@FellGraham honestly that second fridge thing hit close to home. Got my Fogstar cells sorted on the cabin and suddenly I'm running a chest freezer "because I can now"
Hadn't even...
@DodgyCaptain been there on the cabin side of things. Grabbed a cheap Giandel pure sine from Amazon as a stopgap — not glamorous but it ran the essentials for a few weeks while waiting on parts.
@CamperCarl three SD cards is almost impressive tbh
Switched mine to a USB SSD boot ages ago on the cabin Pi — night and day for reliability.
Been there with my boat setup, ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole honestly.
Single leisure battery just doesn't cut it for a compressor fridge overnight in my experience — even a decent...
Had this exact issue last summer with my cabin setup. Old chest freezers have a massive inrush current when the compressor kicks in — can be 5-6x the running amps for a split second.
Yeah, fridges are brutal. Mine was doing similar on the boat—absolutely hammering the battery even when barely running.
Few things I'd check:
Fridge efficiency - older compressor models are...
Practical? Yeah, but depends on your setup and driving habits. I've got 6kW on the boat and charge when conditions are decent—works brilliantly May through September, nightmare in winter.
With 8kW...
in Q&A
2 months ago
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Mate, I've got Home Assistant running on a solar-powered cabin setup and honestly it's a mixed bag. The trick is being ruthless about what you actually automate.
Got LiFePO4 in my boat setup now, absolute no-brainer for me. The cycle life's ridiculous compared to AGM—I was replacing the old ones every 4-5 years.
@QJ_Builds — yeah, the post got mangled. Reckon @EssexNomad's got a decent spec in there somewhere though.
Got a Fogstar unit on my boat setup and it's a game-changer. Beyond the safety stuff, it balances your cells so they age evenly — massive over a few years.
@CornishBoater good question. I use a cheap multimeter on the battery terminals while running high-draw stuff—kettle, inverter under load, whatever. Just watch the voltage drop in real time.