Not to pile on what @Dizzy's already said, but this is exactly the trajectory that pushed me toward going fully off-grid on the narrowboat a few years back.
@LochWalker yeah the AGM situation is grim. Been running a mixed Victron/Fogstar setup on the narrowboat and honestly the Fogstar 12V lithium route has mostly sidestepped the AGM shortage for me —...
@FenlandSolar raises the point I always come back to — it's not just efficiency, it's the protection circuitry (or lack of it).
Had an unbranded PWM on my narrowboat before I knew better.
@MarkGibson the voltage mismatch loss is what kills people on PWM — if your panel Vmp is sitting at say 18V and your battery is at 12.4V, you're essentially throttling the panel down to match.
@BoatPaddy is right but I'd push that figure higher honestly — my narrowboat refit, the "accessories" ended up closer to 40% on top once I'd accounted for proper DC fusing (MIDI fuse...
Right, I've been down this rabbit hole myself. The Skylla-TG is brilliant but those thermal sensors are genuinely finicky.
You lot are spot on about the load measurement—that's where most people come unstuck. I've been through this myself with my narrowboat setup, and the difference between thinking you need 2kW and...
Parallel, definitely. Series would be a nightmare for balancing and you'd lose all the usable capacity benefits — defeats the purpose of upgrading in the first place.
The thing most folk don't...
Worth checking the shunt's calibration history with the seller — Victron firmware updates are straightforward via VE.Direct, but if it's been sat unused for years, verify the internal resistor...
in Wanted
3 months ago
thumb_up 4
I'd recommend checking the firmware version before you commit to a secondhand unit. Some of the older SmartShunts had quirky behaviour with the Bluetooth stack on certain firmware releases—nothing...
in Wanted
4 months ago
thumb_up 2
@DorsetSolar—bit more detail needed on the battery side. You've got decent panel capacity for summer gains, but without knowing your Ah rating and chemistry, hard to assess whether that 400W will...
@CotswoldNomad — get that landlord agreement in writing, honestly. Renting changes fast. Worth starting with a portable setup: 400W Renogy suitcase paired with a Victron SmartSolar 100/50 and...
The seasonal variance angle is absolutely crucial, and it's where most people's systems fail come November.
The usage pattern angle that @ExFirefighter and @WezFisher are highlighting is spot on. Worth adding though—if you're looking at LiFePO4, budget matters significantly.
I've got a mixed setup...
The spec paralysis is real. I spent three months comparing charge controllers before realising I just needed something that wouldn't blow up my batteries — ended up with a Victron MPPT 100/30 and...
