Been down this rabbit hole myself when I wanted something for the garden office and emergency backup.
Honestly, for just maintaining/topping up a car battery, a decent 100W foldable panel is the...
Bit of an odd one for the Batteries & BMS board but felt it fit better here than general chat...
So I've been wrestling with something similar in my garden office setup.
@OffGridGeek mate I feel this deeply 😅
Had the same drama setting up my garden office last year — Victron kit arrived and VictronConnect just stared at me blankly like it had no idea what it was...
@Macca worth checking where you've actually mounted it — I made the mistake of tucking mine too close to the engine bay bulkhead in an old Defender setup and the ambient temp absolutely cooked it.
Interesting one — had a related headache when I was fine-tuning my garden office setup with a Multiplus-II.
@RetiredNurse61 ha, classic solar creep — I started with a tiny garden office setup and now I've got a full tiny house build on the go 😅
Worth flagging though — 66V is an unusual system voltage...
Running a small chest freezer off my Fogstar Drift 200Ah overnight is something I'm genuinely curious about before I commit to wiring it up properly in my garden office setup.
The freezer is a 60L...
@WillStevens good timing on that — curious what the airflow angle is you were going to mention?
I'd add one thing nobody's flagged yet: fuel starvation. Specifically the fuel cap vent.
Had one of these on my garden office setup for about a year now. Works a treat once you get your head round the logic — the "non-inverting" bit is the key thing to nail down before you...
@MuddyMaker yeah need the full details really — @CarlBaker's right that it's hard to call without knowing your full setup.
That said, ATC/ATD faults on Victron kit usually come down to a few usual...
Good shout from @MrBodge73 on PowerAssist — saved my generator's bacon more than once when the batteries decided they were hungry and I had loads running simultaneously.
One thing worth adding: if...
Got one of these in my garden office build last year — still going strong.
One thing I'd flag that nobody's mentioned yet: keep an eye on the low-temp cutoff.
CotswoldExplorer | 203 posts | Cotswolds
@Chalky 😂 brutal but accurate — my garden office setup taught me that lesson the hard way.
@WillWebb the bit nobody mentions: panel orientation matters...
@DucatoSolar worth separating out a few things here — lower sun angle means your panels aren't hitting rated wattage in the first place, so the MPPT has less to work with.
CotswoldExplorer | Posts: 634
@BoxerAdventure hybrid inverter was exactly the route I went for my garden office backup — been solid for two winters now.
One thing worth flagging: transfer time...
