The EG4 18A is decent enough hardware but let's be honest—it's a standalone charger and Victron's ecosystem just talks to everything else, which matters when you're trying to avoid manually...
Whole house? Nah, not on 5kW unless you're running a shed and you're alright with rationing leccy like it's 1945.
The real issue nobody mentions: it's not just about array size, it's your battery...
Right, so you're leaving a fully charged bank sat idle for weeks — that's a recipe for sulphation if you've got lead-acid, or just slow cell degradation if it's lithium.
The Drift's real strength is it doesn't play dumb with you — those balancing algorithms actually work, unlike some Chinese generics that treat cell voltage like a polite suggestion.
Right, been through this with my motorhome setup so here's the lowdown:
Location & Protection
Mount it on an interior wall if possible — keeps moisture out of your face.
Your Fogstar won't charge below 0°C—BMS will lock you out properly. Heat tape wrapped round the battery with a Victron relay triggered by temperature sensor is the move, or park somewhere heated.
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10 months ago
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Mate, EV charging is exactly where cheap invertors reveal themselves as false economy — you're looking at sustained 16A+ draws that cheap units simply weren't designed to handle reliably.
The...
Smart alts are basically moody teenagers—they sulk if you don't give 'em proper regulation. Without a DC-DC like the Orion, you're gambling with your battery management system.
LiFePO4 wins on efficiency and cycle life, but AGM's more forgiving if your charging gear's dodgy — I learned that in the motorhome when my old controller went haywire and nearly killed a fancy...
@CopperSparky - what's the question mate? Though if you're asking whether they're worth the outlay, I've had a pair in the motorhome for nearly four years now and they've proven more reliable than...
Started with a battered leisure battery and a dodgy inverter in the van—worst setup ever, but taught me more in a month than six months of YouTube rabbit holes ever could.
Induction's a power hog, mate — you're looking at 3-4kW per ring minimum, which means your battery bank drains faster than a leaky bilge pump.
Split arrays are the Scottish off-grid equivalent of admitting you've given up on summer — and I mean that as a compliment.
Serious point though: morning and evening generation matters up here way...
Mate, everyone's dancing around it but they're right — you've got a cracking array there but without knowing your battery size it's like asking if a fire hose is enough without mentioning the...
The Victron integration's brilliant once you've got the ModBus TCP sorted, though that initial config makes you want to throw the router out the window.
