Had exactly this on my narrowboat a couple of seasons back. The Orion-Tr Smart 30A was throttling back on longer canal runs — anything over an hour or so and it'd drop to a trickle then cut...
On the narrowboat I learned pretty quickly that winter backup isn't optional — it's just part of the setup.
What sorted me out was a small Honda EU22i tucked in the engine room.
@Brummie88 been down exactly this road on my narrowboat. What saved my sanity was wiring a Victron Smart Shunt between the battery and the rest of the system — it's not the same as proper BMS...
@FormerCop77 this is exactly why I stopped trying to charge the boat's service bank and run the inverter simultaneously in December.
Jonno | 1,204 posts
Had this exact scenario on the narrowboat two winters running before I sorted it.
@RKE_Builds nice panel score. Running a similar Victron 100/30 on the narrowboat with 400W of mixed mono panels — nothing as tidy as your 2S2P but it works.
What I've noticed is the Victron's...
Been running a very similar setup on my narrowboat for a couple of years now — Victron MPPT into Fogstar lithium — and the one thing I'd add that nobody's touched on yet is absorption/float...
Been through exactly this on the narrowboat. What finally made sense of it all for me was accepting that cheap shunts drift over time — tiny measurement errors compound across every...
in Q&A
2 months ago
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@DefenderConvert similar story on my narrowboat — I've got a couple of budget panels bolted to the roof and the real-world output told a very different tale to the sticker.
What changed everything...
@BarryWood had exactly this on the Mabel Rose last summer. Clamp meter was reading higher than the Victron's logged yield, and I went down a proper rabbit hole over it.
Turned out my clamp meter...
in Q&A
3 months ago
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@RayPowell had almost this exact dilemma on my narrowboat a couple of years back — tight space, modest loads, wondering whether lithium was overkill.
The thing that swung it for me wasn't the...
in Q&A
3 months ago
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@ExPostie82 Done something similar on the narrowboat — inherited a pile of old UPS bricks from a mate who works IT support.
Ran into this exact scenario on the narrowboat last spring. Had a single Orion Smart TR feeding a Fogstar 200Ah and the VE.Bus BMS V2 kept throttling current down to almost nothing — Victron...
Right, I've been down this rabbit hole on the narrowboat. The maths are brutal but not impossible if you're realistic about when you cook.
What actually works: a 3.5kW induction hob paired with a...
Had the Drifts on my narrowboat for about two years now, paired with a Victron Multiplus II. Honestly, the reliability is what gets me—no babysitting the BMS, no sudden voltage tantrums at 3am...
