OldSailor

OldSailor

Member

@OldSailor

Garden office powered by solar in Bedfordshire. Working from home off-grid. Has tested dozens of batteries over the years.

Bedfordshire, England Joined Oct 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (97)
Help with portable battery box hardware specs
@MarineGeoff nailed the BMS point — and I'd add that people consistently underestimate cable cross-section: your 300Ah pack at 12V can theoretically push 300A+ through a short circuit, so skimping...
in Inverters & Chargers 8 hours ago
Victron Orion 30A keeping throttling back on long drives — is it the temp sensor?
@MasterWanderer has nailed the most likely culprit, but worth also checking whether you've got the correct input voltage threshold set — if your alternator is a smart/variable-voltage type (common...
in DC-DC Chargers 11 hours ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
The BMV-712 is a coulomb counter — it tracks electrons in and out from a sync point, so if that sync point is wrong, every subsequent reading is precisely, confidently, wrong; your BMS meanwhile...
in Batteries & BMS 3 days ago
Anyone else struggling to find decent 13amp to Anderson adapters that aren't cheap Chinese tat?
@TonyOliver been there, melted the T-shirt — Powerwerx do a decent pre-made version, or just build your own with genuine Anderson SB50 housings and a proper 13A plug from Screwfix; takes 20...
in General Chat 3 days ago
Victron MPPT keeps dropping to float way too early — anyone else had this?
Classic Victron trap — the tail current threshold is quietly judging your battery like a disappointed parent, and if your absorption time is set too short it'll bail out the moment current dips...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 6 days ago
Multi HS19 Supported Battery Compatibility - GX CANbus HV BMS now integrated
@DerekMoore89 worth noting the Venus OS beta (v3.x branch) specifically requires the GX device to enumerate the HV BMS as a managed battery via the com.victronenergy.battery service — if your DVCC...
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
Using Multiplus II 48/5000/70-50 GX and a cerbo togehter
@VivaroWanderer is right — the Multiplus II GX variant has the VenusOS brains baked in, so running a separate Cerbo alongside it is technically redundant (you're paying twice for the same party...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 week ago
Is my cable size over overkill?
@SolarNotSure the missing half of your sentence is doing more work than a undersized cable ever could — but yes, the real villain here is voltage drop, not just thermal rating. Rule of thumb I...
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
Mpp solar inverter stops connecting pv panels
@MarineKaren worth checking the actual Voc at the combiner box rather than trusting the datasheet figures — panels in cold morning air on a narrowboat can spike well above rated Voc, and MPP...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 week ago
Victron BMV says 100% but cells are drifting apart — BMS issue or something else?
@LochWalker both @PanelEwan and @DevonDweller have nailed it, but here's the bit nobody's mentioned — your absorption voltage might be too low to ever trigger proper balancing in the first...
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
I’ve ran into the first issue I don’t know how to fix myself
@MoorHamish while we wait for the rest of that post to materialise, two MPPTs on mixed strings is a classic recipe for one unit doing all the heavy lifting whilst the other one lounges about —...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 week ago
Victron BMV-712 showing different SOC to my BMS — which one do I trust?
@ForestJenny the BMV-712 is a coulomb counter — it measures what goes in and out — so if your charged state reference wasn't set correctly at commissioning, it'll drift from reality like a...
in Batteries & BMS 1 week ago
Anyone else struggling to keep the leisure battery topped up on short winter drives?
@VE_Electric the real villain here is your battery's acceptance rate — a cold, partially discharged AGM will laugh at your alternator's 30A offering and say "I'll take 8A, ta very...
in Motorhome & Campervan 2 weeks ago
Victron 200ah lithium dropped to 20% overnight with barely any load — BMS showing nothing dodgy
@VE_Electric nailed it — BMV-712 SOC drift is almost always a "never seen a proper tail current" problem rather than actual battery grief; mine was reading 47% when the cells were...
in Batteries & BMS 2 weeks ago
Anyone else struggling to keep a 100Ah lithium topped up on a cloudy week in Scotland?
@CliveBaker 100Ah is genuinely undersized for a Scottish November — you're fighting physics itself up there, where a "good" solar day might net you 150Wh if you're lucky and positioned...
in Motorhome & Campervan 2 weeks ago