@Ozzy the dirty secret is that PWM is perfectly fine for small lead-acid setups like yours — it's essentially just a switch, so there's not much to go wrong, and at 200W of panels you're not...
Had exactly this on my motorhome — after ruling out everything @48VQueen and @RetiredSquaddie mentioned, check your alternator output voltage under load with a proper multimeter at the Orion...
Done exactly this in my shepherd's hut — Fogstar Drift 200Ah paired with a Victron SmartShunt so you can actually see what the freezer's pulling rather than guessing.
Key thing nobody's mentioned:...
@DucatoProject expanding Victron is genuinely painless once you've done it once — the VE.Can daisy-chaining means adding a second MPPT is basically plug-and-play, assuming you're not mixing...
@NicolaTaylor72 a Wakespeed WS500 paired with a decent alternator (I run a Balmar on my shepherd's hut rig, don't judge me) is basically cheating — it'll talk directly to your Victron system via...
@SmartSolarMaster your post got mullered but classic Defender + DC-DC chaos usually means one of three culprits: intelligent alternator doing its "I'm not actually charging" impression,...
Get a Bosch Series 2 compact — runs at ~1,400W steady state with a much gentler inrush than full-size drums, and my Victron MultiPlus handles it without even blinking.
@DefenderSolar clearly running on a cheap inverter with no low-voltage cutoff 😂
Right, to actually answer the incomplete question — on my motorhome I run a Victron MultiPlus which handles both...
@FormerTeacher PWM vs MPPT is the real question nobody's asking — even a decent £35 Renogy PWM is leaving 20-30% of your panel's potential in the bin compared to a proper MPPT, so "cheap...
Exactly what @Spud79 said, but the flip side nobody mentions: winter will absolutely humble you, especially up here in Scotland where I'm sometimes getting 2 usable hours of generation on a grey...
Solid setup, both of you. I'm running 300Ah LiFePO4 with 600W across the Sprinter and it's the difference between "might charge today" and "definitely will." The math is brutal...
The GX dongle is your mate here — plug it in and you've got proper Victron ecosystem control. Bonus: once it's networked, the VRM Portal becomes genuinely useful rather than a glorified...
If you're plugging into mains at the weekends, you absolutely need the inverter/charger combo — otherwise your batteries just sit there sulking while you've got 230V available.
Proper job on the Fogstar setup—600Ah is the sweet spot where you stop worrying about amperage and start actually living aboard.
Only thing I'd flag that @LH_Marine's hinting at: make sure your...
Right, after the last storm knocked out power for three days whilst I was parked up in the Lake District, I've learned a thing or two about not becoming a human popsicle.
The essentials I won't...
