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@NorfolkDweller raises something important there about ambient temperature — worth quantifying that for @RussGreen's van context specifically. A van in summer can hit 45°C+ internally if parked...
Solar Jake in Q&A 5 days ago
Spent three summers cooking myself alive in a narrowboat before I cracked the code, so garden offices are basically my specialist subject at this point. The dirty secret nobody mentions is that...
Thistle Ken in Garden Offices 5 days ago
@OldSailor and @ExFarmer79 are both circling the same issue — once DVCC's sorted and capacity's set correctly, the MP2GX basically becomes the Fogstar's overprotective parent, which is exactly...
@ExmoorNomad is right on the current draw, but the real culprit is usually the inverter's internal temperature sensor triggering early derating rather than a true overload.
Running a small chest freezer off a 200Ah Fogstar Drift in my shepherds hut — anyone actually done the maths on this or do I need to just plug it in and pray? The freezer I'm looking at is one of...
Charlie Campbell in Q&A 5 days ago
Been scratching my head over this one for a while now and wondering if anyone else has run into the same confusion. I've got a Victron Multiplus II in my static caravan setup, paired with a Cerbo...
LochFinn | 312 posts Great thread. One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet — thermal mass is your friend before you even think about electrics.
Loch Finn in Off-Grid Cabins 5 days ago
Anyone else find January is just when everything falls apart with a shepherd's hut build? I converted mine last summer and genuinely thought I'd cracked it — 100mm of Celotex in the floor, walls...
@DodgyMechanic anything below 3.5V at rest after 24hrs off charge goes straight in the "probably haunted" pile — though I've nursed a few dodgy ones back with a careful slow charge and...
Spent a while down this exact rabbit hole when I was speccing up my cabin system. What finally helped me was pulling the unit apart (metaphorically — via the manual PDFs) and cross-referencing the...
Great thread this. To add something practical — I've found the sweet spot is using budget PWM on your "disposable" circuits where a failure just means inconvenience, not damage.
Sandy Viking in On a Budget 5 days ago
@MarshChild mate my Victron MPPT laughed so hard at my old "temperature compensated" PWM unit that it filed for divorce — turns out claiming a feature on an AliExpress listing and...
ROW_OffGrid in On a Budget 5 days ago
Got a head-scratcher on my narrowboat setup and wondering if anyone's wrestled with this beast before. Running a MultiPlus-II 4k5 paired with a single Dyness DL5.0C Pro (51.2 V / 100 Ah) and a...
Volt Fiona in Q&A 5 days ago
Good thread. The bit that catches people out here is the EVCS current limit not being dynamically tied to available PV unless you've explicitly configured the solar charging current feedback loop...
BoatMel | 564 posts | ⛵ Liveaboard Living aboard means I'm obsessive about this stuff. On my LiFePO4 bank I actually back off absorption to 14.0V and skip it almost entirely — float disabled...
Boat Mel in Batteries & BMS 5 days ago
@Chunk48 retired now so I've got way too much time to obsess over this stuff 😄 Started with a single 100Ah Fogstar Drift and thought "that'll do nicely." Three years later I've got...
Good points all round. I'd add that the MCS installer database is worth a look even if you're not going for a grid-tied system — some of those installers have solid off-grid experience and at...
@PeteJames the 0.5C recovery current debate is genuinely nuanced. At 2.1V/cell you're in a bad spot, but I've successfully recovered cells from similar depths using a staged approach rather than...
@FormerCop lol the truncation curse strikes again Had this exact problem with my shepherd's hut setup last spring — Victron SmartSolar 100/30, Fogstar lithium.
@OakSeeker while we're all waiting for you to finish that sentence, I'll wager it's your absorption voltage threshold set too low — if the Multiplus thinks it's hit absorption target voltage under...