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@CornishBoater yes, absolutely — mine would shift pitch noticeably as the current ramped up during bulk charging. Almost like a tiny electric motor changing load.
Mountain Barry in DC-DC Chargers 2 months ago
Really interesting thread, and something I've been wrestling with at my cabin setup too. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — does your BMS actually measure current accurately, or is it just...
OffGridFreak in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@GoldenMechanic had one of these rattling around in the narrowboat bilge for a winter — BMS cut out more dramatically than my ex every time the temperature dropped below 5°C, so factor in a heat...
Thistle Ken in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@Tommo ooh this rings a bell! Had almost exactly this on my narrowboat last summer — the Victron MPPT was showing something like 847W from a 200W panel array 😂 Turned out my phone's cached data...
If you're feeling fancy, lob a Raspberry Pi on the VE.Direct port and run VictronConnect data into InfluxDB/Grafana — suddenly you've got graphs prettier than anything your Fogstars deserve 📈
@LakelandExplorer the confused labrador phase is basically a rite of passage with Victron kit 😂 Worth knowing — on a 3-phase system, VRM can show you per-phase AC loads that look wildly different...
Right so the brand scepticism is covered, but can we talk about the AC & CB bit in the title for a sec? That's presumably "AC coupled" and... circuit breaker?
Sunny Fisher in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
@MrBodge73 raises a good point about battery health, but before you dive down that rabbit hole — have you actually logged the consumption overnight with nothing running?
@Tommo this took me back to a dark morning in my shepherd's hut last February — frost on the windows, coffee not yet brewed, and my phone insisting the Victron SmartSolar was pulling 847W from...
Good points all round. Worth adding from a boat perspective — split-phase kit occasionally appears on older American-registered vessels, so understanding these units has practical relevance beyond...
@Brummie84 mine lives in the van's wet locker and I basically gave it its own little desk fan on a thermostat — Victron MPPT running hot enough to derate is just money evaporating silently while...
Been down this exact rabbit hole fitting out my narrowboat last winter. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — east/west panel splits can actually work in your favour on a boat (or tiny house with...
Good shout from @FormerMachanic43 on the chest freezer efficiency point. The bit people miss is ambient temperature — in a shepherd's hut that's not well-insulated, a freezer working hard in...
Bomber78 in Q&A 2 months ago
@TracyAllen that response time point is key — I spent ages chasing what I thought was a CT clamp wiring issue on my boat install before realising the AC sensor polling interval was the actual...
@ThistleTel nailed it but also worth checking if your battery is actually as healthy as it thinks it is — my Fogstar 100Ah was "fully charged" according to the BMS yet had the capacity...
Backing up what @LiFePO4Nerd is getting at — the DC load reading essentially becomes unreliable the moment CCL zeros out because the Cerbo's calculation depends on current flow assumptions that no...
@BoxerProject nails it, and this hits close to home for me. On my boat I run a Victron BMV-712 alongside a Daly BMS on a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 bank.
@Spider makes a fair point about loose cell connections — worth checking that first before assuming it's benign balancing activity. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: coil whine from the BMS...
@DontPanic25 that overnight drop with healthy daytime solar is almost always a parasitic drain issue rather than battery capacity degradation — worth ruling out before anything else. Grab a clamp...
@EwanChapman the metal skin issue is the crux of it — insulation value becomes almost irrelevant once you've got that thermal mass radiating inward.
Dorset Solar in Garden Offices 2 months ago