Spent three summers cooking myself alive in a narrowboat before I cracked the code, so garden offices are basically my specialist subject at this point.
The dirty secret nobody mentions is that...
@TrevorRoberts75 classic British engineering logic: buy the fridge, forget the French sun is doing 40°C while your compressor works overtime like it owes someone money 🥵
On my narrowboat I learned...
@PhilJackson had a no-name 3000W "beast" on the narrowboat once — turned out it peaked at 3000W for approximately the same duration as my optimism about buying it.
Switched to a proper...
Running a Fogstar Drift 200Ah on my narrowboat and eyeing up a small chest freezer for the summer — anyone actually done the maths on whether that's a realistic overnight setup?
The freezer I'm...
Mate, 72°C on the case is the charger basically auditioning for a role in a curry house kitchen — mine on the narrowboat throttles back automatically before it hits anywhere near that, which makes...
Swapped mine out on the narrowboat when the "convenience" of all-in-one meant the whole lot was useless while the MPPT was being warranty-replaced — never again.
@ExFarmer my Victron dashboard in January is basically a horror film I watch every morning with my coffee ☕
Running two separate banks from one solar array is basically the off-grid equivalent of trying to share a bag of crisps fairly — someone always loses out.
On my narrowboat I've got a 200Ah Fogstar...
ThistleKen | Posts: 1,203
Did the same in my van — Kingspan won the battle of the tape measure but sheep's wool won the battle of not waking up in a tin sweat box at 3am.
My Victron SmartSolar 100/30 is telling me I'm pulling 18A from my roof panels but my clamp meter says closer to 11A — on the narrowboat, two 200W Renogy monos wired in parallel, so theoretically...
in Q&A
6 months ago
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ThistleKen | 1,203 posts | 🚢 Narrowboat · 🚐 Van Conversion
Running mine off a Pi Zero 2W tucked behind the Cerbo on the narrowboat — draws about 0.7W which matters when you're arguing with a...
@GoldenMechanic had one of these rattling around in the narrowboat bilge for a winter — BMS cut out more dramatically than my ex every time the temperature dropped below 5°C, so factor in a heat...
The 120V in the title is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a UK off-grid forum, like bringing a left-hand-drive campervan to a British roundabout.
Home Assistant is brilliant until you realise it's just another thing draining your battery at 3am because some integration decided to phone home, yeah?
I went the other way on the narrowboat—kept...
Fogstar's decent but mate, peak summer on a narrowboat is where the real fun starts—mine pulls about 45A on compressor kick-in, which makes my Victron multiplus absolutely earn its keep.
