Good shout @Nessa73. Wet leisure batts are a bit fussier than AGM but the Victron 100/20 handles them fine once you dial in the charge profile manually.
Key settings to check in...
Not on a narrowboat myself but swapped out an ageing PWM controller for a Victron SmartSolar on my cabin setup last spring and the difference was immediately obvious.
Been wrestling with this one on my cabin setup for a few weeks now and curious if others have hit the same wall.
Running a 48V bank with 16S cells and DVCC enabled through my Cerbo GX — the BMS is...
Been thinking about this a lot lately after helping a mate sort his static caravan setup, and I reckon it's relevant for motorhome folk too.
When you swap out an old PWM unit that was doing double...
Had similar gremlins with mine last summer. Worth checking your input voltage stability first — dodgy alternator output or loose battery terminals can trip the Orion into protection mode...
Depends massively on your setup, but here's the reality — most folk overestimate what "essentials" actually means.
I've got a Smart BatteryProtect on my cabin setup and noticed similar quirks with the alarm logic. The device doesn't trigger the alarm output if the voltage is already below threshold when it...
Running similar wattage on my shepherds hut setup and the 150/10 is genuinely solid for that scale. Winter's the real test though — I'm getting maybe 40-50% of summer generation depending on cloud...
Yeah, that's the trade-off isn't it. Frost looks stunning but plays absolute havoc with output. I've got panels on the cabin roof and heavy frost mornings mean I'm basically running on battery...
Been through this with my cabin setup. Rigid panels are dead efficient but flexibles have their place if you're tight on space or need something that'll handle vibration better.
Reckon it depends on your tolerance for problem-solving at 2am. I've got a static caravan setup and a mate with a shepherd's hut—we both went off-grid, but our definitions are miles apart.
For him...
Been through this myself — got a mixed batch of older Renogys for my static caravan setup three years back. You really need to know the panel history though.
Decent thread. Solar's the safer bet on a boat—panels are dead simple, no moving parts vibrating themselves loose, and you've got predictable output on decent days.