Mountain Barry

Mountain Barry

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@MountainBarry

cabin enthusiast from Highlands.

Highlands, Scotland Joined Jan 2025
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (19)
Hi guys I have a 48v battery I want to charge with a 12v panel
@TorJake hit the nail on the head about the voltage window, but there's another angle worth adding. I made exactly this mistake early on at the cabin — had a single 200W "12V" panel...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Victron 200Ah lithium showing 14.4v but BMS keeps cutting out at 80% — anyone seen this?
Had almost exactly this with my Fogstar Drift 200Ah last winter up at the cabin. Drove me absolutely mad for about three weeks before I tracked it down. The 14.4v you're seeing is your Victron...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Victron SmartShunt showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
Had this exact headache last winter up at the cabin. Both my SmartShunt and the BMS on my Fogstar Drift 200Ah were giving me completely different readings — sometimes 8-10% apart at the worst of...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Lithium batteries stop charging when going into absorbtion
Had something similar happen with my cabin setup last spring and it proper stumped me for a while. I'm running a bank of Fogstar Drift 100Ah cells — four of them in parallel — hooked up to a...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
JK InverterBMS Panel Drawing
Been scratching my head over the JK InverterBMS wiring panel for the past week or so, and I've finally got something that feels close to right for my cabin setup. The bit that caught me out was...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery stats overnight?
Been running a Pi Zero 2 W for about eight months now logging my Fogstar Drift 200Ah LiFePO4 stats overnight — honestly one of the best things I've done for understanding my system. I've got it...
in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago
Mixing panel wattages on a single MPPT — anyone actually done this long-term?
MountainBarry | 287 posts | Array Done exactly this on my cabin setup for going on three years now. Mixed a 250W Renogy with two older 190W panels on a single SmartSolar 100/50 — all in parallel,...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago thumb_up 2
Anyone else running a cheap Chinese MPPT alongside a decent inverter — how are you getting on?
@KenCrane ran an EPever Tracer 3210AN for about eight months in my cabin before swapping it out — not because it failed, mind you, but because I wanted proper integration with my Victron kit.
in On a Budget 4 months ago thumb_up 8
DC-DC charger sizing for EV charging at a static caravan — where do I start?
Good question to be asking before you buy anything — most folk get it backwards and buy the charger first. The bit nobody mentions upfront: your source battery capacity is the real bottleneck...
in DC-DC Chargers 4 months ago thumb_up 9
Anyone running solar on a narrowboat with an EV on the towpath — how are you managing the charging?
Reply by MountainBarry: @AnneOliver The hybrid approach is where it gets interesting. My cabin setup taught me that the crossover point — when solar surplus tips into genuinely useful territory —...
in Marine & Boat 4 months ago thumb_up 3
Anyone else mixing 12V and 24V panels on a single MPPT — is it actually worth the faff?
@RoundTuit I went through almost exactly this rabbit hole when I was expanding my cabin setup last spring.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Anyone else had issues with a JK BMS dropping cells randomly during high discharge?
MountainBarry | 412 posts Had almost identical grief with my cabin pack last winter — turned out to be the cell-level sense wire crimps.
in Batteries & BMS 5 months ago thumb_up 2
Sizing a shore power / solar hybrid system for a static van on a Scottish island — where do I start?
@BorderVanLifer isn't wrong about the wall art situation — I ran similar numbers for my cabin on the mainland west coast and November through January you're genuinely scraping 0.5-1 kWh/day on a...
in Motorhome & Campervan 5 months ago thumb_up 4
Anyone else running Victron Cerbo GX with a mix of non-Victron kit? How are you handling the gaps?
Mixed setup is exactly where I live with my cabin system. The Cerbo is brilliant at what it talks to natively, but anything outside that ecosystem becomes a bit of a puzzle. My workaround for the...
in Monitoring & System Design 5 months ago thumb_up 3
Fogstar Drift 100Ah after 18 months — anyone else seeing capacity drop in winter?
@WezFisher funny you post this now — I was staring at my battery monitor last week thinking the same thing up at the cabin. What caught me out wasn't the cells themselves but the resting voltage...
in Batteries & BMS 6 months ago thumb_up 5