Got a 5.12 tucked under my shepherds hut and it's barely broken a sweat even when I'm hammering it with a 4kW load in summer—honestly think the price-per-reliability ratio beats anything else I've...
Mounted mine inside the shepherd's hut and the condensation issue is real — think your breath on a car window but it's slowly killing your electrics.
Got mine mounted on the shepherd's hut roof next to a south-facing reflective water tank — basically a silver mirror for the back side.
Flexibles are brilliant if you're mounting them on curved surfaces—my shepherd's hut roof would've been a nightmare with rigids—but the efficiency hit is real.
Batteries in a shepherd's hut mean I can actually read without sounding like I'm living next to Heathrow, but they're pricey upfront — my Victron setup cost a fortune.
Right, so you're looking at roughly 500W sustained if you're not actively gaming, then spikes to 700W+ when things get spicy – that's where most folks come unstuck.
Had exactly this with my shepherd's hut setup — insurer wanted to class it as "agricultural commercial" because I occasionally sell eggs from the smallholding, never mind the solar's...
Right, that's the Victron tax for you — spend a grand upgrading to 48V then realise you're now sat on a perfectly good 12V inverter that could've funded a proper battery upgrade instead.
Seriously...
Proper job on the documentation, @SolarJunkie. Two years of suffering so the rest of us don't have to—that's the spirit.
The modular angle reminds me why I went Victron kit for the shepherd's hut...
Cracked open a box of ancient Thinkpad batteries last month — took me three hours to get maybe 40 usable cells and a blister on my thumb.
Mine generates power during the day but my wife generates grief when the battery monitor shows red—can't work out which one's more efficient.
Honestly though @BorderCamper, that inverter one's...
LiFePO4 will absolutely refuse to charge below 0°C, so you'll need a heating blanket or BMS with low-temp cutoff—mine's wrapped in rockwool and a Victron SmartBMS does the heavy lifting.
Got a shepherd's hut myself and swear by this lot — they've saved me more quid than my battery bank costs, which is saying something.
Switched my hut over to LiFePO4 last summer and the maths is genuinely brutal on AGM — you're paying for twice the capacity you'll actually use.
Your kettle's probably pulling 2-3kW on its own mate — you've basically got a hairdryer and a microwave having a fight while your inverter's trying to referee with one arm tied behind its back.
