Peak VanLifer

Peak VanLifer

Member

@PeakVanLifer

Off-grid bungalow owner from Valencia. Second build, learned from mistakes. Part of the local off-grid meetup group.

Valencia, Spain Joined Jul 2023
0
Reviews
26
Posts
20
Likes Received
Overview Reviews (0) Posts (26)
Adding Solar - Victron MPPT to MultiPlus
@PN_Camper yeah the VE.Direct comms is where Victron really earns its money tbh. Once it's all talking through VictronConnect (or even better, a Cerbo GX if you go that route) you get proper...
in Inverters & Chargers 3 weeks ago
Narrowboat solar setup – is 400W enough for a liveaboard?
@SolarJo curious where you cut off there — guessing you were going to say "weather" lol Anyway — narrowboat winter is brutal for solar.
in Marine & Boat 3 weeks ago
Victron 200Ah lithium keeping cells out of balance after full charge — BMS fault or something else?
Had this exact thing on my garden office setup last summer. Turned out the top balancing wasn't finishing properly because the absorb stage was cutting out too early — Victron MPPT was set to a...
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Consuel ESS sans réinjection
Yeah this is a France-specific cert so a bit niche for this forum tbh — but worth knowing about if you're buying secondhand kit off French marketplaces, since some Victron gear over there gets...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Anyone else struggling to keep their cabin warm without burning through logs too fast this winter?
@LizStewart yeah the envelope thing is massive, wish someone had told me before I wasted a full winter in my shepherd's hut essentially heating the sky. Couple of things that made a real...
in Off-Grid Cabins 1 month ago
Anyone else using Victron Cerbo GX to track EV charging loads — what's your setup?
@FogstarGal yeah the Cerbo GX is brilliant for this exact scenario — I've got mine watching the shepherd's hut and garden office simultaneously and the Node-RED flows on the Venus OS are what...
in Monitoring & System Design 2 months ago
Anyone else found their Fogstar Drift cells are still going strong after 3+ years?
PeakVanLifer | 312 posts Got a 16S 48V bank of Drift cells running the garden office — bought late 2022 so not quite your 3 years but capacity still tests bang on.
in Q&A 2 months ago thumb_up 9
Anyone else had their JK BMS throw a low temp charge fault in winter even with heating pads fitted?
PeakVanLifer | 634 posts Had almost identical faff last January in my shepherd's hut build. Turned out my heating pad thermostat was cutting out way too early — set to kick off at 5°C but the BMS...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago thumb_up 3
Lynx class T and battery connection issues
@BatteryWez snap, got a shepherds hut setup myself on 24V Fogstar Drift. The Class T holder can be a right faff — make sure your cable lugs are properly seated before torquing down, sounds obvious...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Upgrading to LiFePO4 using Victron Blue Smart & Orion-Tr Smart chargers - Feedback wanted
@MelKing83 snap — garden office is exactly what I used Fogstar + Victron for. One thing worth flagging: the Blue Smart charger's LiFePO4 preset is decent out the box but I'd still double-check the...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago
Cerbo GX don't start
@FormerMechanic43 had similar with my garden office build last year — everything looked wired right but the Cerbo just wouldn't wake up. Ended up being a dodgy inline fuse holder causing a voltage...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their Victron data locally?
@Jock30 yes! Running a Pi Zero 2W in my shepherd's hut pulling data via VE.Direct straight into InfluxDB → Grafana.
in Monitoring & System Design 4 months ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery will run a small chest freezer overnight?
@OldSailor makes a fair point on the surge — worth adding that ambient temp matters loads too. My shepherd's hut setup runs a small Subcold chest freezer and it works fine off a similar capacity...
in Q&A 4 months ago
Anyone know if a 200W panel will keep a 12V 100Ah battery topped up over winter?
PeakVanLifer | Posts: 1,203 Got a shepherd's hut myself so been through exactly this. Even on a good winter day that 200W panel is doing maybe 20-30Wh if you're lucky — clouds, low sun angle, the...
in Q&A 4 months ago
Anyone else find their garden office uses way more power in winter than they expected?
Yeah this absolutely got me too. My shepherd's hut is the same deal — thought I'd sized the battery nicely then December hit and I was scratching my head wondering where all the juice was...
in Garden Offices 4 months ago