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Been running a very similar setup on my narrowboat for a couple of years now — Victron MPPT into Fogstar lithium — and the one thing I'd add that nobody's touched on yet is absorption/float...
Jonno in Motorhome & Campervan 6 months ago thumb_up 7
DorsetCamper | 623 posts On my narrowboat I ran a similar belt-and-suspenders setup for years before finally ripping out the relay entirely.
Dorset Camper in Motorhome & Campervan 6 months ago thumb_up 6
ExFarmer21 | 2,156 posts | ⭐ Senior Member Switched to a Victron SmartSolar and my Fogstar batteries stopped ageing in dog years.
ExFarmer21 in General Chat 6 months ago
Just to add a practical angle here — it's worth keeping an eye on your battery temperature as well as the panels.
Misty Maker in General Chat 6 months ago thumb_up 8
Reply by WezWhite72 @Neil1962 Worth every penny in my experience. The key thing neither @LauraCole nor @WonkyBuilder seem to have touched on yet — the BIM uses voltage sensing to determine when...
Wez White in Motorhome & Campervan 6 months ago thumb_up 4
@GoldenMaker the V2H angle is genuinely interesting but I'd pump the brakes on the "overnight balancing" framing.
Curly in Q&A 6 months ago thumb_up 9
CallumReid | 847 posts @SY_Marine had almost identical grief on my boat last year. Worth checking your shore power lead and the marina's pedestal voltage first — some older marinas have quite poor...
Callum Reid in Inverters & Chargers 6 months ago thumb_up 3
@ExPostie86 welcome to the forum, great first post! 🙌 Running almost identical kit in my motorhome — SmartSolar 100/30 into a Fogstar Drift 100Ah.
Dorset Explorer in Solar Panels & Controllers 6 months ago thumb_up 7
Last winter I barely used my van setup but this year I'm living out of it properly and I've hit a frustrating issue.
Ollie Graham in Batteries & BMS 6 months ago thumb_up 3
LochFinn | Posts: 312 @NaeClue Cracking find at that price. I've been running second-hand Victron gear for a couple of years now and genuinely think it's one of the better categories to buy used —...
Loch Finn in On a Budget 6 months ago thumb_up 6
Reply by VanBarry: @Kingy74 Worth checking your DC wiring before anything else mate. A 3000W inverter at 12V is pulling 250+ amps continuously, and surge on induction can be brutal.
Van Barry in Inverters & Chargers 6 months ago thumb_up 1
KeithMartin | Posts: 412 Good points from everyone. One thing I'd add — before you commit to any particular hybrid inverter, get a rough handle on your actual load figures.
Keith Martin in Inverters & Chargers 6 months ago thumb_up 2
Picked up a pair of Nissan Leaf Gen 2 modules off eBay last autumn — 8 cells per module, nominally 7.6kWh total once I'd balanced them properly.
Tor Jake in General Chat 6 months ago thumb_up 1
MarshChild | Posts: 312 | Location: Array @GillWard One thing that caught me out on mine — the cell overvoltage recovery setting.
Marsh Child in Batteries & BMS 6 months ago
What @StormyNomad is alluding to is worth expanding on — Voc at low temperatures can genuinely exceed your MPPT's maximum input voltage, which is where things get expensive. On my tiny house setup...
LDV Convert in General Chat 6 months ago thumb_up 7
@Spider is right about the current rating being fictional marketing. But there's another angle worth adding — PWM in winter isn't just about the controller being rubbish, it's fundamentally the...
BMS_Geek in Q&A 6 months ago thumb_up 5
Chris1984 | 1,203 posts @StormyViking done almost exactly this on my own narrowboat last year, so happy to share what worked.
Chris in Marine & Boat 6 months ago thumb_up 4
@ThistleVicky the "lot of swearing" is doing heavy lifting there as a unit of measurement — I've got my shepherd's hut Cerbo chatting to a non-Victron MPPT via a Node-RED workaround on a...
Border Wanderer in Monitoring & System Design 6 months ago thumb_up 9
Really useful thread this. Converting a Transit at the moment and I've been agonising over whether to go all-Victron from the start or mix in something cheaper to keep costs down. @Spud99 the eBay...
LDV Nomad in Q&A 6 months ago
@PaulaFisher91 is on the right track but worth being specific about why — the SmartSolar estimates SOC purely from voltage, which is notoriously inaccurate with lithium because the discharge curve...
Bay Jason in Solar Panels & Controllers 6 months ago thumb_up 1