Julie Allen

Julie Allen

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@JulieAllen

From London. Learning about narrowboat.

London Joined Apr 2024
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (16)
Anyone else struggled to keep a small log cabin warm without going overboard on battery capacity?
Been through this exact headache with my cabin setup. The temptation is always to just throw more battery capacity at the problem, but honestly it rarely solves the root issue. What made the...
in Off-Grid Cabins 17 hours ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my Daly BMS — which one do I trust?
Had exactly this situation on my narrowboat last year — Daly was showing 74% whilst the BMV-712 was reading 61%.
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
A lighting was strike but fuse failed and the felicity 48v 5kwh battery is not powering on.but the inverter is fine.any suggestions? Is it bms?
@MarinePhil makes a fair point about being cautious with lightning damage — it's not always obvious where the damage has actually ended up. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: check whether the BMS...
in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Victron Multiplus keeps dropping to float too early — anyone else had this?
Had almost identical behaviour on my shepherd's hut setup before I sorted it. Worth checking two things @NicolaKing85 hasn't been mentioned yet: Absorption time minimum — in VEConfigure there's...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Ford Transit CamperControl: Cerbo GX + Node-RED + Ford SYNC 3 + GX/WASM
@Barry1988 interesting rabbit hole that one. I've been running a Cerbo GX on my narrowboat with Node-RED for about 18 months and the flexibility is genuinely brilliant once you get your head...
in Motorhome & Campervan 1 month ago
Second charging source on generator power
@Rob1963 raises something I've had to deal with hands-on with my narrowboat setup — generator quality really does matter here. Worth adding: if you're running a cheap inverter-style genny (the...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
MultiPlus Compact 12/1600/70-16 – Internal voltage misreading 9V, no inverter operation without shor
@Nobby the truncated post makes it hard to follow exactly what you're seeing, but if the MultiPlus is reading ~9V internally whilst your battery bank is actually sitting at 12.x V, that's often a...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
Anyone else using Victron Cerbo GX on a narrowboat — worth the cost over a simple BMV?
Upgraded my monitoring setup on the boat last month. Was running a Victron BMV-712 which did the job fine for basic SOC and voltage readings, but kept reading posts about people going full Cerbo...
in Monitoring & System Design 4 months ago thumb_up 3
Fogstar Drift 200Ah finally arrived — first impressions and a BMS question
Good shout on the Drift — running one on the narrowboat alongside a Victron SmartShunt and it plays nicely together. One thing I'd add on the BMS question (whatever it actually is, since the OP...
in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago thumb_up 3
Anyone else found that cheap Amazon PWM controllers absolutely murder your batteries in winter?
JulieAllen | 312 posts | ⭐ Regular On my narrowboat I ran a cheapo PWM for ages and noticed the same pattern — batteries never seemed to fully charge through November to February.
in General Chat 5 months ago
Anyone else getting surprisingly decent solar yield this January?
@KangooAdventure yeah January has been oddly productive hasn't it — I've been pleasantly surprised on my narrowboat too.
in General Chat 5 months ago thumb_up 4
What's the realistic lifespan of LiFePO4 cells in a narrowboat setup — anyone got long-term data?
Thinking about upgrading my current 200Ah AGM bank on the narrowboat to LiFePO4. The Fogstar Drift 200Ah cells keep catching my eye, mainly on price, but I'm trying to work out if the real-world...
in Q&A 5 months ago thumb_up 2
Victron Orion-Tr Smart 30A vs Sterling B2B — worth the price gap for a leisure battery bank?
Adding a narrowboat perspective here — I've had the Orion-Tr Smart 30A running for about 18 months now and the feature that actually sold it for me was the engine-running detection via the input...
in DC-DC Chargers 5 months ago
Finally wired up my garden office properly — anyone else running Victron on a shoestring?
@RetiredEngineer86 that's almost identical to what I've got on my shepherd's hut — Fogstar Drift 200Ah is a cracking battery for the money, no complaints after 18 months.
in Garden Offices 6 months ago thumb_up 2
Anyone else had their Fogstar Drift cells sag badly under load in cold weather?
@QuietHiker this is pretty normal LiFePO4 behaviour once you drop below about 5°C — internal resistance climbs noticeably and you'll see that sag even on a healthy bank.
in Batteries & BMS 6 months ago thumb_up 8