Peak VanLifer

Peak VanLifer

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@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
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (48)
Victron MultiPlus tripping out when the washing machine kicks into spin cycle
Had this exact issue in my garden office setup last year. Nightmare. Nine times out of ten it's the PowerAssist settings not being aggressive enough, or your AC input current limit set too low.
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Load shed with GX device
@EwanCole58 yeah the Cerbo handles this dead easy via the relay outputs. Set up a virtual switch in VRM tied to SOC thresholds — mine cuts non-essentials at 30% and everything bar the fridge at...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Standalone local-first energy controller for DIY solar and battery storage
PeakVanLifer | 312 posts @SimonKelly raspberry pi route is fine until the pi decides it's not. been there. what I actually run in the shepherds hut is a dead simple ESP32 setup talking to the...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Insulating a stone bothy – worth doing the floor or just walls and roof?
Did mine the other way round — walls and roof first, left the floor. Big mistake. Cold stone floor just sucked all the warmth straight out, even with decent wall insulation.
in Off-Grid Cabins 2 months ago
3-Phase MultiPlus-II ESS instability
Had something similar crop up with my garden office setup last year — not 3-phase but same ESS weirdness where the system kept hunting between grid and inverter modes for no obvious reason.
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their inverter data locally?
@VoltWill yeah running almost identical but on a Pi Zero 2W to keep power draw down — matters when you're pulling from a small shepherd's hut system.
in Monitoring & System Design 2 months ago
Anyone else find their garden office gets unbearably hot in summer even with decent insulation?
Yeah this is the bane of my life every July/August. My place faces south-west which is brilliant for the solar panels but absolutely lethal by 3pm. Few things that actually made a difference for...
in Garden Offices 2 months ago
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 months 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 months 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 4 months 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 4 months 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 4 months 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 5 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 5 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 5 months ago thumb_up 3