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WattRoger | Member | Posts: 341 Great thread! To add to what @BarryWood is flagging — make sure your Cerbo GX firmware is up to date before you start, as older versions had some quirks with the...
Watt Roger in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 5
Slim13 | 312 posts Good shout from @MarineDoug there — the cell chemistry point is really important and worth taking seriously rather than just overriding the protection.
Slim13 in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 6
Jonno71 | 412 posts @NeilJackson I had something similar crop up with a different LiFePO4 build — turned out my cell-level fusing was adding meaningful resistance and generating heat I hadn't...
Jonno71 in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 7
Stu1991 | Posts: 312 @Trevor1967 Also worth checking whether the Orion's in standalone mode or engine-detection mode — if it's using alternator sense and the threshold isn't set right, it'll...
Stu in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 5
DazHenderson77 | 234 posts | 🔧 Member Done similar on my static caravan setup and the maths always wins the argument — UK solar in November is basically decorative at that point, you're...
Daz Henderson in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 6
@BaySeeker and @Paddy_2634 have covered duty cycle well so I'll add the practical bit nobody mentions — winter is the real test, not summer. Running a similar setup on my narrowboat, I found 200W...
Sunny Viking in Garden Offices 3 months ago thumb_up 6
Got a 100Ah "like new" AGM off Marketplace for £20 last spring — Victron Battery Monitor said it was delivering a heroic 34Ah before giving up, which is basically the off-grid equivalent...
TID_Electric in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 6
HarbourKate | 412 posts @KangooSolar one practical workaround I use on my boat is a small self-regulating heat mat wrapped around the battery pack, wired to come on via a thermostat below about...
Harbour Kate in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago thumb_up 7
Bit of a tangent but worth asking — has anyone actually checked whether their Victron BMV (or whatever you're using for monitoring) is accounting for temperature in its SOC readings?
Slim in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Been running a 30A PWM controller I picked up for £18 off eBay for the past eight months or so on my shed setup — 200W panel feeding a pair of 110Ah leisure batteries.
Dale Ben in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 5
After months of lurking and reading threads on here, I finally pulled the trigger on a proper off-grid setup for my 4x3m garden office in Derbyshire.
Silver Ranger in Garden Offices 3 months ago thumb_up 4
@Ozzy yes, noticed exactly this with my 150/35 setup. Worth checking your panel voltage-to-battery voltage ratio on those grey days — if the input voltage is barely clearing the minimum operating...
Liz Stewart in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 4
Planning a week off-grid in the van later this summer and want to experiment with using the leisure bank to do small opportunity top-ups on my Nissan Leaf (24 kWh, older gen).
Nothing like using your narrowboat to power your motorhome — truly living that "boat to van pipeline" life that nobody asked for but we all secretly want. My static caravan setup taught...
Heather Child in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 6
Been scratching my head over this for a couple of weeks now. Running a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 with two 200W panels wired in series on the roof of my Transit conversion.
DriftKing in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 3
@JackeryGeek same boat here — Cerbo GX handling my main 280Ah Fogstar Drift bank beautifully, but the moment I introduced a secondary unit it became a monitoring headache. What actually solved it...
Nessa68 in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 8
@VanKev worth noting that running a 12V MultiPlus as whole-house backup puts serious strain on your battery bank due to the high inverter draw at 12V — you're looking at enormous cable runs and...
Battery Barry in General Chat 3 months ago thumb_up 6
@SimonKelly has covered the series issue well, so I won't rehash it. Worth knowing that the Victron SmartSolar range uses its own "HEX" MPPT algorithm which can sometimes latch onto a...
Lucky Hiker in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 3
Really good thread this. One thing worth mentioning that hasn't come up yet — if you're mooring in tree-lined cuts through winter (which on a narrowboat is basically unavoidable), the MPPT's...
Doug in Marine & Boat 3 months ago thumb_up 1
@SunnyTinker ran almost exactly this configuration on my garden office build last summer — two Orion-Tr Smarts pulling from a dedicated charging vehicle. The thing that caught me out was engine...
Expert Project in DC-DC Chargers 3 months ago