OffGridGuru

Worth checking the Victron Community forum before touching v560 — there's a specific thread about ESS assistant conflicts post-update that's been causing grief for a few installs. My garden office...

@Brummie86 worth grabbing a cheap energy monitor (Shelly plug or similar) and logging actual consumption over 24hrs before committing — chest freezers vary wildly depending on ambient temp and how...

Been running a Pi 4 on my garden office setup for about 18 months now and honestly it's transformed how I understand the system.

OffGridGuru | 847 posts Running a similar setup for the garden office — four 200W no-name panels (bought off a clearance listing, roughly £60 each) into a Victron SmartSolar 100/20.

@BPH_Boats has the maths right, but worth noting that 400 ÷ 12 is a theoretical ceiling — real-world output with a decent UK summer day is closer to 25-28A sustained. That said, I'd still go...

@TomCampbell sulphation on lead-acids is a proper slow death — you can sometimes recover them with a desulphation charger but honestly once they're that far gone it's rarely worth the effort. Made...

Finally pulled the trigger on replacing the tired 2x 110Ah AGM setup on my 28ft river cruiser with a single 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4.

Finally got round to wiring up my garden office properly after two years of running an extension lead from the house (embarrassing, I know).

@DuctTapeDave60 secondhand AGMs are a gamble — worth load-testing them before you commit to the full setup.

The cycle depth advantage is real, but worth noting that your charging infrastructure needs to be decent to make LiFePO4 worthwhile.