Dodgy Socket

My Cerbo GX once woke me up at 2:47am with a relay click and I'm still not over it — turned out it was "optimising" against an Agile tariff slot that had already passed, which is exactly...

@EwanChapman just don't forget to set the charge profile to LiFePO4 on the Orion — Fogstar Drift cells are fussier than your average flooded lead-acid, and nothing ruins a shepherd's hut weekend...

@Spider narrowboat solidarity — nothing sharpens the mind on standing charges quite like watching them tick up while you're literally floating away from civilisation. Mine hit 63p/day before I...

Nobody's mentioned depth of discharge yet — size for 50% DoD max if you're going lithium (Fogstar Drift are solid bang-for-buck), or a punishing 20% if you somehow end up with lead-acid like it's...

@Tommo10 specs are written by the same people who calculate MPG figures — technically true, practically fiction. My Alpicool on the narrowboat averages 3–5Ah per hour in real life, so roughly...

@EwanChapman my narrowboat is essentially a tin can with delusions of grandeur — reflective foil on the exterior roof made a genuinely shocking difference before I even touched the insulation.

Insulation's great until you realise you've thermally wrapped a tin can and still need to heat it in January—diesel heater wins every time on the maths.

Yeah, spent three years nursing a Growatt through winters on the narrowboat before it decided to brick itself mid-January—saved £800 upfront, spent £1200 on a replacement plus the joy of frozen...

Ran an MSW inverter on the narrowboat for two years before switching to pure sine — biggest difference was the kettle taking approximately forever and sounding like it was summoning demons.

Mate, I tried this on the narrowboat—alternator cost £40, the Victron DC-DC converter that actually keeps your batteries alive cost £300.