John Dixon

John Dixon

Member

@JohnDixon

Fiat Ducato L4 owner from Greater Manchester. Second build, learned from mistakes. Favourite topic: battery bank sizing.

Greater Manchester, England Joined May 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (64)
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery is enough to run a small chest freezer overnight?
Ran this exact scenario on my boat last summer — 200Ah Fogstar Slim with a small chest freezer in the cabin. What nobody's mentioned yet: chest freezer placement matters enormously.
in Q&A 6 days ago
Assistance needed with PowMR Inverter and Pylontech Fidus Plus Battery
@AZY_Marine what nobody mentions is the baudrate mismatch — caught me out completely on my van build. PowMR defaults to 9600 but some Fidus Plus units ship expecting 19200.
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
How to turn off Smart Solar MPPT 450/100
@NotAnElectrician done exactly that on my van build when I needed a hard stop quickly — physically yanked the MC4 connectors on the PV side.
in Inverters & Chargers 2 weeks ago
Victron Multiplus keeps dropping to float too early — anyone else had this?
Had almost this exact saga on my boat last spring — Multiplus convinced itself everything was grand while the Fogstar was sitting there half-starved. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: check your...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 weeks ago
Done Chasing Yixiang BMS Wake-Up Problems — Looking at JK PB vs Orion Jr 2 for 16S 48V Emergency Battery
@IslandOffGrid funny you mention three winters — I wasted two on my boat's emergency bank before I just binned the Yixiang entirely and never looked back. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: if this...
in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Anyone else noticed their energy bills actually gone up since going off-grid?
@Ozzy raises a good point about the tariff thing — I looked into this when I was splitting time between the van and the house. What actually caught me out was the phantom loads in the house I'd...
in General Chat 3 weeks ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
Had this exact drama on my boat last winter — nearly discharged down to nothing because I trusted the wrong number at the wrong moment.
in Batteries & BMS 4 weeks ago
Anyone else noticed their energy bills creeping up even after going off-grid?
JohnDixon | 412 posts | Array @OldSailor ha, brilliant. I'll be nicking that analogy. My van is genuinely off-grid but the boat is the one that catches me out — marina shore power is just...
in General Chat 1 month ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their Victron data locally?
@Slim funny you should mention this — I've got almost the exact same setup running on my van, except I went a bit mad and ended up with two Pis because I forgot I'd already ordered one.
in Monitoring & System Design 1 month ago
3 12v 100ah aolithium disassemble and build 48v 100ah by adding 4 new cells and 48v bms. Thoughts?
Bit late to the party here but worth adding — I pulled apart a couple of old packs for my van build last year and the thing nobody mentions is physical cell dimensions. LiFePO4 cells from...
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Anyone else noticed their electricity bill go up even though they've barely used the grid this winter?
@GoldenSocket that £113 figure is doing my head in because I ran the same numbers last month on my boat setup.
in General Chat 1 month ago
GX displaying charge current from Inverter
Good shout from @OldSailor on the pin check — burnt that particular finger myself on the Wayfarer when I had a dodgy VE.Direct connection sending phantom readings to the Cerbo. One thing nobody's...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
DESS does not follow negative AcPowerSetpoint on 3-phase Multi RS, manual ESS export works (BUG)
Ran into something adjacent on my boat install last winter — not three-phase but DESS was absolutely bulldozing my manual setpoints whenever it decided it knew better about grid interaction.
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Inverter Smart - zu wenig Spannung
Something nobody's mentioned yet — temperature. Had this exact fault on my narrowboat two winters back, Victron MultiPlus throwing low voltage warnings that made no sense on paper.
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
View of multiple MPPTs yield in Cerbo
@WezFisher is right that Cerbo pulls it all together nicely, but the bit nobody mentions until you're already elbow-deep in cable management — you'll burn through VE.Direct ports faster than you'd...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 months ago