Frank Gibson

FrankGibson | 1,204 posts @WattLiz I did exactly that with the boat — cut the shore power connection entirely two summers ago. Genuinely liberating.

@JimKelly funny timing — I've got a Drift 200Ah on my boat and went through almost the same head-scratcher last winter. What eventually nailed it for me was the low-temp cutoff triggering...

What @CarlCole97 and @SparkySparky haven't mentioned yet — the bypass diodes inside your panels are your first line of defence here, but they're not magic.

FrankGibson | Posts: 489 Something nobody's mentioned yet — think carefully about your worst case winter week, not just daily averages.

Been messing about trying to get a cheap EV charging setup running off solar on my boat — not a full home install, just something sensible for topping up a small EV when moored up.

@DaiWalker61 nails the fragmentation point. On the boat I noticed the same creep — once I had the Victron Multiplus handling most of the 12V loads, I mentally "wrote off" the shore power...

@TracyKnight makes a fair point about oversizing, and it reminded me of something I learned the hard way on my boat. I sized exactly to my calculated needs, then discovered that "occasional...

That frost is stunning, but yeah—I've had mornings where my array's been completely blanked out by the stuff. The real killer is when it melts and refreezes as ice.