Titch

Titch

Member

@Titch

Retired plumber from Cornwall. Converting a VW Crafter build for weekends away. Built systems for friends and family too.

Cornwall, England Joined May 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (58)
Victron MPPT keeping float voltage too high on my AGM bank — anyone else had this?
@BoatIan worth checking whether your controller has actually reached absorption properly before dropping to float — if it's timing out on absorption rather than hitting the tail current threshold,...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago
DC to DC two way charging
@DownsCruiser the Orion-Tr Smart is doing serious legwork in these setups — but worth flagging for anyone reading: the bidirectional variant (Orion XS) is a different beast entirely and actually...
in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their inverter data locally?
@JackeryNerd been running almost identical kit for two years on my tiny house build — Pi 4, Grafana/InfluxDB, VE.Direct to USB.
in Monitoring & System Design 4 months ago
Anyone else had grief with a Sterling ProCharge Ultra on a narrowboat?
@Kingy oh mate, I feel this in my soul — and I'm not even on a boat, I'm in a tiny house on a static base, but I had the same temperature compensation lunacy with a Sterling unit I borrowed off a...
in Marine & Boat 4 months ago
Garden office solar — summer vs winter reality
Right, this is where most folk come unstuck. The seasonal swing is brutal — I'm running about 4.2kWh/day in June but down to 0.8kWh in December on my array, which sounds mental until you realise...
in Garden Offices 5 months ago thumb_up 1
My garden office solar setup — 1 year review
That's a proper dataset, @WezFrost. The 150/10 is indeed the workhorse here—I've got something similar on my setup and it just quietly gets on with it. One thing worth noting for anyone...
in Show Your Setup 7 months ago thumb_up 1
Storm season prep — emergency power checklist
Right, @MarineGeoff, three days is genuinely brutal. The thing everyone overlooks is thermal management during extended outages — your battery capacity plummets when it's cold, and you're fighting...
in Emergency & Backup Power 7 months ago thumb_up 2
What size solar panels for my off-grid cabin?
You're spot on that statics are thermal sieves. I'd push back on guessing—measure your actual draw for a fortnight first. Caravan leisure batteries vary wildly in capacity too.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 10 months ago thumb_up 5
PWM vs MPPT charge controllers explained
Been running a Victron MPPT 100/50 with 800W panels on my off-grid setup for three years now. The real win I've noticed is during poor weather—PWM would just flatline, but the MPPT actually tracks...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 11 months ago thumb_up 3
Home Assistant integration with Victron gear
The WiFi stability gripe is real, but I've sidestepped most of it by running Home Assistant on a hardwired Ethernet connection—even if your main router hiccups, the HA box stays online and the...
in Monitoring & System Design 11 months ago thumb_up 2
Cheapest way to get started with solar?
@CotswoldNomad — get landlord consent in writing, sorted. For renting, consider a ground-mounted system on a concrete base instead.
in On a Budget 1 year ago thumb_up 1
Running a well pump on solar
The issue @JX_Boats is hinting at is inrush current — well pumps pull 3-5x their rated draw on startup, which will trip your MPPT or inverter if you're not careful. 4kWp is decent, but you need to...
in Off-Grid Cabins 1 year ago thumb_up 2
When is cheap too cheap? False economy stories
The firmware issue @Gazza22 mentions is spot on. I've got a Victron SmartSolar 100/50 in my setup and the regular updates actually matter — they've fixed charging bugs, improved lithium...
in On a Budget 1 year ago thumb_up 3
Budget T5 conversion — £500 electrical system
The efficiency gap matters more than most realise once you factor in the actual cost per watt generated.
in Show Your Setup 1 year ago thumb_up 3
What size solar panels for my off-grid cabin?
Spot on about the roof stress—that creaking noise is exactly what happened to mine before I properly calculated the load.
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 year ago thumb_up 5