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Finally took the plunge and got the garden office properly sorted for power last month. Went with two 200W panels on the roof (south-facing, slight pitch), a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT, and a...
Moor Roger in Garden Offices 2 months ago thumb_up 1
Ha, glad it's not just me going mad then! 😄 @GoldenBodger please do finish that sentence, we're all hanging here! Just to add a bit more detail to my original post - the dropout seems to happen...
Neil in Q&A 2 months ago thumb_up 9
BreezySkipper | 847 posts @LutonDream congrats on finishing the build! Yeah, the fridge is absolutely the sneaky one that catches people out.
Breezy Skipper in General Chat 2 months ago thumb_up 9
Right, I'll wade in here because this is basically my life on the boat 😄 I charge a Renault Zoe off a Victron Multiplus-II with roughly 10kWh of Fogstar cells behind it, and the honest truth is:...
Kingy in General Chat 2 months ago thumb_up 4
Really solid write-up @EwanMurray, cheers for sharing the breakdown. The Victron SmartSolar is such a sensible choice even on a tight budget — the Bluetooth monitoring alone saves you so much...
Sandy Viking in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 3
@MoorRuss is absolutely right about DNO interpretation — I ran into exactly this with my narrowboat's shore power setup last year.
Marine Ollie in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago thumb_up 1
@24V_Nerd great project, really interested to see where you went with this. I did something similar on my 26ft bilge keeler a couple of years back — the old shorepower setup was an absolute...
Sam in Marine & Boat 2 months ago thumb_up 9
@IanWhite nice one — curious whether you needed to sort the charging profile on your alternator. That's the bit that catches people out with LiFePO4 drop-ins on older boats.
Wonky Welder in Marine & Boat 2 months ago thumb_up 8
ExpertBuild | 1,204 posts @NeilAllen solid upgrade – the Orion-Tr Smart is a proper bit of kit. One thing I'd add that nobody's touched on yet: if you're running the engine at low revs while...
Expert Build in Marine & Boat 2 months ago thumb_up 8
BirchDaz | 312 posts | 🔧 Van Dweller @Gazza89 Agree with @GlenNicola that the Tracer isn't the weak link here.
Birch Daz in On a Budget 2 months ago
@GlenDixon worth checking your transfer switch settings in VEConfigure as well. There's a dedicated overload trip level that can be set quite conservatively from the factory — I had mine set at...
Lisa Kelly in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago thumb_up 7
MarkBennett | 1,203 posts | 🔋 Off-Grid Veteran Worth thinking about your inverter's transfer switch capability here.
Mark Bennett in Emergency & Backup Power 2 months ago thumb_up 9
Good point from @ValleyNomad about the alternator — worth adding that the Trafic's engine management system can also get a bit funny about sustained high loads, especially on the newer Euro 6...
Ray Hunt in Motorhome & Campervan 2 months ago thumb_up 1
Glen1983 | 📍 Array | ⚡ LiFePO4 | ☀️ Solar | 🏡 Garden Office / Cabin @CoveChris this took me a while to crack in my cabin setup.
Glen in Motorhome & Campervan 2 months ago thumb_up 4
@BatteryTony one thing worth flagging specifically about the Fogstar Drift cells — at temperatures below about 5°C, most LiFePO4 BMS units will lock out charging entirely to protect the cells.
Kangoo Nomad in Off-Grid Cabins 2 months ago thumb_up 3
Just finished putting up a 4x3m larch-clad cabin on our smallholding in mid-Wales and I'm at the stage of sorting the heating.
Squib30 in Off-Grid Cabins 2 months ago thumb_up 1
Tel1968 | 412 posts Running something similar — land setup is 280Ah Fogstar cells with a Victron Cerbo GX, narrowboat is a separate 200Ah bank with its own Multiplus.
Tel in General Chat 2 months ago thumb_up 9
Just to add to what @KeithWebb is getting at — the main thing with these cheap units isn't really the PWM technology itself, it's build quality.
Spud99 in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 6
@OffGridJack is right on the capacity point, but just to add — @Turbo, when paralleling those series strings, make sure both strings are at identical voltage before connecting them together,...
Russ Mitchell in General Chat 2 months ago thumb_up 9
@JimWilliams71 classic voltage drop issue — and it's almost always down to the sensing method rather than a faulty unit. On my shepherd's hut build I had near-identical figures to yours.
Macca64 in General Chat 2 months ago thumb_up 6