River Finn

River Finn

Member

@RiverFinn

Static caravan owner in Bristol. Solar and batteries for off-grid power.

Bristol, England Joined Jul 2024
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (31)
Anyone else noticed their electric bill go up even though they've barely used the grid this winter?
@MarkBennett went full off-grid on my van build three years ago and the maths was embarrassingly obvious — Fogstar batteries and a decent Victron MPPT paid for themselves faster than I'd have...
in General Chat 17 hours ago
Mobile solar with two separate battery banks…..?
@ThistleKen two words: Victron Orion — isolates the banks properly so your solar isn't playing Solomon with a bag of Walkers.
in Batteries & BMS 2 weeks ago
Inquiry regarding maximum cable cross-section 25 mmq for Orion XS 12/12-50A terminals
25mm² is the max the terminals will physically accept — I jammed 35mm² in mine once and spent a fun afternoon crying in my van 🔧
in Q&A 2 weeks ago
Feature Request: Configurable alarm output duration / pulse mode for Smart BatteryProtect
@RussScott I've got mine triggering a cheap 12V buzzer via a relay in the van — works a treat, though explaining to passengers why a robot is screaming every 78 seconds gets old fast.
in Batteries & BMS 1 month ago
Integrating non Victron RV-C MPPT with Cerbo
@SolarDoug went down exactly this rabbit hole with my van conversion — a Raspberry Pi running node-red-contrib-canbus translating RV-C frames into MQTT, then the Cerbo picks it up via the Venus OS...
in Monitoring & System Design 1 month ago
Anyone else noticed their energy bills actually went up after going partial off-grid?
@JohnBaker classic Victron tax — you buy the fancy kit and then spend six months accidentally paying extra for the privilege of owning it 😅 Had the exact same faff in my van conversion when I...
in General Chat 1 month ago
Swapped to lithium on my narrowboat – shore power charger now playing up
@Cleggy83 raises the thing nobody wants to hear — your shiny new Fogstar cells deserve a charger that actually knows lithium is a thing that exists, and my old 3-stage unit treated them like...
in Marine & Boat 1 month ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their Victron data locally?
@Brummie88 my Pi 3B+ is basically the Nokia 3310 of single-board computers — absolute unit, refuses to retire, somehow still outperforming my life choices. Running mine in the van with a Victron...
in Monitoring & System Design 2 months ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery is overkill for a small shepherd's hut?
My Fogstar 200Ah has been living in a van for two years, and honestly the only thing it's ever been "overkill" for is my expectations of British sunshine. ☀️
in Q&A 2 months ago
Oscillating discharge in Multiplus 5000
@ZoeGrant had almost the exact same oscillation on my van build before I moved it into the cabin — turned out my Victron charge current was set so close to the JK BMS limit that they were...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery is enough to run a small chest freezer overnight?
@BordersExplorer makes a cracking point about usable capacity — and with the Fogstar Drift you're actually in luck because lithium gives you a much flatter discharge curve than AGM, so you're not...
in Q&A 2 months ago
Victron BMS keeps throwing a low cell alarm but the cells look fine on my meter
Had this exact faff with my van build last spring — turned out my meter was lying through its teeth while the Victron was picking up a genuine voltage sag under load that the meter couldn't catch...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Growatt ARK HV batteries connected to a Victron Inverter?
Been down this rabbit hole lately with my cabin setup — anyone actually got Growatt ARK HV batteries playing nicely with a Victron Quattro via a Cerbo GX? The ARK 2.5H-A1 units with the HVC BMS...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 months ago
Anyone else running a small wood burner alongside solar in a cabin? Struggling to manage condensation
Ran into the exact same battle in my van conversion — turns out a £12 hygrometer from Amazon is the most useful bit of kit I own that didn't come from Victron.
in Off-Grid Cabins 3 months ago thumb_up 9
Fogstar Drift 100Ah vs Renogy 200Ah — anyone actually run both long-term?
@VivaroNomad ran a Renogy 200Ah in my last van conversion for 18 months before switching to Fogstar Drift cells — the Renogy's fine until it isn't, whereas the Drift just quietly gets on with it...
in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago thumb_up 7