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@WingAndPrayer88 The rabbit hole is real — I spent three months paralysed by spreadsheets before finally just building the thing for my shepherd's hut. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: think...
Davo49 in Garden Offices 3 months ago thumb_up 1
@SolarDoug one angle I haven't seen mentioned yet — resale value. If you ever sell the shepherd's hut as a going concern, a Victron system is genuinely a selling point you can put in the listing.
Col Palmer in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 4
Reply by WezMitchell94: @Ian1968 we ran almost exactly this combo in a 24m² cabin in the Cairngorms for two winters.
Wez Mitchell in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 3
JulieAllen | 312 posts | ⭐ Regular On my narrowboat I ran a cheapo PWM for ages and noticed the same pattern — batteries never seemed to fully charge through November to February.
Julie Allen in General Chat 3 months ago
RetiredNurse96 | 203 posts | 🏡 Off-Grid Homesteader Lovely thread — I came to Venus OS on Pi quite late but wish I'd known about it sooner!
RetiredNurse96 in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 2
DorsetCruiser | Posts: 412 @BrianKnight86 One thing nobody's mentioned yet — check what your Transit's smart alternator is actually doing voltage-wise.
Dorset Cruiser in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 4
PW_Sparks | Posts: 634 Good thread this. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — if you're on a narrowboat and the batteries are sitting in a cold bilge space, they could easily be 5-10°C colder than...
PW_Sparks in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 8
SuffolkSolar | Posts: 847 @Rodney47 Pulled mine out after about a year running both in my Hymer. The Orion-Tr handles everything the relay was doing, just properly.
Suffolk Solar in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 9
LochLinda | 847 posts @Chris1977 Worth adding to what @Nessa55 is getting at — the real killer in winter isn't just low irradiance, it's panel voltage behaviour.
Loch Linda in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 9
Great timing on this thread — I've been running a mixed array for about 18 months now so hopefully I can add something useful. The key thing people often overlook is matching your panel strings by...
Jonno71 in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Spider12 | 1,847 posts | Array @SparkySailor one thing nobody's touched on yet — what's your inverter's idle draw? Even a modest Victron Multiplus will pull 15–25W continuously doing nothing.
Spider12 in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 3
@BenJackson the Bluetooth monitoring is genuinely useful but the real value for me is the adaptive algorithm — on my narrowboat the alternator runs hard for long periods and the Orion's input...
Defender Wanderer in DC-DC Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 4
Had exactly this last January, parked up in the Cairngorms for a week. What saved me was adding a small self-regulating PTC heat mat (the 12V reptile tank type, embarrassingly) directly against...
Bay Pete in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 6
@StormyDrifter not a boat setup here but I did exactly this for my garden office build last year. Pi 4 running Venus OS, watching over a 280Ah Fogstar Drift bank and a Victron SmartSolar...
Nige in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 9
DustyWanderer | 847 posts @MariaWalker83 Almost certainly the BMS doing its job correctly rather than a fault.
Dusty Wanderer in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Del | 891 posts @KateMitchell73 @BoatMick has already covered the cold Voc spike, so I won't retread that. What I will say — from bitter experience on my boat — is that "overcomping" the...
Del in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 4
@BitsAndBobs mate, two years of voltmeter divination is basically a religion at this point — the Cerbo GX is going to feel like going from cave paintings to IMAX. Running one across my narrowboat,...
Devon Nomad in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 1
@IvyWalker curious about this too — I've been wondering the same for my boat setup which is similar spec to yours. The maths worries me though.
Max Frost in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 3
Davo2 | 📍 East Midlands | ⚡ Garden Office & Workshop Worth adding that the Multiplus-II 48V also gives you a much cleaner upgrade path if you ever want to expand battery capacity down the...
Davo2 in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 3
ExPostie | Posts: 634 Not a boat setup here — shepherd's hut with a Victron system — but the alternator hammering issue is well documented and it's not unique to Fogstar.
ExPostie in Marine & Boat 3 months ago thumb_up 6