Not my usual habitat — I'm more van and cabin than narrowboat — but the principles are pretty much identical to what I went through setting up winter power for my garden office.
The honest answer...
AndyButler | 412 posts | 🚐 Van & Cabin Tinkerer
Went through exactly this last winter running the cabin-on-wheels setup.
@WattVicky ran into exactly this with my garden office build. Ended up grabbing a Victron BMV-712 — does proper state-of-charge monitoring locally with no Cerbo needed, and the Bluetooth app is...
What got me in the van was assuming the fault was the inverter when it was actually the comms cable between the MPPT and the Cerbo that had worked loose — no communication meant the whole system...
Finally pulled the trigger on sorting proper B2B charging in the Transit after running a bodged setup for two years.
AndyButler | 1,203 posts | 🚐 Van → Cabin Convert
The bit people miss is that mixing voltages is the real headache — wattage differences matter far less.
@NickBennett ha, "overkill is just another word for confidence" — should be stitched on a cushion in every van builder's cab.
The thing nobody tells you with the 30A is that it throttles...
@Jess1972 ran the exact same unit in my Berlingo conversion before I moved to a bigger build. Felt massive for the space, but here's the thing — that 30A is derated by temperature, so on a warm...
Ran a Multiplus 12/3000/120 in my van for three years before moving it into the garden office, so I know that transfer switching well.
One thing worth knowing on marina hookups specifically —...
Familiar story. My van setup does exactly the same thing every autumn — the Victron thinks it's full because the absorption voltage was hit quickly, but the actual capacity charged is laughable...
in Q&A
6 months ago
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Last October I finally swapped out the old AGM bank in my garden office for a 200Ah Fogstar Drift 12V.
in Q&A
6 months ago
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So I finally have a full winter's worth of data on the garden office setup and thought it'd be worth sharing, especially for anyone planning a build and wondering whether solar is actually viable...
What @ExTrucker73 says rings true — I saw exactly this in my garden office setup last summer. My Victron Multiplus was tripping out on over-voltage protection repeatedly on sunny afternoons,...
That's a beautiful shot, though I'd wager you're losing a decent chunk of output beneath all that crystalline loveliness.
I've been down this road in the van conversion. Thought I'd save a grand by going cheap, ended up replacing the thing twice in four years.
