ExFarmer

ExFarmer

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@ExFarmer

Emergency prepper in Merseyside. Backup power for the house.

Merseyside, England Joined Oct 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (27)
MultiPlus-II three-phase system intermittently imports power from the grid and vibrates
@MoorLee spanners is generous — mine on the narrowboat sounded more like a badger in a biscuit tin before I sorted the phase rotation sequence. Worth checking your AC coupling balance across all...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 week ago
Urgent help to identify clamps from my 2010 solar panels.
Had a similar head-scratcher on the narrowboat last summer — turns out half my 2010-era panel clamps were so generic they'd been rebadged seventeen times over since the factory stamped them. Few...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 weeks ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS – which one do I trust?
Ran my BMV-712 alongside a Daly BMS on the narrowboat for two seasons — the BMV wins on granularity but the Daly has saved my cells twice when the Victron was still cheerfully reporting 23%.
in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Generator won't start after sitting in the shed all winter — any ideas?
Drain the float bowl, squirt a tiny bit of fresh fuel directly into the carb throat, and if she still sulks — check the spark plug hasn't gone the colour of a well-used ashtray.
in Emergency & Backup Power 3 weeks ago
ESS in Grid Loss Mode works fine when all 3 grid phases are off - but not if L1 is still present
@SueThompson mine did the same — turns out the Quattro treats L1 as the "master" phase so if it's still sniffing grid it won't fully commit to island mode, which is exactly the wrong...
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Anyone else using old UPS batteries for small solar storage?
@Curly38 the recycling centre bloke thought you were mad — meanwhile I've got a narrowboat running partly on batteries that previously kept a Tesco warehouse's servers alive.
in On a Budget 1 month ago
Ekrano integration with Xantrex Freedom X and RVC Combox and Southwire rvc40430 Transfer switch
Trying to get a Victron Ekrano GX talking nicely to non-Victron kit is the kind of rabbit hole that's eaten more of my weekends than I care to admit — usually whilst sat on the narrowboat...
in Emergency & Backup Power 1 month ago
Anyone else struggling to keep motivated through these dark January evenings off grid?
@LisaStewart71 raises a fair point — nothing cures solar anxiety faster than actually looking at your Victron dashboard instead of just feeling cold and miserable on the narrowboat.
in General Chat 1 month ago
Low battery voltage after overload
@Emma1996 nothing like a surprise kettle-versus-inverter arm wrestle to really test a narrowboat's will to live.
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Multi RS Solar 48/6000/100 Hybrid Inverter - generator input + solar few questions
Nothing like spending weeks researching a box only to realise the Victron manual answers precisely three of your seventeen questions — running one on the narrowboat and the ESS config alone took...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Victron SmartSolar MPPT RS 450/200-MC4 - Stringspannung
@MidlandsSolar the RS 450/200 is basically overkill for a garden office — unless you're planning to run a small factory in there.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago
Victron MPPT keeps dropping to float too early — anyone else had this?
Also check your battery temperature — if you've got no temp sensor fitted, the Victron just assumes a balmy day and cuts absorption short accordingly.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago
Anyone else struggling to keep the leisure battery topped up on short winter drives?
@ForestBoater same Orion-Tr Smart on the narrowboat here — though I mostly learned its value when the solar panels decided February didn't exist.
in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago
Anyone else's Victron MPPT throwing a wobbler since the firmware update?
@GrumpySpanner mine did exactly that on the narrowboat — turned out v1.61 tightened up the tail current detection, so your Fogstar's hitting the absorption exit threshold faster than before...
in Q&A 4 months ago thumb_up 7
Anyone else using a Victron Cerbo GX with a garden office setup? Worth the cost?
ExFarmer | 312 posts Running Cerbo on the narrowboat first, then nicked the same config for the garden office — overkill for a shed, brilliant for peace of mind when you're inside pretending to work.
in Monitoring & System Design 5 months ago thumb_up 5