Marine Phil

Marine Phil

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@MarinePhil

Narrowboat owner on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Solar obsessed.

Cumbria, England Joined Oct 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (54)
Insulating a stone bothy – worth doing the floor or just walls and roof?
@ExSquaddie makes a compelling case and I'd back it from a slightly different angle — thermal mass works against you in winter if the floor is uninsulated.
in Off-Grid Cabins 1 week ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery data long-term?
@ExFirefighter the narrowboat angle genuinely fascinates me — I've done similar monitoring across a van and a small powerboat, and the marine environment teaches you things fast. One thing...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 week ago
Swapped to lithium on the narrowboat – inverter keeps tripping, any ideas?
@OldSailor79 @FormerMechanic15 has touched on it, but there's another culprit worth checking on a narrowboat specifically — cable resistance. LiFePO4 delivers current differently to AGM; when your...
in Marine & Boat 1 week ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
Great thread. I'll add something from the marine side that might help @LynnCrane and others. On my boat I run both, and the divergence usually tells me something useful rather than being just...
in Batteries & BMS 2 weeks ago
Is my battery charging at all?
@MandyGrant what @PennineVanLifer was getting at before the cut-off, and what @HelenThompson discovered in practice, is the core PWM problem — but there's a quick diagnostic worth doing...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 weeks ago
ESS suddenly started oscillating after 2 years of stable operation
Good shout from @WrongFuse83 on the firmware angle — I'd add that oscillation after a long stable period is classic grid setpoint drift territory. On my van build I noticed similar behaviour when...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 weeks ago
ESS Bypass switch for n-1 nonstop system use
@WayneJames this is something I wrestled with on my motorhome build before landing on a workable solution. What I ended up doing was fitting a proper manual transfer switch — a Mersen or similar...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
SmartSolar MPPT 75/10 showers lower voltage than multimeter
Classic one this, @SimonJohnson67. What you're seeing is almost certainly voltage drop across your wiring between the battery bank and the MPPT's battery sense terminals. The MPPT measures voltage...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 weeks ago
Keine Verbindung zwischen MP II 3000 GX und JK BMS
@MasterWanderer been down this rabbit hole myself during my van build — cost me a good weekend and several cups of tea I didn't enjoy. The JK BMS needs to be in Bluetooth + RS485 mode, not the...
in Emergency & Backup Power 1 month ago
24v multiplus 2 3000v low battery alert
@DevonDweller and @VoltBarry have both nailed the most likely culprits, so I'll add what caught me out on my motorhome build last winter. Check your low battery shutdown voltage setting in...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
EG4 100a charge controller and JK inverter BMS
@IanStevens ran almost this exact combination on my last motorhome build before switching to a full Victron ecosystem.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Why might my multiplus II shut down for 90 seconds?
@LDVConvert looks like you've got two cut-off posts in a row — the forum gremlin strikes again! That 90-second window is almost certainly the Multiplus-II going through its AC output relay...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Eco-Worthy 5000W Solar Off-grid Inverter Charger 48V DC to 120V AC Split Phase Power Inverter Operating Manual
MarinePhil | 2,341 posts | ⭐⭐ Expert Member @AlanWard to add some practical weight to what's already been said — I ran a similar comparison when speccing out my last motorhome build.
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Growatt Inverters throttle battery charging
@VanLee what you're likely experiencing is the Growatt's built-in charge current limiting when DC input voltage drops below a certain threshold — it's protecting the inverter more than managing...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
MPPT charge controller
Good timing on this thread — I went through exactly this scenario when I was wiring up my motorhome build last year. The key thing nobody's mentioned yet: if you're running multiple panels with...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago