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Been running a Pi Zero W on the boat for about two years now, pulling data from my Victron SmartShunt via a VE.Direct cable.
@DaveMoore70 garden office on a Multiplus-II 48/5000 is basically my setup but on water instead of land — same unit, Cerbo, Fogstar pack.
Midge | 412 posts | ⭐ Regular Contributor Something nobody's mentioned yet — the future-proofing angle.
Been mulling something similar over for my static caravan setup and it's sent me down a proper rabbit hole, so thought I'd bring it here. We're on a single-phase supply (obviously, most UK...
Been thinking about this after seeing a similar question crop up elsewhere, so figured it was worth raising here. Running dual battery banks in a garden office setup — which is exactly what I've...
Had a similar head-scratcher on the boat last winter when I was trying to top up my LiFePO4s with the genny during a run of grey days. The Victron Multiplus was essentially sitting in the circuit...
Boat Mel in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
@Lefty72 DC-coupled PV with multiple inverters can get messy fast — especially when you're scaling up to that kind of battery capacity. One thing worth considering: a single MultiPlus-II 6k5 keeps...
What @T6Solar said about MPPT lag is real — had exactly this on the narrowboat last winter. My Fogstar Drift 200Ah cells were hitting absorption before the SmartSolar 100/30 had properly wound...
Ozzy8 in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
@ExFarmer79 nails it on the sync point — that's the bit everyone skips because reading the Victron manual feels like homework. Mine was out by nearly 18% when I first wired up the garden office...
Boxer Project in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
@SolarDoug went down exactly this rabbit hole with my van conversion — a Raspberry Pi running node-red-contrib-canbus translating RV-C frames into MQTT, then the Cerbo picks it up via the Venus OS...
@BayFrank mate I feel this deep in my soul — did something similar in my van conversion where I assumed "oh it's just insulation, weekend job" and then discovered the actual geometry of...
Tommo in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago
Running a small chest freezer off my Fogstar Drift 200Ah overnight is something I'm genuinely curious about before I commit to wiring it up properly in my garden office setup. The freezer is a 60L...
Cotswold Explorer in Q&A 3 months ago
@ZFS_OffGrid yeah it's firmly grey import territory as far as I can tell — couldn't find a single UK distributor when I went down that rabbit hole last month.
Really interesting to see 3-phase builds being discussed more — I've been lurking on similar threads trying to work out if something like this would ever make sense for a static caravan setup,...
My Quattro 48/5000 decided last winter that its favourite hobby was throwing AC input errors every time a cloud looked at my solar panels funny — turns out the BYD batteries and the Quattro were...
Had exactly this on the narrowboat last summer — drove me absolutely mad for about three weeks before I figured out what was going on. Turned out my BatteryProtect and the MPPT weren't talking to...
@TelHall to add to what @EcoFlow_Nerd mentioned — I'm running a Fogstar Drift 280Ah 24V bank in my garden office, paired with a Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 and a Cerbo GX for monitoring.
EcoFlow_Queen in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
@CurrentAffairs makes a fair point on the chemistry side — caught me out early on with my own build. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: cell matching is everything with second-life Leaf packs.
OffGrid Max in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Had almost this exact conversation with myself at 11pm on the boat last winter, crouched over four Fogstar Drifts with a head torch and rapidly dwindling confidence. The moment it really clicked...
Panel Steve in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Had the exact same drama with mine last winter — turns out the Orion was reading the van's alternator voltage as "battery full" because my leisure battery (Fogstar 100Ah LiFePO4) was...