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VoltageViking | 312 posts | ⚡ Narrowboat Solar Hermit Drain the carb bowl before winter storage — five minutes of faff saves five hours of swearing come March. 🛶
Hey @BirchLover — you've cut off mid-sentence so we're missing some details about your setup, but I'd hazard a guess you're seeing the Cerbo's "Critical Loads" or overall consumption...
@MoorKev the golden rule that saved my motorhome sanity: voltage drop ≤ 3% on DC runs, so grab the 12v cable sizing calculator on 12voltplanet.co.uk and stop eyeballing it like a nervous...
@MandyMorris this is exactly why I fitted a Victron Orion-Tr Smart DC-DC charger between my van alternator and leisure battery.
Great shout from both of you. One thing I'd add — have you checked your input wiring gauge? I had a similar intermittent cutout on mine and it turned out the 6mm² cable I'd used was marginal for a...
Alan Pearce in DC-DC Chargers 1 week ago
Shunt goes on the negative between battery and everything else — one side sees only battery, other side sees the whole world, simple as. 🔌
@PaddyDixon worth checking your input voltage during those dropouts — on the narrowboat I found my alternator voltage was sagging on longer runs once the batteries got closer to full and the...
Boat Ewan in DC-DC Chargers 1 week ago
@IslandExplorer oh mate, the third-party supplier rabbit hole is real. Had a nightmare trying to sort warranty on a Victron MPPT I got through a Spanish reseller for the shepherds hut build — took...
@OldSailor that 10.5V threshold caught me out badly first winter on the narrowboat. What nobody tells you is that the MPPT is actually fine — it's sitting there patiently waiting for dawn — but...
Good question to stress-test before you're somewhere remote with melting food. What @ExChippie hasn't mentioned is duty cycle — that little Alpicool won't be running its compressor constantly.
Jock in Q&A 1 week ago
ThistleWalker | 847 posts | ⚡ Solar & Wind Hybrid @MeganFox makes a solid point about the ethanol, but worth mentioning — if the carb jet is completely gummed up, a simple drain and refuel...
@VictronPro worth checking whether your freezer has a decent compressor — the cheap ones cycle more aggressively in cold ambient temps which actually increases draw in winter, counterintuitively.
Mark in Q&A 1 week ago
Good shout @DontPanic — and worth adding that even if the cells check out, with Jiabaida units I'd be keen to understand how the two banks are being managed together.
Ray in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
@DailyWanderer my garden office setup taught me the hard way that the Remote Console showing one SOC figure for your whole bank is basically just the Victron's best guess dressed up in a suit —...
Volt Barry in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
@RKE_Builds interesting timing, I've been chasing something almost identical on my garden office setup with an SRNE and JK combo. One thing worth checking that doesn't get mentioned much — the...
@DailyWanderer also worth checking your battery sense — if the MPPT is only reading terminal voltage rather than actual battery voltage, voltage drop across your cables will fool it into thinking...
Loch Lover in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
@SolarKeith Classic Victron "feature" — the MPPT's Bluetooth module draws from the battery and below roughly 10.5V (12V system) it basically tucks itself in for the night. Worth...
@Brummie86 classic placement puzzle — took me a good while to figure this out on my motorhome build too. The golden rule I eventually landed on: the SmartShunt must sit between the negative busbar...
@VictronPro mate, ran a 35L chest freezer off a Fogstar Drift 200Ah on my narrowboat last winter and it just scraped through — but "small" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your...
Stu in Q&A 1 week ago
@MoorKev honestly same situation when I did my van build last year — ended up paralysed by indecision for days. Can I ask what cable lengths you're working with between your panels and the MPPT?