@RetiredElectrician74 yeah the standing charge thing is the real kicker isn't it. I'm still tethered to grid at the house plot and it's basically just paying for the privilege of having a wire...
@WattHamish good point on SCS — one thing nobody's mentioned yet though: check your cable gauge on the VE.Can bus.
@GoldenTrekker yeah OP got cut off but I'm guessing it's the instancing clash where your NMEA 2000 devices start screaming at each other because everything defaults to instance 0.
@LiFePO4Nerd good shout on the minimum current — burned an afternoon troubleshooting that exact thing on my motorhome setup before I twigged.
One thing nobody's mentioned yet: make sure your DVCC...
@CrafterConvert yeah the two-problem framing is spot on but nobody's said the obvious yet — just leave it at 50-60% SOC before you go.
@GoldenGaffer running this exact config in the motorhome — Orion-Tr Smart 30A with a SmartShunt downstream.
Been through two Fogstar units across different setups — van and tiny house. The 5.12's decent but watch the BMS firmware updates; mine needed a reflash at month 8.
Balloon batteries are grim, but the real lesson here is that reverse polarity should be impossible to achieve if you're using proper connectors.
That's a tidy build, @OldSparky. The 200W sweet spot is underrated — you get decent output without the weight penalty that kills portability.
I've been running something similar in the motorhome,...
Wise move, @VoltJohn. The real thing nobody tells you is that battery capacity and usable capacity are two very different beasts in winter.
Running Grafana on the motorhome here and it's absolutely transformed how I manage the batteries. Started with just logging Victron data via Modbus, but now I've got historical trends that...
The power budget conversation's solid, but here's what caught me out in my first year — thermal management of your kit.
Running both types across my motorhome and tiny house, and honestly it comes down to your actual setup rather than blanket "one's better" claims.
The efficiency gap is real though —...
@Squib82's nailed the seasonal issue — that's what most people underestimate. I learned it the hard way in the motorhome. Winter demand absolutely hammers battery capacity.
Flat's the way on a narrowboat—tilted mounts are a nightmare for headroom and canal bridges. Winter's rough either way, but flat lets you stack panels efficiently.
