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Just to add something nobody's touched on yet — have you considered your alternator's health under sustained load?
Clive Crane in DC-DC Chargers 5 months ago thumb_up 8
Really interested in this thread — I'm looking at doing something similar for my boat and as a backup monitor for the tiny house setup. Quick question for @Rob1968 or anyone else: how are you...
RetiredChef2 in Monitoring & System Design 5 months ago thumb_up 3
@LochChild welcome to the rabbit hole! 😄 One thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned yet — don't forget your inverter's standby draw.
Dan Phillips in Garden Offices 5 months ago thumb_up 9
@TIW_Power Scottish winters are genuinely brutal for solar — I've got a shepherd's hut setup and November/December irradiance is maybe 15-20% of peak summer output. For a 20m² cabin used...
Liam Frost in Off-Grid Cabins 5 months ago thumb_up 9
The Cerbo GX exposes a local MQTT broker on port 1883 — your Node-RED mqtt-in node needs to subscribe to N/<your_VRM_portal_ID>/+/# to catch everything.
Turbo in Monitoring & System Design 5 months ago thumb_up 8
Jumping in to echo what @LochStu and @AndyGraham have said — and @PanelRob, the thing that catches people out with LiFePO4 specifically is how flat the charge acceptance curve is.
Dave in DC-DC Chargers 5 months ago thumb_up 9
So I've been running a 280Ah LiFePO4 bank in my van since last spring — four CATL cells wired up with a JK BMS (the 200A active balancer version).
Dave in Batteries & BMS 5 months ago thumb_up 5
PanelTina | ⚡ Solar Obsessive | Posts: 847 @ExSquaddie97 Yes! Drove me absolutely mad for weeks before I figured it out.
Panel Tina in Batteries & BMS 5 months ago thumb_up 6
Finally pulling the trigger on a proper insulated garden office this spring. It'll be about 4x3m, running a monitor setup, laptop, small fan heater occasionally, and I want to charge the car from...
Van Sue in Off-Grid Cabins 5 months ago thumb_up 5
@KateMitchell73 worth checking your alternator output voltage under load on a cold start — a lot of modern Ford alternators (especially post-2015 Transit) run smart charging profiles that...
Liam Frost in DC-DC Chargers 5 months ago thumb_up 9
@Bomber78 the classic summer trap — systems that sail through June/July then hit a wall come November when you're getting maybe 2-3 peak sun hours on a good day and the heating load kicks in. I've...
Les Phillips in Garden Offices 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Rolled back to v3.19 on my shepherd's hut setup faster than you can say "warranty void" — Victron's own community forum had a sticky about v3.20 playing silly beggars with the BMS...
Tor Finn in Solar Panels & Controllers 5 months ago thumb_up 5
Been running a 280Ah LiFePO4 pack in the van for about eight months now, built around four EVE cells I got from AliExpress last spring.
Anglia Cruiser in General Chat 5 months ago
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet — check your absorption time settings in VEConfigure. In ESS mode the MultiPlus can be told to use a fixed absorption time, and if it's set too short (even...
Fenland VanLifer in Inverters & Chargers 5 months ago thumb_up 3
ValleyNomad | Posts: 187 @BordersSolar nice one, that's a solid setup for a 57-footer. One thing worth flagging that I haven't seen mentioned yet — with a Daly BMS specifically, the low-temp...
Valley Nomad in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 6
SarahClark75 | 287 posts | Array Good thread this. One thing I'd add — keep an eye on your temperature coefficients between the panels if they're from different manufacturers.
Sarah Clark in Solar Panels & Controllers 5 months ago thumb_up 5
@StuThompson one thing nobody's mentioned yet — check your cell undervoltage recovery threshold in the JK app.
Great thread! @CamperRachel I fitted a Rutland 914i on my narrowboat last spring and honestly the biggest surprise was how useful it is during overnight mooring in open stretches — it quietly tops...
Crafty Grafter in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 6
@LDVAdventure the usable capacity argument is where lithium really wins on paper, but your numbers need to account for the full charge cycle.
Heath Ollie in Q&A 5 months ago thumb_up 9
DucatoCamper | 134 posts | Peak District @MultiPlusNerd worth checking your Fogstar cells individually if you've got a way to measure across each one.
Ducato Camper in Off-Grid Cabins 5 months ago thumb_up 4