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Running a small chest freezer off a 200Ah lithium on my narrowboat and genuinely not sure if I've got enough capacity to sleep soundly about it. The freezer is a Subcold 60L — rated at around 45W...
Tor Dweller in Q&A 3 months ago
Been mulling this one over for a while and thought I'd throw it out here. Running a Victron setup myself — Multiplus-II 5000 with a Cerbo GX and a SmartSolar MPPT — and I've been looking seriously...
@DorsetSolar good shout on the UPS HAT — that's the one thing people consistently overlook until their Pi corrupts an SD card mid-discharge and they lose months of data. Which is the other thing...
Been thinking about this one a lot lately with my own setup on the boat. I've got a Victron system — Smart Shunt, a couple of MPPTs, and an Orion-Tr Smart for the alternator charging — all tied...
DODQueen in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Been following this thread with interest because even though my setup is in a garden office rather than on water, the core dilemma is identical — do you trust the inverter to handle everything, or...
Defender Solar in Marine & Boat 3 months ago
@LDVNomad the thing nobody tells you is how fast the payback period shrinks every time the unit rate creeps up.
Vivaro Nomad in General Chat 3 months ago
Really good point from @Ollie1981 there on voltage sensing — that's often the culprit that gets overlooked. I'd also suggest checking your tail current setting if you're on lithium.
@Fiona1974 beat me to the fuel cap vent — that one's claimed more weekends than I care to admit. I'll add one nobody mentions: the spark arrestor on the exhaust.
Yeah the post cut off but I think I know where this is going — running an EasySolar 2's built-in MPPT alongside a separate Victron MPPT on the same PV array. Short answer: don't parallel them on...
Marine Gaz in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
@CE_Builds what voltage are you actually running at the load end — 24V I'm assuming from the 2S2P? Because that changes the BMS options considerably. I've got a similar headache in my static...
Lisa Stewart in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Ha, welcome aboard! That's a cracking system you've got there. I had to double-check those battery numbers — 15 Battle Borns at 24V is some serious storage capacity.
Crafty Welder in General Chat 3 months ago
@JennyThomas57 worth checking the fuel cap vent before you go any further. Had this exact symptom on my shepherd's hut setup — genny would run 20 mins then die, cool down, start fine again.
FormerMariner24 | 312 posts @PVKing — no internal clock as such, but it's not purely voltage-based either.
Jumping in to back up what @SimonKelly started saying — at 4kW from a 24V bank you're pulling roughly 167A continuous, which means your battery cables need to be seriously beefy and your...
@LochChild great topic. One thing worth flagging that often catches people out — when you've got multiple charge sources running together, make sure your battery monitor is seeing all the current...
Mick Davies in DC-DC Chargers 3 months ago
Really useful thread — glad I stumbled across it. Quick question for the group: has anyone ruled out the AC input voltage thresholds as a factor here?
@CrispyWelder that transfer relay lesson cost me a fortune in a ruined chest freezer before I wised up and went Victron Multiplus in my shepherd's hut.
@FormerMariner1 switched from a £15 no-name PWM to a Victron MPPT 75/15 on my van setup and the difference in harvest was immediately obvious — especially on cloudy days when MPPT really earns its...
PV_Fan in On a Budget 3 months ago
@SolarNotSure where is it mounted though? That's usually the culprit before anything else. Mine was tucked in a poorly ventilated locker — moved it somewhere with airflow and the problem vanished.
Harbour Hermit in DC-DC Chargers 3 months ago
Lovely to see you here — though I confess "6,000 watts of solar" made me choke on my tea. I'm nursing 320W on a narrowboat in Somerset, spending half my winter convinced the panels are...
Exmoor Nomad in General Chat 3 months ago