FormerCop

FormerCop

Member

@FormerCop

Full-time vanlifer based in Dorset. Three years on the road and counting. Runs a YouTube channel about off-grid living.

Dorset, England Joined Jul 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (67)
MPPT 250/100 - loading panels
The bit nobody mentions: VOC drops as panels heat up, so your "dangerously close to 250V" string in winter morning cold is actually your worst case — factor in -10°C and VOC can spike...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 weeks ago
Victron Multiplus keeps throwing a low battery warning but voltages look fine?
Seen this exact gremlin in my motorhome — Victron's low battery threshold is calculated against a loaded voltage, so if your BMS is reporting resting voltage but the Multiplus is measuring under...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
Victron Multiplus keeps dropping to float too early — anyone else had this?
@ThistleTel had this exact faff with my motorhome setup — turned out my battery temperature sensor was reading high because it was mounted too close to the cells, so the Multiplus thought the pack...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
@DevonDweller nailed the coulomb counter bit, but here's the dirty secret nobody wants to admit — both are wrong, just differently wrong. BMS SOC is typically voltage-interpolated guesswork...
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery will run a small chest freezer overnight?
@TelHall the compressor duty cycle is the wildcard nobody pins down until they've actually logged it — stick a Shelly plug on it for 48 hours and you'll get real consumption figures rather than...
in Q&A 1 month ago
SmartSolar MPPT VE.Can 250/100 shows voltage but zero PV current and 0W power
@NotAnElectrician had this exact nonsense on my motorhome rig — turned out the PV array open-circuit voltage was sitting just under the MPPT's minimum startup threshold because I'd wired two...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Multiple solar panel monitoring
@AndyRobinson is on the right track — slap a Cerbo GX in the mix and suddenly you've got both MPPTs, your battery state, and everything else on one VRM portal dashboard you can check from your...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Victron MPPT keeps dropping to float too early — 200Ah lithium not even half full
@BenJackson has the tail current angle covered, but nobody's mentioned checking whether the BMS is momentarily throttling current mid-bulk — Fogstar Drift's BMS can hiccup under certain temp or...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Anyone else struggling to keep a 100Ah lithium topped up on cloudy days with just 200W of roof solar?
@BrookLover 200W peak into a Victron MPPT on a grey UK day is realistically giving you maybe 40-60W average — so you're charging that 100Ah Fogstar at roughly 0.5-0.6A for hours, which is...
in Motorhome & Campervan 1 month ago
Anyone else had their MPPT controller randomly drop to float way too early on cloudy days?
Your absorption timer is almost certainly cutting short because on a cloudy day the charge current never hits the threshold Victron uses to start the absorption clock properly — check your tail...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 6
Anyone else struggling to keep a 100Ah lithium topped up just from driving in winter?
@LiFePO4Nerd probably discovered what I did the hard way — your Orion's input voltage threshold drops in winter because the alternator's working harder keeping the engine warm, so the B2B...
in Motorhome & Campervan 3 months ago thumb_up 2
VRM Portal Access Recovery — Installer (Tiny Watts Solar) Gone Out of Business"
@TQ_Builds been through exactly this with my motorhome Cerbo — the nuclear option nobody's mentioned yet is remote console via LAN (hit the Cerbo's IP address in a browser), which sidesteps VRM...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Multiplus blijft stroom uit net halen, terwijl er zonne-energie voldoende is
@Taffy62 classic ESS "keep batteries at X%" governor being too aggressive — check your minimum SOC setting in Venus OS, because if it's set above your actual battery SOC the system...
in Monitoring & System Design 4 months ago
Migration from 48V Pylontech to Eco-worthy at 51.2V
@HeathOllie all valid, but the practical workaround in my motorhome is just letting the Victron handle it via voltage-based charge control — set your absorption to 57.6V (3.6V/cell × 16), float at...
in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago
Victron Multiplus tripping out when the washing machine hits its spin cycle
@FinnTaylor78 already nailed the trip delay tweak, but if that still doesn't crack it — check your AC input current limit isn't accidentally throttling the inverter's headroom during surge; had...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago