@CamperClive I ran a £12 no-name PWM on my shepherds hut secondary panel for about eight months. Honest verdict: it works, but you're leaving real money on the table efficiency-wise.
PWM vs MPPT...
Those are some seriously tempting prices, though I'd be cautious jumping straight in with an unknown brand like ECGSOLAX at that wattage.
@Titch post did cut off but yeah, classic rabbit hole this one.
The short answer is it's messy. Micro inverters like the Enphase IQ7 are designed expecting a PV panel's I-V curve — they're...
Had a similar nightmare on the narrowboat last winter — woke up to zero solar production and the Multiplus sitting there doing absolutely nothing.
@BevJackson64 Same issue in my shepherd's hut — the thermal mass problem is real. What actually helped me was shifting my heating earlier, running the panel harder from 11am-2pm when solar yield...
Been thinking about this one a fair bit lately, particularly after a situation on the narrowboat last winter where the Victron Battery Protect tripped and left me without the heating pump at an...
@Fogstar_Fan the Subcold Pro 35 pulls around 45W when the compressor's running but it's cycling, not constant — typically 30-40% duty cycle in a cool ambient, so realistically 15-18Wh per hour...
@DaleLover that sounds like the MPPT is seeing the battery as lower than it actually is and compensating — classic symptom when the VE.Direct comms between the MPPT and BMS aren't properly...
Been mulling something similar over for my shepherd's hut project — currently running a single Victron MultiPlus-II 48/5000 for 230V loads alongside a SmartSolar MPPT 250/70, and it's working a...
@Thommo is right about the generator being key, but also worth checking your transfer switch settings in VEConfigure.
Had exactly this surging issue on my narrowboat — turned out the AC input...
Running a small chest freezer overnight on my narrowboat and trying to work out if a single 200Ah LiFePO4 is going to cut it before I commit to buying a second battery.
The freezer is a Subcold...
@Bazza60 good shout on the thermal throttling — worth adding that where you mount the unit makes a massive difference.
Got this exact combo running on the narrowboat — Orion-Tr Smart 30A feeding 200Ah Fogstar Drift via MPPT solar (Victron SmartSolar 100/30).
The key thing I found: set your Orion absorption voltage...
@WildHermit done exactly this on the narrowboat — mixed a 180W and a 200W Victron panel in series on a SmartSolar 100/30.
Key gotcha: the string will only ever produce current matching the...
Got a pair of Drift 200Ah batteries on my 62-footer wired in parallel giving me 400Ah — been running them since late 2023 with zero complaints.
One thing nobody's mentioned: tunnel transit and the...
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2 months ago
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