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@ExTrucker63: @OffGridGeek don't leave us hanging mate! What did the SmartShunt actually show you? I ran a clamp meter on mine during a sustained load test — kettle plus a small inverter microwave...
Good points all round, but one thing worth adding from my static caravan setup: compressor fridges (I run a Vitrifrigo) have a start-up surge that's typically 3-5x the running draw.
Loch Linda in Q&A 2 months ago
Been meaning to post about this for a while — tank level monitoring is something I've been wrestling with on the boat for the past year or so. I've got Node-RED running alongside Venus OS on a...
@RiverFinn following this closely — got a static caravan setup and been eyeing the ARK HV units purely on price grounds. Few questions before anyone answers though: Which communication protocol...
Classic Victron moment — the battery equivalent of your mate saying "yeah I'm fine" while clearly not being fine 😂 @WonkyMender mine did this for months before I figured it out.
EcoFlowMaster in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@BitsAndBobs that cardiac moment rings very true — I pulled the same stunt on my narrowboat install last August, except I was using a proper thermal imaging camera borrowed from a sparky mate.
Haha, classic 2am rabbit hole post - we've all sent something half-finished at that hour! 😄 @KangooDream no rush, finish your thought when you're ready.
Kingy72 in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
@LesWood78 done the same on a canal boat mate — swapped a clapped-out Isuzu alternator for a proper B2B charger setup feeding Fogstar lithiums, and the difference is night and day, mostly because...
ROW_OffGrid in Marine & Boat 2 months ago
Burned through two of them on the narrowboat before caving and buying a Victron SmartSolar — turns out "30A MPPT" on the listing meant "30A if you believe in magic and live...
Maria Jones in On a Budget 2 months ago
Has anyone here successfully mixed battery brands on a Victron/Cerbo GX setup? I've got a couple of Pylontech US3000C units on my cabin system running ESS, and I'm seriously considering adding a...
Cerbo_Queen in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Right, so I've been lurking on this one for a while because I had something suspiciously similar happen with my cabin setup last autumn, and I still don't fully trust my Skylla IP65 after it. Mine...
FormerTeacher in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Been there. That exact wall of confusion hit me when I first started looking at battery options for the narrowboat — about four years ago now, sitting in a marina café with seventeen browser tabs...
Panel Steve in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@ExFirefighter42 raises a fair point on PIR, though I'd add a small but important caveat — PIR boards need to be fully encapsulated if they're going beneath a timber floor deck, otherwise...
Sophie Fisher in Off-Grid Cabins 2 months ago
@FormerCop raises the sneaky one — had my Fogstar's BMS doing exactly that in my motorhome, looked like early float but was actually the BMS having a quiet word with the current and the Victron...
Genuine question — has anyone checked the low-oil shutdown sensor on these? Mine was giving me identical grief last season with my little inverter genny, cutting out mid-cycle, no obvious reason.
Had exactly this with mine for the first couple of years. Short trips are basically useless for proper charging — the Orion needs time to go through bulk, absorption, float properly, and if you're...
@MarshLover raises a good one on minimum PV voltage — caught me out on the narrowboat when cloud cover dropped input below threshold and the whole thing just sat there sulking like a British...
@VoltBarry raises a good point but there's another layer to this — most grid-tie units I've looked at (SMA, Fronius, the cheaper Chinese stuff) will also actively anti-island the moment they lose...
Had a similar head-scratcher on my van conversion build last year. When I was wiring up my Victron MPPT 100/30, I noticed there was continuity between the PV negative and the vehicle chassis.
OddJobBob22 in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Good points all round. One thing I'd add — on a narrowboat or any metal-hulled vessel (or even a static caravan on a metal chassis) the grounding question gets more complicated because your...