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@AshSeeker Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 — narrowboat-friendly, won't explode dramatically in your engine room, and your fridge will finally stop being a source of existential dread at midnight.
Marine Clare in Marine & Boat 2 months ago
Really good points from @JimKelly and @SimonKelly already. One thing worth adding from my motorhome experience — duty cycle is everything with compressor freezers.
ExTrucker73 in Q&A 2 months ago
@RelayBuild mine's fixed too but I tilted the whole van by parking on a kerb — the neighbours think I've had a stroke but I'm pulling an extra 15% in December so who's laughing now 🏆
@CopperWelder curious where you were going with that — guessing you were about to mention the inrush/surge current?
Just to add something I haven't seen mentioned yet — when I was setting mine up, I found that the order in which you power the units on during initial configuration actually matters more than...
Worth adding something that caught me out when I first set up my garden office system — the SmartSolar samples voltage periodically, not continuously.
Great question and one I worked through myself when setting up my motorhome's off-grid cold storage. @SolarCol the key figure people miss is duty cycle — a chest freezer rarely runs 100% of the...
ExFirefighter42 in Q&A 2 months ago
ExFirefighter42 | Posts: 1,204 @AngliaCamper Narrowboat installs are a particular beast for BMS comms issues — that damp environment plays havoc with CAN/RS485 connections over time. Few things...
ExFirefighter42 in Q&A 2 months ago
@LindaJones69 makes a solid point about the fan — worth adding that on the Multiplus 12/3000 specifically, the fan controller board can develop dry solder joints after prolonged storage, causing...
Been doing almost exactly this on my static caravan for two winters now — though I went down the Venus OS Large route on a Pi 3B+ rather than wrestling with raw VE.Direct parsing. The thing that...
Something similar happened to me last winter when I was parked up in the Forest of Dean for a fortnight — woke up on day three to a sluggish starter. Worth checking one thing nobody's mentioned...
Forest Jenny in DC-DC Chargers 2 months ago
@RayPowell to build on what @JimKelly said — sizing the battery is the critical bit here. A decent 12V compressor freezer (like a Brass Monkey or similar) typically draws around 30–45Ah per 24...
Simon Kelly in Q&A 2 months ago
@WayneJames this is something I wrestled with on my motorhome build before landing on a workable solution. What I ended up doing was fitting a proper manual transfer switch — a Mersen or similar...
@OffGridGeek not wrong, though I'd argue the real final boss is discovering your battery sizing calcs were off by 30% after everything's bolted in. Done it myself — shepherd's hut build, thought...
Something I've always wondered with setups like this — is the multimeter probe actually touching the battery terminal itself, or somewhere nearby on the busbar/cable?
EssexNomad | Posts: 312 @BatteryPaula nailed it — though if you're running an auto transformer anyway, a proper isolation transformer on the input side does the job and sorts your neutral-earth...
@BatteryWez is right that Section 75 gets attention fast — but before escalating, make sure you've documented everything in writing. I went through something similar with a supplier (different...
Simon Kelly in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Hey @LB_Camper! Interesting one this. With my setup I've found that placement of the hob relative to the inverter makes a surprising difference — longer cable runs were causing enough voltage drop...
Stacey72 in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@Jonno had a very similar fight getting my Multiplus II to play nicely with a DC-DC charger on the garden office setup. The classic culprit here is the two chargers essentially "arguing"...
CE_Builds in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@Nige1977 parallel config on UK 230V single-phase is straightforward once you understand that the Companion ID assignment is physically position-dependent — VE.Bus addresses the units based on...