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Interesting thread this. I had similar bother with a pair of no-name 30A units I picked up off eBay — advertised absorption at 14.7V but my multimeter was consistently reading 14.4V at the battery...
Spud99 in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 9
WattBaz | 412 posts | Array Good thread this. One thing I'd add that nobody's picked up on yet — don't just calculate your average daily consumption, model your worst-case week.
Watt Baz in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago
@OldSparky18 ran into exactly this with my shepherd's hut build last spring — two cells from the same Fogstar batch showed noticeably lower capacity on first cycle.
Sophie Hobbs in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 3
Been there with my motorhome — ran a 100/30 on a single 100Ah AGM for ages "temporarily" 😅 One thing worth adding: check your absorption/float voltage settings in the VictronConnect app...
Wild Tinker in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 6
LiamWalker | 847 posts @Taffy29 For 2–3kWh usable I'd honestly push towards 48V without hesitation. The wiring savings alone make it worthwhile — you're running thinner cable at lower current,...
Liam Walker in Garden Offices 3 months ago thumb_up 9
WrongFuse | 📍 South Wales | ⚡ Posts: 847 @BreezySparky Go 48V without hesitation at that load level.
WrongFuse in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Really useful thread this — just to add a slightly different angle, I run a Daly BMS on my motorhome backup bank and it's been rock solid for about 18 months now.
ExTrucker73 in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 4
The key thing most people miss — the Victron doesn't need to talk to the BMS, it just needs to respect the voltage limits the BMS is protecting. Set your SmartSolar absorption/float to match the...
Wez in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 7
Last winter we had three days without sun and my 400Ah lithium bank was down to about 15% before I finally caved and bought a generator.
Liam Fox in Emergency & Backup Power 3 months ago thumb_up 5
Really useful thread this. One thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned yet — keep an eye on your connections, especially if the panel's been on the roof through a British winter.
Trevor in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 3
AshHermit | 203 posts @Mike1997 Worth checking whether either of your MPPTs supports a shared battery voltage sense wire — if both controllers are reading from the same point on the bank rather...
Ash Hermit in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 4
BordersExplorer | 2,156 posts @HeatherOllie One thing neither @SamWhite nor @NorfolkSolar has mentioned — check whether your Low Temperature Charge Protection and Low Temperature Discharge...
Borders Explorer in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Picked up a no-name 100Ah LiFePO4 from a seller on eBay about eight months ago — paid £89 delivered, which felt almost too good to be true.
Battery Doug in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 5
@KateMason82 done similar for my shepherd's hut — £200 is tight but doable if you're not precious about brands. My rough breakdown: 100W panel — Renogy or ECO-WORTHY, ~£60-70 20A PWM controller —...
Mike Cross in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 3
AshSeeker | 214 posts | 🔋 Still Learning Interesting thread — I've noticed something similar on my narrowboat setup with a Victron SmartSolar 75/15.
Ash Seeker in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 5
Really good shout from @PanelRuss on the Voc point — worth stressing that on a frosty morning your open-circuit voltage can spike quite significantly above the rated spec.
Watt Vicky in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 3
On my boat I learned the hard way that "non-isolated" and "my sanity" are mutually exclusive when you've got shore power, inverter, and alternator all fighting over the same...
Boat Mark in DC-DC Chargers 3 months ago thumb_up 4
OffGridDoug | 312 posts @MarineGeoff worth checking your SmartShunt's Peukert exponent and charge efficiency factor in VictronConnect — both need adjusting for LiFePO4 (Peukert closer to 1.05,...
OffGrid Doug in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 2
@CornishNomad interesting timing on this thread — been mulling over exactly this for the tiny house build. My concern with V2H as a backup strategy is the cycle degradation on older Leaf packs.
Thommo in Emergency & Backup Power 3 months ago thumb_up 1
SarahLamb56 | 847 posts @Ben1973 Oh, I feel your pain! I had almost identical frustrations with a cheap shunt before I finally got mine behaving reasonably well. The biggest thing that sorted mine...
Sarah Lamb in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 1