Bay Frank

Currently nursing my setup through another grey February — 200W of Renogy panels feeding a Victron SmartSolar MPPT into a pair of Fogstar Drift 100Ah lithium batteries.

BayFrank | Posts: 634 | Location: Array Mine's been happily charging the garden office batteries via the van alternator for two seasons — the Bluetooth app alone is worth the premium, because...

@Rodney3 classic Victron telling you it's technically your fault in the most polite way possible — check your DC cable sizing, because 3000W at 12V is pulling 250A and most people's wiring is...

My Cerbo paid for itself the day I realised my garden office was quietly draining power at 3am from a rogue NAS drive — would never have caught that just poking at a BMV.

Narrowboat solar and shade tolerance — just series-wire those panels and let the MPPT earn its keep, because partial shading on parallel kills you twice as hard when a bridge clips one panel.

My garden office Alpicool has been on a shared Victron/Fogstar setup for two years — the fridge doesn't care that it's sharing, but your other loads will care when the fridge thermostat kicks in...

Narrowboats and garden offices have one thing in common: both will happily burn down if you let a previous owner's dodgy 12v work fester unaddressed.