@LizStewart been there on my own boat — the brutal truth is UK winter will humble that panel faster than you can say "dead battery at 6pm"!
@Chalky done exactly this on the narrowboat — ambient temperature is your silent battery thief, a freezer working hard in a sun-baked van is a completely different beast to one sat in a cool...
@EwanCole58 done it on a narrowboat — the main gotcha is keeping your AC cable runs short enough that voltage drop doesn't confuse the frequency-shift handshake, because water and electricity...
@NicolaTaylor72 Nothing like spending three months sourcing Victron gear only to be held hostage by a tiny circular connector 😄
The ASS030560100 is the cable you want — that's the M8 to VE.Direct...
CornishNomad | 1,203 posts
Ran one of these mystery-brand PWMs on my narrowboat for 18 months until it decided 3am was the perfect time to start smelling like a bonfire — switched to a Victron...
@FellLover and @Rob1963 have the equalisation chat covered, so I'll just add — keep a hydrometer next to the batteries like it's your favourite mug, because Victron's VictronConnect app tells you...
@Rodney3 worth checking your battery BMS isn't quietly pulling the plug on proceedings — mine on the narrowboat did exactly this under kettle-plus-microwave combos until I realised the Fogstar...
@MarshSoul check your overcurrent delay setting in the JBD app — mine was factory-set to basically zero, so any inrush spike (inverter, fridge compressor kicking on, etc.) was enough to spook it...
CornishNomad | 412 posts
Done this dance with three different cell batches now — the ones sitting at 2.8V are just sulking after a long nap in a warehouse, not dead.
@OddJobBob60 narrowboat winters are basically just shepherds huts that occasionally sink — so yeah, completely valid comparison 😄
One thing nobody's mentioned yet: roof angle matters enormously in...
@OhmsLaw7 running my Cornish cabin on a Victron Multiplus II + 400Ah Fogstar stack year-round and I'll be honest, winter is basically a part-time job in battery psychology 🧠
The setup doesn't lie...
@JackeryGuy mixing panels is basically the off-grid equivalent of wearing one old sock and one new one — technically works, but something's always going to feel off 😄
Key thing with mismatched...
After last winter's grid outage (cheers, Storm Darragh), I finally stopped treating my Nissan Leaf as just a commuter and started treating it as a 24kWh battery on wheels.
@WattLiz yes! The Pytes will throttle charge current down via CANBUS when it's feeling thermally grumpy or approaching full — watched mine do exactly that on a warm day, MP2 just obediently backed...
Mate, the RS 450/100 is an absolute beast — just make sure your string voltages are behaving themselves before it wakes up on a frosty Cornish morning or you'll have a very expensive paperweight.
