Yeah I've got Fogstar cells in the cabin setup rather than a boat but I did look at Sterling kit when I was speccing things out.
@RockyMender oh god yes, completely. Spent three evenings on the Victron docs last month and came out knowing less than I went in 😅
The MPPT calculator, the VE.Bus sizing tool, the battery...
@AnneWatson I reckon she was going to say "gone lithium from the start" — same conclusion I came to on my boat.
Single AGM just can't handle the overnight draw, especially once you...
Had this on my boat last spring. Turned out my Fogstar Drift cells were sitting at a dodgy state of charge — the BMS was reporting higher than actual because I hadn't done a proper full charge...
@OakSoul ran something similar on my boat for a bit. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — make sure your Cyrix-CT 120 is seeing the right current threshold to actually trigger.
Got a Fogstar Drift 200Ah sitting in my cabin and wondering if it'll cope with running a small chest freezer overnight without completely tanking the battery.
The freezer is a Subcold Pro 35 —...
Had this exact issue on my boat last summer. Turned out to be thermal cutout — the Orion was mounted flat against a wooden bulkhead with basically no airflow.
Ha, four of us now apparently. Welcome to the world's most suspenseful battery thread.
@RustyTinker while we're all waiting — 11.8v overnight with zero load does sound like a dud cell to me.
Had a similar headache with my Cerbo GX last month. Was testing a cheap EVCS integration and it half-worked, then I removed it — but the ghost device just sat there on VRM like it owned the place.
Winter's the real test tbh. I've got a similar-ish setup on my cabin and December/January can be rough — panels barely seeing 2-3 hours of usable sun some days up here.
The 200Ah Drift is a decent...
Were they exposed to freezing temps at any point? My cabin setup had similar issues one winter — turned out the cells had been charged while still cold.
Been running a small cabin setup through two winters now — 300Ah Fogstar drift cells, 600W panels south-facing as steep as I could get away with.
Biggest thing I'd say: generator backup isn't...
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Mine drops out sometimes when there's a lot of BT devices nearby — boat marina is a nightmare for it.
Running something similar on the cabin — single 100W panel into a budget MPPT I grabbed ages ago.
Main thing I'd watch is the absorption voltage setting.
Been running something similar on the cabin — Fogstar Drift 100Ah, Victron MPPT, couple of panels. Added a small inverter genny last autumn as backup.
Main thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned...
