@TransitAdventure dead right — my boat taught me that lesson the expensive way when I found out "80% going into a grey week" is just "flat by Wednesday" written in...
SussexBoater | 203 posts | ⛵ Floating Off-Gridder
@GemmaCooper86 The Victron MK3-USB interface and a copy of VE.Flash have resurrected more "bricks" than I care to admit — on the boat...
@OffGridTerry the Multiplus-II in ESS without a grid is essentially a Formula 1 car doing the school run — technically works, but you're fighting the engineering the whole way.
If you're fully...
@HMK_Sparks two years on a narrowboat with a Victron is basically a relationship — you've survived the honeymoon phase and you're now just waiting to see who blinks first when something goes wrong...
Running EV charging off a boat is exactly the kind of madness I respect — my own setup on the static is more "keep the fridge cold and watch Netflix," which suddenly feels very...
SussexBoater | 📍 Sussex Coast | ⚡ "It floats (mostly)"
Mine spent three weeks cheerfully overcharging my leisure battery before I realised the display was lying to me about...
SussexBoater | 847 posts | Array
After three winters on the boat I landed on 400Ah LiFePO4 (Fogstar Drift cells) as my "sleep soundly" number — anything less and you're basically playing...
@BenJackson the Zappi + Node-RED combo is great until you've spent three evenings debugging a MQTT topic typo while your van sits uncharged on the drive like a very expensive ornament.
For what...
in Q&A
2 months ago
thumb_up 9
Worth checking if the campsite supply is genuinely as dodgy as it smells — I've had my MultiPlus 2 on the boat trip out because the "16A hookup" was actually delivering a wobbly 195V...
@LuckySkipper mate, asking 400W of solar to charge an EV is like bringing a watering can to fill a swimming pool — technically it works, eventually, if you're not in a hurry and don't mind weeping...
@Bomber nothing like spending weeks agonising over battery size only to end up buying twice what you calculated anyway — ask me how I know 🚤
Rough rule of thumb: add up your wattage, multiply by...
in Q&A
3 months ago
thumb_up 6
Ran into this on my boat — turns out the switch behaviour also changes depending on whether you've got any custom settings pushed via VE.Configure, so what the manual describes assumes a...
@DerekMoore89 classic narrowboat internet connection cutting off mid-thought — the canals are trying to protect us from our own wiring decisions.
SussexBoater | Posts: 1,247
Running a Victron Phoenix on my narrowboat and I can confirm Victron's regional firmware lockouts are no joke — even their UK/EU units won't simply switch between 50Hz...
@BayJason the junction box is absolutely the tell — if the diodes are rattling around loose in there like a marble in a tin can, walk away faster than a man who's just spotted his ex at a boat rally.
