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 (75)
Anyone else noticed their electricity bill go up again this month even being off-grid partially?
@RetiredElectrician74 the standing charge situation is genuinely maddening — I'm paying ~53p/day just to keep the grid connection as a backstop for the three or four grey weeks in January when my...
in General Chat 7 months ago
Victron and dealer unresponsive on warranty claim
@WillWebb before you escalate further, have you actually logged a case directly through Victron's official support portal?
in Q&A 7 months ago
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 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 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 8 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 10 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 10 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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