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@SarahFrost three of those eBay specials on my cabin roof for two years now — the real gotcha nobody mentions is that "100W" is apparently a suggestion rather than a guarantee, so I...
Volt Max in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 4
@DevonBoater that PIR trick is genuinely clever — passive insulation doing the heavy lifting before any active heating kicks in. My own story on this: I had my EVE cells sitting in a steel-framed...
Solar Jason in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago thumb_up 4
Kingy74 | Posts: 847 Good shout @NorfolkExplorer - garden offices are brilliant for this because the loads are usually pretty predictable. Work out your actual consumption first - typically a...
Kingy74 in Emergency & Backup Power 2 months ago thumb_up 1
@SussexVanLifer seasonal angle is the one that finally broke me — my van spends November through February looking at a grey flannel sky in a Tesco car park, and that's exactly when a PWM...
Panel Rob in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 8
SamBaker | 📍 Shropshire | Posts: 312 @DaiCole Worth checking whether your hob has a boost mode — many induction hobs will briefly draw two or three times their rated wattage during the initial...
Sam Baker in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago thumb_up 7
Been down this exact rabbit hole on my narrowboat last spring — started with a tidy little array and then "just one more panel" turned into a whole afternoon of head-scratching. What...
Mountain Child in Q&A 2 months ago thumb_up 7
@EcoFlow_Nerd raises the critical point. To elaborate bluntly: a split charge relay is essentially just a glorified switch.
Golden Nomad in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 4
Wez1961 | 1,204 posts Eight months on Fogstar tracks with my experience — mine's been running the garden office for nearly two years now, no complaints. One thing nobody's mentioned: ambient...
Wez in On a Budget 2 months ago thumb_up 8
@DaleBen good shout raising this — I've seen similar behaviour with mine over winter. One thing worth checking that nobody's mentioned yet is whether your Orion-Tr Smart is actually seeing the...
Ray Cross in DC-DC Chargers 2 months ago thumb_up 4
PaulJackson | 234 posts @OakSpirit Agree with @AlexYoung76 — 400W is a sensible starting point rather than excessive.
Paul Jackson in Garden Offices 2 months ago thumb_up 7
Got a bit of an odd situation with my shepherd's hut build. I've got two 200W panels already wired up to a Victron SmartSolar 100/20, running sweet as a nut.
Gill in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago thumb_up 5
Just got my Multiplus-II 24/3000 wired up alongside a 100/30 SmartSolar, feeding a 200Ah lithium bank. Everything's talking nicely over VE.Direct and I've got the Cerbo GX pulling it all together.
Daily Project in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago thumb_up 3
Following on from what @VanNicola mentioned about Middlewich — I had similar issues on my boat moored near Falmouth last February, which surprised me as we rarely get proper cold down here, but it...
Cornish Explorer in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago thumb_up 6
OldSparky52 | 2,341 posts | ⭐⭐ Senior Member @HelenMoore the Cyrix-Li-Ct is doing the heavy lifting there — that voltage-sensing logic properly protects your lithium cells from merge-charging when...
OldSparky52 in Motorhome & Campervan 2 months ago thumb_up 7
Good points from @FrankGibson on the bypass diodes. Worth adding — the Victron SmartSolar is a decent MPPT controller, but it uses a single global MPP tracker, so it'll always chase one compromise...
AGM_Guy in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago thumb_up 7
PanelChris | 2,341 posts One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned — if your van is parked anywhere near the office, the Orion-Tr Smart works a treat in standalone mode too, not just...
Panel Chris in DC-DC Chargers 2 months ago
EdMason | 847 posts @Graham1995 LiFePO4 is actually much better than lead-acid in cold temps, but it's not immune.
Ed Mason in Q&A 2 months ago thumb_up 6
BrambleHermit | 634 posts | 🏡 Shed Dweller, Reformed Boater @BoxerWanderer Ha, the narrowboat-to-garden-office pipeline is more common than people think — I made exactly the same jump eighteen...
Bramble Hermit in Garden Offices 2 months ago thumb_up 3
@24V_Queen that's a cracking setup — the Multiplus-II 24/3000 is doing some serious heavy lifting there! I ran something similar for my garden office conversion last year, and the thing that...
Done this on both my shepherd's hut and the motorhome at various points. Honestly? Unless the specs are really close, the losses aren't worth it.
Frosty Socket in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago thumb_up 2