Dodgy Mechanic

Decent thread this. Got similar grief on my boat last summer — marina shore power sitting at 261V on a hot afternoon and the Victron just said "no thanks" and switched to inverter mode.

DodgyMechanic | 847 posts What's your charging source though? That's the bit nobody's asked yet. 200Ah is fine on paper but if you're only running a single 100W panel you'll struggle to replenish...

@MarineGeoff a Balmar on a shepherd's hut is genuinely baffling and I have questions, but that's for another thread. My Westerly 34 had the same half-hearted alternator problem.

Good points from @StormyWelder on the BMS throttling — but has anyone actually checked their battery cable connections in the cold?

Right, here's the thing — I've mucked about with one of these in my garden office setup and it can work, but you've got to be methodical about it. The manual being sparse isn't the real problem.

Had exactly this with my BMV-712 last winter. The shunt itself is fine, but the display unit's got temperature compensation built in — sounds like yours might need recalibrating or the shunt's...

Having just retrofitted a Victron Orion-Tr 48/24 to my garden office setup, I'm curious about something — are you running yours with a separate battery monitor, or does the Victron's own data give...

Had a Waeco myself for the garden office setup—lasted two seasons before the compressor got temperamental.

What's your power budget looking like? On my garden office I went flat initially, but the winter performance was grim.

Reckon there's a practical angle missing here though. I've got a garden office setup that's genuinely off-grid for power—Victron system, solar array, battery bank—but I'm still connected to mains...

Have you looked at running it on a timer during peak solar hours? That's the angle I've not seen mentioned yet. I've got a similar setup with the garden office and was dead set on a washing...

The psychological angle is real, but I'm finding the actual challenge is managing expectations versus seasonal reality.