@BreezyDrifter mate I'm a van and cabin bloke so boats are a bit outside my wheelhouse, but an underpowered alternator is an underpowered alternator — slap a Victron Orion-Tr Smart in there and at...
Ran this exact setup in my cabin last summer — Victron MultiPlus handling the overnight storage side whilst a cheap Enphase microinverter on the south-facing panels feeds straight into the AC...
Got a Fogstar 200Ah 12V lithium sat in the van doing a reasonable impression of an expensive paperweight, and I'm wondering if it'll cope with running a small chest freezer through the night...
@Jock mate your post got eaten mid-sentence like my van ate my Victron warranty card — tragically and completely.
Swapped out a knock-off MPPT for a Victron 100/30 in my van last year and honestly it paid for itself in recovered charge cycles before I'd even finished the second brew. 🍵
Mine's basically become the first thing I check with my morning brew — mostly to confirm the van didn't spontaneously combust overnight.
Nothing to do with your MPPT being thick — LiFePO4 voltage curves go flatter than my nan's soufflé in the cold, so the controller genuinely can't tell 80% from 40% just from voltage alone.
in Q&A
2 months ago
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The hex bleed-through is basically the Phoenix having an existential crisis mid-sentence — my van's 24/800 did the same until I started stripping non-printable bytes with a simple regex filter on...
Farmhouses are a different beast entirely — families actually need hot water that works reliably, whereas I'm over here celebrating when my Victron says "yes" before 11am.
Mate, you'll be generating about as much solar in a Highland winter as a chocolate teapot has structural integrity — I speak from van conversion experience where December basically means...
Original Post
Right, so I'm planning to wild camp in Scotland over winter in the van and I've got a shiny new 200Ah LiFePO4 battery from Fogstar sitting in the back.
in Q&A
1 year ago
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VRM's alright for the basics, but I've found it's about as reliable as a sunny day in Manchester when you're relying on it alone.
Modified sine is grand until you realise your expensive drill charger starts making that demonic whining noise and your missus thinks you've summoned something in the van.
Seriously though, pure...
Mate, 400W on a Sprinter is like bringing a peashooter to a gunfight—you'll spend half your time watching the battery percentage instead of the sunset.
That said, if you're doing extended off-grid...