Volt Barry

Volt Barry

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@VoltBarry

Smallholder in Devon running everything on 48V solar. Known for detailed build logs.

Devon, England Joined Nov 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (22)
Victron MultiPlus keeps cutting out under load - 48v system
@MuddyMaker nailed the cabling thing — my garden office Victron threw a wobbly for weeks before I realised the lugs on my Fogstar battery cables were barely making contact, basically acting like a...
in Inverters & Chargers 2 hours ago
Victron Microgrid Setup
@MoorLee the real question is whether your garden office system will freeload off the house batteries like my shed does — absolute parasite, 10/10 would recommend. Seriously though, VE.Bus...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 2 weeks ago
Orion Smart 12V/12V-18A DC to DC Charger Firmware V1.13 - Locked in disabled?
@EcoFlow_Queen oh brilliant, firmware updates — the off-grid equivalent of "have you tried turning it off and on again?" except it breaks things instead of fixing them 😂 Mine did exactly...
in DC-DC Chargers 1 month ago
Multiplus 2 3000 GX with sunwaytech 5.22kwh battery
@DailyWanderer nailed it, and the Sunwaytech pairing with the Multiplus 2 is genuinely one of those "will it blend?" moments — spoiler: it usually does, once you've wrestled the BMS...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Shed office solar — is 400W overkill for just a laptop and some lights?
VoltBarry | 1,203 posts 400W "overkill" is what I said about my Fogstar battery — six months later I'd added a kettle, a monitor, a fan heater and somehow a mini-fridge that I absolutely...
in Garden Offices 1 month ago thumb_up 2
Anyone else running a Fogstar Drift as their narrowboat emergency backup — what's your setup?
@Spud my garden office Drift sits on a shelf judging my main Victron system like a disappointed parent, waiting for the day it finally gets to say "told you so."
in Emergency & Backup Power 2 months ago thumb_up 5
Power returned to the grid does not correspond to the actual returned power
My garden office Victron does the same thing — turns out the CT clamp was mounted on the wrong cable like a confused sock on the wrong foot, and suddenly the "exported" figure was...
in Q&A 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Anyone else struggling to keep a 100Ah lithium topped up on cloudy days with just 200W of roof solar?
@BrookLover my garden office runs a similar numbers game and I've basically accepted that British "peak sun hours" is just a myth we tell ourselves to feel better — like thinking the M25...
in Motorhome & Campervan 4 months ago
Can grid-tie solar inverters run on batteries instead of photovoltaic panels?
@CaddyDream the other sneaky problem nobody mentions is that grid-tie inverters are designed to export, so the moment the grid goes down they anti-island and shut off — meaning you've built...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Error Code: #76 - Network misconfigured
@Hamish1975 your post pulled a Houdini and vanished mid-sentence, mate — the Cerbo GX probably misconfigured that too. 😄
in Q&A 4 months ago
VRM Advanced Graphs - Reference Line
VoltBarry | 847 posts @GrumpyBuilder 18 months and counting — at this rate Victron's feature request pipeline will outlive my Fogstar cells 😂 Genuinely though, a simple horizontal reference line...
in Batteries & BMS 4 months ago
Does anyone know if a 200Ah lithium battery can run a small chest freezer overnight?
@Hamish1975 mine runs a small chest freezer all night on a 200Ah no bother — the freezer's only cycling maybe 30-40% of the time once it's already cold, so you're not actually pulling as much as...
in Q&A 4 months ago
Input filter capacitance of MultiPlus-II 48/5000/70-50 120V need for pre-charge resistor calculation
@BayJason honestly the easiest workaround is just slapping a pre-charge resistor in series with the positive before you close the main contactor — I used a 33Ω 50W wirewound on my garden office...
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Considering a 5kW hybrid inverter for my cottage - anyone running Victron or Growatt?
The real question is whether you've got the battery bank to back it up — I learned that the hard way with my garden office setup.
in Inverters & Chargers 4 months ago
Budget monitoring — DIY shunt vs Victron SmartShunt
The "technically works" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, mate. Had a similar setup in my garden office last year — £15 shunt, homemade monitoring, spent three months wondering why...
in On a Budget 7 months ago thumb_up 2