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Picked up a used 100Ah LiFePO4 battery off eBay for £140 a few months back for the narrowboat. Seller claimed it had "light use" — no BMS data, no cycle count, nothing. Took a gamble.
Burn Walker in On a Budget 5 months ago thumb_up 6
Hey @Rodney3, good timing on the upgrade! The short answer is ditch the VSR entirely once you've got a DC-DC charger in — they don't play nicely together with lithium.
Sparky Spanner in Motorhome & Campervan 5 months ago thumb_up 1
MidlandsOffGrid | Posts: 634 | 📍 Staffordshire Worth adding to what @SolarJunkie touched on — the MPPT doesn't care about the panel nominal voltage at all, it only sees the array voltage coming...
Midlands OffGrid in Solar Panels & Controllers 5 months ago thumb_up 6
RKE_Builds | 847 posts The BMS compatibility with your alternator is the critical bit @LuckySocket is hinting at — lithium's flat discharge curve can confuse older regulators, and if the BMS trips...
RKE_Builds in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 4
AlanPearce | Posts: 1,203 @JakeShaw96 One thing nobody's mentioned yet - think about your cable runs.
Alan Pearce in General Chat 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Midge66 | 89 posts @Mike1997 the cut-off is killing me, but I'll take a punt — are you seeing one controller backing off whilst the other hammers away, leaving the bank unbalanced across a charge...
Midge66 in Q&A 5 months ago thumb_up 1
Deano88 | Posts: 847 @GazPrice mate, the genny vs solar debate on boats usually comes down to mooring habits more than anything.
Deano88 in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Louise1984 | 312 posts Ran a very similar setup for my garden office — ended up on 48V with a Victron MultiPlus-II 48/3000 and two Fogstar Drift 48V 100Ah batteries.
Louise in Garden Offices 5 months ago thumb_up 5
@RhysGrant same boat here with my cabin setup — Cerbo GX is brilliant but it's basically a Victron loyalty card, isn't it.
Robbo in Monitoring & System Design 5 months ago thumb_up 1
@SolarJulie mid-season is exactly the right time to swap — nothing like a Bank Holiday weekend with a flat battery to really motivate the decision.
Panel Rob in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Del6 | 47 posts @Rodney nice one, that's a solid price for 200Ah LiFePO4. I went the Drift route for my allotment shed last spring — similar story, can't really argue with the value proposition at...
Del6 in On a Budget 5 months ago thumb_up 5
I've been running a 200Ah 12V LiFePO4 bank (four 50Ah prismatic cells) in my Transit camper for about eight months now, paired with a 40A Daly BMS I picked up off AliExpress.
Dusty Wanderer in Batteries & BMS 5 months ago thumb_up 2
Smudge_6508 | 847 posts | ⚡ Off-Grid Enthusiast @WonkySkipper worth checking what your Victron app is showing for actual input voltage versus the panel specs.
Been running a small off-grid setup for my garden office since spring — 200W of Renogy panels, a Victron SmartSolar MPPT, and a Fogstar Drift 100Ah LiFePO4.
Liz in Q&A 5 months ago thumb_up 5
@WattTony oh this took me ages to figure out on my motorhome build. The culprit in my case was the split-charge relay dropping out when the Fogstar's BMS hit a low-voltage protection event — the...
Nessa68 in Motorhome & Campervan 5 months ago thumb_up 2
I've got a 57ft narrowboat that I live aboard full-time, moored in Cheshire. Just switched from a pair of old 110Ah lead acids to a 200Ah lithium (LiFePO4) from Fogstar, and honestly it's...
Nessa55 in Marine & Boat 5 months ago thumb_up 1
@GlenChild one thing nobody's mentioned yet — have you checked whether the JK is cutting out on the charge protection or the discharge protection?
Solar George in Batteries & BMS 5 months ago thumb_up 1
@GemmaWood the maths here is brutal, I'll be honest. Your current setup is probably generating 1–2 kWh on a decent UK day. Even adding 10 miles to an EV typically needs 2–3 kWh.
Dodgy Roamer in On a Budget 6 months ago thumb_up 8
@BurnKen the cold performance drop is well documented with LiFePO4 — internal resistance climbs significantly below 5°C, so you'll see both reduced usable capacity and the BMS cutting charge...
Partner Adventure in General Chat 6 months ago thumb_up 7
Jim1999 | 847 posts @Tango nice setup! I've got the Cerbo GX running on my static caravan off-grid system and it's brilliant for spotting patterns you'd never notice otherwise.
Jim in Monitoring & System Design 6 months ago thumb_up 8