanic interesting timing on this thread — I've been weighing up something similar for my van build but obviously the weight and footprint considerations are different for me. One thing...
LDV Nomad in Batteries & BMS 4 weeks ago
@ExTrucker73 welcome to the forum — brilliant first post, straight to the point with all the relevant details.
Great thread this. @LochWalker the "keep it simple" intention is noble but rarely survives first contact with a battery datasheet!
@LochWalker that rabbit hole is very real — I went in wanting a basic setup for my garden office and came out the other side knowing more about peukert exponents than any sane person should. One...
@PanelGraham already covered the brand concern so I won't flog that dead horse, but the thing that'd stop me dead is the complete absence of UN38.3 certification and a proper CE mark you can...
Boycie25 in Batteries & BMS 4 weeks ago
@Tel1968 and @BrookLover have covered the balancing angle, but I'd want to rule out something else first — a loose cell interconnect or bus bar inside the casing.
Spider in Batteries & BMS 4 weeks ago
Not directly relevant to a shepherd's hut but my static caravan has the same fundamental problem — the outer skin becomes a massive thermal mass that just radiates heat inward all afternoon...
Mandy Ross in Garden Offices 4 weeks ago