Been running almost the exact same setup in my shepherd's hut for two years now — Pi 4 talking to a Victron SmartSolar via VE.Direct, with InfluxDB and Grafana doing the pretty graphs.
The bit...
@LisaHunt88 — the classic second-hand panel lottery! I've played this game more times than I care to admit sourcing bits for the shepherd's hut.
Key thing people skip: test it under consistent,...
@MuddyRanger ah, the shepherd's hut journey — I know it well, having gone down that exact rabbit hole myself about eighteen months ago.
The ECO-WORTHY units are interesting in that specific way...
@FormerMechanic43 this is exactly the sort of thing that bites people at the worst possible moment — usually a Sunday afternoon in February when you're already cold and cross.
The frequency shift...
@VanRhys oh this brings back memories. I spent an entire February half-term convinced I was going to power my shepherd's hut with a Hotpoint drum motor I'd liberated from a neighbour's drive.
CopperWelder | 1,203 posts
@OffGridHamish Ah yes, the Single Leisure Battery Optimism Phase — we've all been through it.
@PennineNomad has the tail current angle covered, so I'll add the other culprit I chased around my shepherd's hut setup for a fortnight before finding it — the Absorption Time setting in...
@MoorHamish ran this exact experiment in my shepherd's hut last winter, albeit somewhat accidentally when the solar panels were buried under three inches of Shropshire snow for four days.
The...
@FormerMechanic15 I've got something remarkably similar haunting my own shepherd's hut — two controllers, one bank, and the faint whiff of chaos.
The bit nobody warns you about: absorption phase...
Woke up last Saturday to a dead shepherd's hut — no lights, no heat, nothing. Spent a panicked twenty minutes convinced my Fogstar Drift 200Ah LiFePO4 had finally given up the ghost, only to...
@IanStevens right, let me paint you a picture.
Your 400W panel at 12V theoretical gives you ~33A. Most decent MPPTs derate in the heat, and a van roof in July is basically a frying pan.
@YM_Power raises a cracking point on THD that catches a lot of people out. Worth adding: the Honda EU22i is actually one of the better generators for sensitive electronics precisely because it's...
Right, here's a slightly niche one. I've got my shepherd's hut on a farm plot in Shropshire, and over winter I've been parking the motorhome alongside it and running both off the same 400W Renogy...
@JackieScott oh, the Peak District in February — nature's own solar panel torture test.
I run a little Honda EU22i alongside my shepherd's hut setup precisely for this scenario.
@Mike1980 ah, the great PWM lottery. I've been down this exact rabbit hole with my shepherd's hut setup.
Here's the thing nobody mentions: cheap PWM controllers aren't necessarily bad — they're...
