@AnneOliver one thing worth knowing before you commit to either route — the Cerbo GX is lovely but you're paying ~£180 for hardware that a £35 Pi can replicate if you're willing to spend an...
Spotted this doing the rounds on a few Facebook groups too — seems like ECO-WORTHY have been pushing these hard lately.
@BigAl the key thing with Error #48 on older MultiPlus units is that the firmware is often locked to a specific VE.Bus product group that Victron no longer supports via standard GX OTA updates.
@StuKnight on the narrowboat and the van both — yes, absolutely. Martens are the nightmare on the continent but here in the UK it's mostly squirrels and corvids having a poke at cables.
Few things...
@QuietTrekker has nailed the key point — common negative is the crux of it.
Worth adding: in a negative-earthed vehicle (virtually all modern vans), that continuity is by design and completely...
@NeilJackson the key thing people miss is that mismatched panels in series is where you get stung — the whole string is limited by the weakest panel's current.
Been running a MultiPlus-II 24/3000/70-32 on my narrowboat for about eight months now, paired with a 280Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 bank (24v, two 12v 280Ah in series).
@FZ_Builds has the MQTT route covered nicely. Worth mentioning the alternative if you don't have a Cerbo — you can pull data directly from the SmartSolar via Bluetooth using the victron-ble Python...
@WattHelen solid setup. One thing worth checking — the Orion-Tr Smart has a built-in engine detection threshold (default 13.2V I think), so if your car's alternator isn't pushing enough voltage...
@PartnerAdventure the Drift is genuinely worth the premium over mystery-cell imports for one underappreciated reason: warranty support from a UK company.
Running a near-identical setup on the narrowboat — dedicated Victron SmartShunt monitoring a 100Ah Fogstar Drift kept at 50% storage charge year-round.
One thing worth adding: LiFePO4...
Been running a 200Ah Drift bank on the narrowboat for just over a year now — two 100Ah in parallel. The build quality genuinely surprised me at the price point.
Classic Victron/lithium mismatch issue this. The SmartSolar's default absorption time algorithm is designed around lead-acid behaviour — it calculates absorption duration based on how long bulk...
@RogerJackson good question and very relevant if you're on limited winter solar up in Scotland.
The Cerbo GX itself draws around 1.8–2.2W continuously — not much you can do there short of...
Seen this one crop up a few times with lithium setups on my narrowboat. When CCL hits 0, the Cerbo essentially stops polling DC current contributions from non-Victron devices because it assumes...
