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ForestDaz | Posts: 2,156 @Rodney47 The relay's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard now — your Orion-Tr already handles voltage sensing, charge profiling, and won't murder your alternator on a...
Forest Daz in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 5
CotswoldExplorer | 203 posts | Cotswolds @Chalky 😂 brutal but accurate — my garden office setup taught me that lesson the hard way. @WillWebb the bit nobody mentions: panel orientation matters...
Cotswold Explorer in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 3
MattJones | 134 posts Great thread! One thing I'd flag that caught me out badly — always test second-hand leisure batteries individually before wiring them together in a bank.
Matt Jones in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 9
Been mulling this over for a while and finally pulled the trigger last month. Picked up a used Nissan Leaf Gen 1 battery (24 kWh pack, probably down to around 18–19 kWh usable given the...
Glen Lover in Emergency & Backup Power 3 months ago thumb_up 5
@OhmsLaw7 genuinely curious what your winter consumption looks like day-to-day. I've got a shepherd's hut on a 200Ah Fogstar Drift with a Victron SmartSolar MPPT and the real killer for me isn't...
Russ Scott in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 2
Good shout on this topic. Running a Renogy inverter in the shepherds hut alongside the Cerbo and hit exactly this wall. What worked for me — grabbed a Victron Energy Meter (the ET340) on the AC...
ST_Builds in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 9
GlenRobinson | 847 posts | ⚡ Solar Enthusiast @RelayDream Oh, I feel this deeply! Done exactly the same with a '98 Cosalt.
Glen Robinson in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 4
Great to see so many of us running garden offices this way! @MeganFox what's your battery capacity like?
Max Shaw in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 8
@PaulJackson: Good point from @Barry1988 and @Liam1998 — the physics checks out. What's worth flagging though, @Compo, is that in Scotland during a cold snap you can genuinely push dangerously...
Paul Jackson in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 2
@Liam1998: @VitoBuild was about to give you the coefficient figures I reckon! To add to what @Barry1988 said — worth checking your panel spec sheet for the temperature coefficient of Voc, usually...
Liam in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 2
@PartnerConvert I've run a compressor fridge off solar on my boat for three years so can give you real numbers. A 45L compressor fridge in decent UK temps will average 20–30Ah per day — duty cycle...
BMS_Geek in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 3
@JackieScott One thing worth considering is your panel angle. Static caravan roofs are typically pretty shallow — often only 10–15° — which is actually decent for summer when the sun's high, but...
Cornish Wanderer in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 1
WillReid | 412 posts @Jim1999 The maths are fairly brutal in winter — a 200W panel in the UK might realistically yield 1-2 usable hours of decent output on a grey December day, so you're...
Will Reid in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 2
Had this exact issue with my setup. The induction hob surge on startup is brutal — mine was pulling nearly 2500W instantaneously before settling. Few things to check that haven't been...
LB_Camper in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 9
Got a static caravan on the plot and I'm planning a garden office build nearby. The idea is to run both from the same off-grid system — probably a Victron Multiplus-II 48v with a decent Fogstar...
HMK_Sparks in Garden Offices 3 months ago thumb_up 4
@HighlandNomad classic Daly BMS doing its passive-aggressive thing — if it's sending a premature "hey I'm full!" signal over the comms, the MultiPlus will dutifully roll over into float...
Sussex Solar in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 2
EdCampbell | 847 posts | ⚓ Marine & Boat @DODQueen One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet — consider your DC loads carefully before committing.
Ed Campbell in Marine & Boat 3 months ago
PartnerNomad | Posts: 847 @Hamish1980 This caught me out badly with my cabin setup last February. One thing worth trying — have you enabled the temperature compensation feature in VictronConnect?
Partner Nomad in General Chat 3 months ago
IvyDai | 📍 Midlands | ⚡ Garden Office & Workshop @BreezySparky One thing worth considering that hasn't come up yet — battery options at 48V are significantly better value right now,...
Ivy Dai in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
Fitted a JK BMS (the 200A active balancer version) to my 280Ah LiFePO4 battery bank last month — four 3.2V cells in series, wired up in my campervan alongside a Victron SmartSolar 100/30.
Declan in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 6