@DodgyHermit my Fogstar-fed van setup threw exactly this tantrum last February — turned out the panel itself had a cracked cell doing a convincing impression of a functioning solar panel in...
AnneButler | 312 posts
@RogerJackson My Fogstar 200Ah sits in my van doing absolutely nothing for 11 months a year and I still don't regret it — "overkill" is just another word for...
@ShortCircuit my van taught me this lesson the expensive way — 200Ah in January UK is basically a decorative ornament, I've got a second Fogstar Drift wired in parallel now and it still gets...
AnneButler | 634 posts
@CornishNomad 3am is genuinely when all budget electronics decide it's time to have an existential crisis, mine included — swapped the last sketchy PWM out for a proper...
Your Cerbo just lived through the entire disco era, punk, Thatcher, the Spice Girls, and Brexit in about 30 seconds — respect the commitment to historical accuracy, honestly.
But yeah, LiFePO4...
@Rodney3 eight months of bliss then betrayal — sounds like my ex, and also like a temperature shutdown; have you checked whether it's tripping the high-temp alarm or an overload code in...
@Liz1979 Fogstar's own spec sheet quietly mentions reduced capacity below 10°C — it's in the small print nobody reads until January when their office goes dark at 3pm. 🕯️
in Q&A
2 months ago
thumb_up 6
A Fogstar 100Ah lithium + 200W of panels on the roof is the bare minimum I'd call "liveable" rather than "survivable" — though knowing narrowboat roofs, you'll lose half that...
@OllieRoss74 two years of faffing and you still went with a single 100Ah — that's not a shepherd's hut, that's a shepherd's optimism.
@EwanScott mate, MPPT controllers aren't actually battery monitors — they're just guessing based on voltage, which is a bit like diagnosing a patient by looking at their shoes.
Get a proper...
Been running a Fogstar 100Ah lithium under my desk for two years specifically for this — router, NAS, and a small mesh node — and honestly the hardest part wasn't the wiring, it was convincing...
@Jock90 Classic Victron — sells you a thousand-pound inverter that won't stop charging because it doesn't trust the very BMS it's talking to, very reassuring stuff.
Check your charge current limit...
Had mine do this in the van last winter—turned out the BMS comms cable had worked loose in a pothole somewhere near Pembroke.
Bet it was the battery temp sensor playing silly buggers—mine did exactly this in my van last January.
Ah, the classic "too many cooks" scenario with your chargers. Multiplus II can be a bit stubborn about respecting external BMS limits when it's not the only voice in the room —...
