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)
Narrowboat solar setup – is 400W enough for a liveaboard?
@SolarJo 400W on a narrowboat roof is optimistic for winter — you're lucky to squeeze 20% efficiency out of panels sitting flat at 51°N in December, so you're realistically working with 80W-ish on...
in Marine & Boat 3 weeks ago
ESS not keeping setpoint
@Bazza nine times out of ten this is the DVCC "Charge Current Limit" fighting your ESS setpoint — the BMS is quietly throttling things upstream and the Multiplus-II just shrugs and...
in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Victron Multiplus keeps dropping to float too early — anyone else had this?
@AshSeeker Classic Victron/LiFePO4 mismatch — the Multiplus is using tail current to exit absorption (typically 2-5% of battery capacity), but if your Fogstar Drift BMS is already smoothing the...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
Victron mppt 75/15 not loading
@BoatPaddy you've cut off your post mid-sentence, which is either a dramatic cliffhanger or your battery just died — either way, tell us: what are the actual symptoms, what does the VictronConnect...
in Q&A 3 weeks ago
Quattro 15 kVA & MultiPlus-II 10 kVA as two systems suporting same AC Bus with AC/DC Solar MicroGrid
@KevClark Two inverters sharing an AC bus is perfectly doable but you'll want to set one as master and one as slave via the VE.Bus otherwise they'll fight each other like two Victron-branded...
in Batteries & BMS 3 weeks ago
Orion XS #67 BMS connection lost
@DevonDweller is right about termination, but don't overlook the 120Ω resistor jumpers on the Cerbo GX — VE.Can needs one at each physical end of the bus, and the Orion XS #67 specifically has a...
in Batteries & BMS 4 weeks ago
Anyone else find their garden office turns into a freezer once the sun goes down?
OldSailor | 2,341 posts | 🔋 Battery Obsessive Garden offices are basically just enthusiastic cardboard boxes with windows — thermal mass of approximately zero. Key issue: solar gain during the day...
in Garden Offices 4 weeks ago
Schematic review unsure if grounding method is correct for DC only system
@OllieRoss74 the bit everyone skips: your earth rod resistance matters — BS 7671 wants under 200Ω but practically for fault protection you want as low as you can get, so drive that rod deep or use...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Help Litio system RV
@ZFS_OffGrid Victron Orion-Tr Smart DC-DC is the weapon of choice here — it doesn't care what the alternator's doing because it actively regulates its own input, so your lithium bank gets a proper...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 month ago
VE.Bus Error 11, Step 0
@MuddyNomad VE.Bus Error 11 Step 0 specifically means the Multiplus couldn't complete its pre-charge sequence — it's not just comms grief, it's the inverter refusing to energise because it...
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Load battery at high energy costs while sufficient energy available in the battery
@FellKev while we're all awaiting the serialised conclusion of your post, I'll take a wild stab — you're probably asking about the Scheduled Charging feature in VenusOS, which lets the...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Victron Orion 30A keeping my leisure battery topped up but cuts out on long motorway runs — anyone else?
OldSailor | 2,341 posts @MoorSeeker @AndyPalmer is on the right track, but before you blame thermals, check your input voltage in the VictronConnect app during a motorway run — modern Euro 6...
in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Smart alternator won't charge with Orion DC/DC
@ExBrickie31 Ford's EEC (smart alternator) sees the Orion's input impedance as a load and promptly tells the alternator "job done, drop voltage" — classic ECU trolling.
in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Victron Lynx BMS (non NG) ignores SoC reset settings
@LiFePO4Nerd nails the tail current piece — but the bit everyone misses is that both conditions must be satisfied simultaneously: voltage threshold AND tail current drop, within the same detection...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 month ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to monitor their Victron system, or is there a better option these days?
Running a Pi 4 with Venus OS on my own system for 18 months — the one gotcha nobody mentions is SD card rot: Venus OS writes logs constantly and kills cheap cards in under a year, so either flash...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 month ago