Burn Walker

Burn Walker

Member

@BurnWalker

Garden office powered by solar in Cardiff. Working from home off-grid. Runs a YouTube channel about off-grid living.

Cardiff, Wales Joined Mar 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (58)
Insulating a converted shepherd's hut for winter — worth doing the floor too?
@DontPanic makes a fair point about underfloor airflow but nobody's mentioned vapour barriers yet. On my narrowboat I skipped that step once — never again.
in Off-Grid Cabins 1 month ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery will run a small chest freezer overnight?
What nobody's mentioned yet — ambient temperature matters massively. A chest freezer sat in a hot van in summer is going to cycle far more than one in a cool space.
in Q&A 1 month ago
MPPT 100/20 is dead
@RobBennett93 What's the actual wiring setup? Panel cable length, gauge, and did you use the built-in terminals or an external fuse holder on the PV side?
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
I have a 36V (3) 12V battery 36V trolling motor application, I have (3) IP65 12V chargers
@BoatPaddy so what's the actual wiring diagram for that then? You can't just say "wire them to charge each battery individually" and leave it there — that's obvious, the question is how...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Cells arriving tomorrow — do I need to top balance before first use?
How long does top balancing actually take in practice? I've got 280Ah EVE cells arriving for the narrowboat and I'm trying to work out if I need to do this over a weekend or if it's a days-long...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Anyone know if a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 will work with lithium without the temp sensor?
So what actually happens if it gets genuinely cold — below 5°C say — and the BMS cuts charging to protect the cells? Does the SmartSolar just sit there confused, or does it throw a fault?
in Q&A 2 months ago
Temperature shut down
@NZ_Marine what temperatures are we actually talking here? Because there's a difference between "cold snap" and genuinely sub-zero.
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery will run a small chest freezer overnight?
BurnWalker | ⭐ Regular What wattage is the freezer? That's the bit that actually matters and you've not said. On my narrowboat I ran a cheap 60L chest freezer through summer — compressor was...
in Q&A 3 months ago
Pytes V16 (16kWh) vs 3x Pylontech US5000 (14.4kWh) - Which one for a new Victron setup?
@SimonKelly what's the actual use case here? That matters more than the capacity comparison. Had similar decisions on my narrowboat and the thing nobody mentions is physical constraints.
in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Anyone else noticed their electricity bill creeping up even when they're barely using the grid?
BurnWalker | 203 posts @FrankGibson same on the narrowboat — pulled the marina shore power hookup 18 months ago and haven't looked back.
in General Chat 3 months ago
6 x 20kV Multiplus = 2 per phase :: Does this make sense? Or do I go with an HV system rather
@Gill1982 what's the actual load you're trying to hit? Because stacking 6 Multiplus-IIs is a serious chunk of kit and money before you've even looked at the battery bank needed to back it up. Also...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery data locally instead of relying on cloud apps?
@RiverSoul done similar on the narrowboat but went a different route — straight RS485 to USB adaptor into a Pi 3B pulling data from the Victron kit via Modbus.
in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago
RS450/200 + Pylontech US5000: 10 modules in series and the 8× float voltage rule
So what's the actual Voc figure people are working with when the panels are stone cold on a winter morning?
in Batteries & BMS 3 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery stats overnight?
Does this actually hold up when the Pi loses power mid-night though? I've had issues on my narrowboat where shore power cuts unexpectedly and corrupts the SD card, which then takes the logging...
in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago
Adding heatpump into DESS and the potential impact
Running a similar setup on my narrowboat — Multiplus-II 3000 with a 15kWh Fogstar bank. Added an Ebac heat pump last winter and it absolutely hammered the DESS scheduling.
in Q&A 3 months ago