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Had an interesting weekend at the shepherd's hut. Finally got round to testing whether my 2.4kWh Fogstar Drift battery bank (paired with 600W of panels) could meaningfully charge my Nissan Leaf...
Somerset VanLifer in General Chat 4 months ago thumb_up 4
Great thread, and good points already made above. One thing I'd add — the 75/15 designation tells you everything you need to know: 75V max input and 15A max output.
Crafty Grafter in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago thumb_up 2
EcoFlow_Nerd replied: @GrahamCole Had almost exactly this with my static caravan setup last winter — turned out my cable runs were undersized and the voltage drop under load was already...
EcoFlow_Nerd in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago thumb_up 5
@BorderOffGrid the Bluetooth ghost strikes again — my static van's Victron spent a week convincing me I was generating enough to power Luton Airport before I realised it was reading my neighbour's...
Luton Build in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago thumb_up 1
@BoxerLife raises something I'd not considered when I first installed mine in the motorhome. Had the buzzing on my Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30 for about three weeks solid.
Exmoor Camper in DC-DC Chargers 4 months ago
@Dave1986 those price points are genuinely eye-watering compared to what we're used to sourcing here.
Midlands Camper in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago thumb_up 2
@TelHall yes, absolutely doable! I've got a very similar setup and ended up using Home Assistant as the glue between everything.
Kelly in Monitoring & System Design 4 months ago thumb_up 9
Chopper62 | 847 posts | ⚡ Solar Enthusiast @HamishLee Perthshire in winter is the real challenge here - you're looking at potentially only 1-2 peak sun hours daily from November through January.
Chopper62 in Off-Grid Cabins 4 months ago thumb_up 7
Great thread! I've got a similar setup on my static caravan — two SmartSolar 100/30s feeding into the same 200Ah Battle Born bank.
Breezy Captain in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago thumb_up 6
Fogstar Drift on the boat — still going strong after 18 months of tide-induced chaos, which says everything you need to know about build quality for the money.
Partner Camper in On a Budget 4 months ago thumb_up 5
SandySparky | Array Great thread this. @SmartSolar_Queen, one thing I'd flag that nobody's mentioned yet — check your battery interconnects and busbar connections, not just the terminals at the...
Sandy Sparky in Emergency & Backup Power 4 months ago thumb_up 9
@BatteryTony Congrats on getting it all wired up! One thing worth adding to what @ExFirefighter42 is getting at — with LiFePO4 you've got roughly 80% usable capacity, so you're realistically...
Crispy Skipper in Off-Grid Cabins 4 months ago thumb_up 9
BatteryAlan | 2,341 posts @Ozzy89 Your AGMs are getting a sad, voltage-limited trickle from that VSR while the Orion-Tr Smart next to it is actually doing the chemistry-correct absorption/float —...
Battery Alan in DC-DC Chargers 4 months ago thumb_up 1
So this came up for real last winter — three days without mains after a substation fault knocked out half our street.
Great point from @PeakNomad — shunt placement is everything and catches so many people out. On my narrowboat I learned the hard way that the BMV-712 needs a good few full charge cycles before its...
Midge in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago thumb_up 3
@MoorRoger those blue-cased ones are almost certainly all coming out of the same two or three factories in Shenzhen regardless of what name's printed on the front. I've got a similar vintage one...
WheresMeWires in On a Budget 4 months ago thumb_up 6
Running a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 in the van, paired with a Victron SmartSolar 100/20. Set absorption at 14.2V with a 1-hour timer, but the controller seems to want to sit in absorption for...
Muddy Ranger in General Chat 4 months ago thumb_up 4
@DaiHenderson this is exactly what the Victron ecosystem is designed for, honestly. The MultiPlus-II and an MPPT charge controller both feeding the same bank is completely normal — Victron's kit...
Neil Jackson in Q&A 4 months ago thumb_up 5
Good shout from @GeorgeShaw on the termination — that catches people out more than you'd think. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: check your SVS (Shared Voltage Sense) configuration.
Trigger in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago thumb_up 7
I've got a 4kWp array on the garden office roof feeding a Victron Multiplus-II 48V system with about 15kWh of Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 cells.
Ken Cross in Q&A 4 months ago