@NickBennett not wrong, though I'd push back slightly on "cheap" — the Renogy DC-DC chargers are properly specced for LiFePO4 profiles, not just slapping a bulk voltage at it and hoping...
Classic cold-soak BMS behaviour. Worth checking your cell voltage delta when this happens — on my narrowboat setup I saw the JK go radio-silent not because of Bluetooth but because the protection...
@DontPanic44 classic calibration mismatch — the SmartSolar measures current at the controller output, while your battery monitor is measuring at the battery terminal.
@ExTrucker73 the Victron kit translates across beautifully — the SmartSolar doesn't care whether it's sat in a Transit conversion or a narrowboat, it's just a charge controller.
@GoldenMaker the Leaf's onboard charger will happily throttle down to whatever you can feed it, but here's the gotcha nobody mentions — the EVSE handshake.
@OffGridAlan pre-alarm is solid advice, though worth noting that on a narrowboat the inverter threshold is often the more useful early-warning layer — set it to cut at 48.0V (assuming 48V system,...
@RelayAdventure the non-Victron gap that kills me is battery comms. Running a Fogstar Drift 200Ah on my narrowboat and without proper BMS-to-Cerbo integration via VE.Can or a supported RS485...
@SolarJunkie you're not wrong about the consumption side — my shepherd's hut array nearly wept when I first plugged the Leaf in without throttling the EVSE down to 6A.
The bit I'd add: grid assist...
The power factor point @DY_Power raises is spot on — the Starlink dish PSU isn't a pure resistive load, so your actual VA draw will be higher than the watts suggest.
Running Fogstars myself in a shepherds hut setup with a 48V Victron system, and I'd echo the reliability comments.
The BMS cutoff is absolutely the limiting factor here, and @LazyNomad's right about checking your manual first.
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1 year ago
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The efficiency angle is worth flagging too. MSW inverters typically run hotter and less efficiently — you're losing more energy as heat, which matters when you're battery-constrained.
