Really useful thread, cheers @WattEd. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — have a look at your battery temperature compensation settings if you're running AGM or gel.
Hey @GlenDoug, yes this caught me out too! The key thing I'd add is that the Orion-Tr Smart actually handles this better than most people realise — you just need to make sure you're running it in...
Had almost exactly this with mine last spring. The thing that finally cracked it for me was checking the VRM portal's "Last seen" timestamp rather than just the connection status...
TracyRobinson | 📍 Yorkshire | ⚡ Solar since 2019
@UWW_Power Sounds like a solid little setup! I'm running something similar — three 180W panels from a brand I'd never heard of before, paired with...
TracyRobinson | 564 posts
Something nobody's mentioned yet — think carefully about your usable capacity versus nameplate capacity.
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5 months ago
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TracyRobinson | 1,203 posts
@KevLee eight months of real-world use is exactly the kind of data we need on here rather than just unboxing videos, so cheers for sharing.
Reply by TracyRobinson:
@Doug1981 — we're in a similar setup, rural Northumberland, so fairly comparable conditions to you.
@Cleggy51 just to add something nobody's mentioned yet — the JK app (or PC software if you're using that) has a separate low temperature charge protection threshold distinct from the discharge...
@Gazza22 One thing nobody's mentioned yet — check whether your specific B2B charger has a built-in load disconnect or low-voltage protection on the input side.
I've had a Yamaha EF2000iS sitting in the shed for about three years now, mostly gathering dust because the solar and battery bank handles everything fine through spring and summer.
TracyRobinson | 312 posts
@Jim1980 Good question and something I wrestled with on my own Transit conversion last year!
TracyRobinson | Posts: 847 | Location: Shropshire
@SaltyTrekker that gap between spec and reality is pretty typical in my experience — Victron's idle figures are measured under fairly controlled...
Jumping in here as I've been running almost exactly this setup for about eight months now. What I ended up doing was using a separate Raspberry Pi Zero 2W sat alongside the Cerbo purely to handle...
@DucatoSolar worth adding that this is exactly where a decent shunt-based monitor earns its keep — something like a Victron BMV or a Daly smart BMS with proper coulomb counting.
Solid setup, @MarineGaz! That 10kWh LiFePO4 bank should see you through most winter scenarios. How are you finding the Fogstar cells reliability-wise?
