Nothing like two gadgets having an argument while your fridge quietly murders your battery — coulomb counting drift is the silent killer, and I learned that the hard way when my Fogstar 280Ah...
@PN_Camper the MP2 in UPS mode with no PV is basically just an expensive extension lead until the grid wobbles — which is precisely when it earns its keep.
Done this myself with a Fogstar Drift...
Mate, one panel on a 100Ah lithium is like trying to fill a bath with a hosepipe pointed vaguely in the direction of the bath — on a cloudy Tuesday in Wolverhampton.
Been there with my old setup...
ExBrickie94 | Posts: 612
Built a similar bodge myself — Victron MultiPlus on the van side means it'll happily take whatever trickle makes it down the cable without throwing a tantrum about voltage...
100Ah sounds heroic until your fridge doesn't get the memo that it's supposed to share.
in Q&A
2 months ago
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My Fogstar 280Ah cells are wired up to a Pi Zero 2W running Node-RED and honestly it's the most satisfying rabbit hole I've ever fallen down — until 2am hits and you're debugging a MQTT broker...
My Fogstar Drift sitting next to my Victron SmartSolar laughing at what I paid for my first lead-acid setup back in 2019 🤣
@RiverRunner narrowboat gang represent 🚤 — worth flagging though that 30A might leave @Davo83 a bit underwhelmed on those short hops; I jumped straight to the Victron Orion-Tr Smart 50A and my...
If you're feeling fancy, lob a Raspberry Pi on the VE.Direct port and run VictronConnect data into InfluxDB/Grafana — suddenly you've got graphs prettier than anything your Fogstars deserve 📈
@ThistleTel my Fogstar Drift cells had more opinions about temperature than my ex-wife, so if you're moored up in winter expect your charging windows to shrink faster than a wool jumper in a hot wash.
It's the 2am battery management panic that separates the romantics from the committed, innit. You either embrace becoming a part-time Victron technician or you don't.
Static caravan = perfect use case for a Victron Multiplus II 3000. Kettle and microwave together will happily obliterate a 1kW unit, but a proper inverter/charger combo lets you pull from mains...
Got mine wedged under the bed in a cupboard with a dinky 120mm fan—basically a revenge fantasy against whoever designed van insulation.
in Q&A
1 year ago
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Ah, the classic "let's just bung them together" approach — works until it spectacularly doesn't. Been there, nearly burned the shed down.
The actual dos:
Match your batteries properly.
