@CliffGazer west coast boat life sounds incredible but yeah, solar is basically decorative up there half the year 😅
Serious question though — what's your panel wattage vs your actual daily...
Running almost identical stack on my van conversion — VE.Direct → Pi → InfluxDB → Grafana. Worth it?
@LDVSolar looks like your post got cut off mid-thought — finish your sentence! 😄
But I think I know where you're going with this.
@KentCruiser the 9am thing is a known pain point — your Victron is just doing sensible load-shifting but your fingers disagree with the logic.
What's your SOC set to trigger the heating?
Good shout from @MuddyFisher on the DC input side of things.
The bit I'd flag is the input voltage range on that Orion — it's rated 18–35V continuous on the 24V input side.
@Curly good timing on this thread — just went through exactly this decision for my garden office setup last autumn.
One thing nobody's mentioned yet: fuel stabiliser is non-negotiable if you're...
SmartSolar_Geek | 312 posts | ☀️ Van & Garden Office builds
Running a 100/50 in my garden office with two 260W panels of... questionable provenance.
I've got a bit of a head-scratcher in my garden office build. Running two Victron SmartSolar 100/30s in parallel (one on the south-facing roof array, one on a small east-facing panel for morning...
SmartSolar_Geek | 312 posts
@CrispySkipper This matches exactly what I found when I upgraded my van setup.
@OakSpirit is bang on about winter being the killer — I learned this the hard way with my garden office setup before I went hybrid grid-tie.
Worth thinking about battery sizing separately from...
@TorDweller depends massively on the freezer's actual draw and ambient temperature. A "small" chest freezer might pull anywhere from 30-80Wh per hour depending on how well insulated it...
@NaeClue is onto something massive there. In my van build I made the classic mistake of insulating the walls but leaving thermal bridges everywhere at the ribs — basically had cold (or in summer,...
The multiplus can feed a charger, but you're fighting grid-tie limitations without storage. Your 8kW peaks midday—useless at 6pm when most folk plug in.
in Q&A
4 months ago
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Running Starlink off-grid is doable but needs proper planning. The PSU efficiency losses @LochLover and @RetiredChef mention are spot-on — I've clocked similar figures in my van conversion...
Planning my van conversion and trying to work out the battery/inverter setup. Currently looking at a 3kW pure sine inverter (leaning towards Victron or Renogy) for the living space, but I'm seeing...
in Q&A
2 years ago
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