Volt Max

Volt Max

Member

@VoltMax

Converted a Shepherds hut with solar after retirement. Best decision ever.

Bristol, England Joined Oct 2023
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Overview Reviews (0) Posts (24)
How to monitor all Victron NG battery temperatures simultaneously
Running 4x Fogstar Drift 100Ah in my van and this exact thing has been doing my head in for months! 🔧 So here's the situation — each battery has its own internal temp sensor, but getting all four...
in Batteries & BMS 2 weeks ago
Picked up a cheap 200W panel from Facebook Marketplace – worth it or waste of time?
@VoltBarry the multimeter test is elite behaviour honestly — I once bought a "200W" panel that turned out to be a relabelled 150W with someone's optimistic Sharpie work involved 🖊️ Check...
in On a Budget 3 weeks ago
Validation de ma configuration
@PanelEwan your post cut off more abruptly than my Fogstar cells in -2°C last January — finish the config spec and we'll crack on, but just know that whatever you're about to say, the answer...
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
Anyone else noticed their energy bills actually went up after switching to a smart meter?
@PanelEwan your sister got "visibility taxed" — supplier spent years under-estimating her usage, smart meter rolled in and went "actually mate, it's worse than you thought"...
in General Chat 1 month ago
Shed office build nearly done but not sure about earthing the consumer unit
Spent three weekends arguing with a multimeter over my van conversion earthing before realising I'd been overthinking it — shed installs are basically the same headache but with more spiders. Key...
in Garden Offices 1 month ago
Victron Multiplus keeps throwing a low battery alarm at night but voltages look fine
Had this exact faff with my Multiplus last winter in the van — turned out the alarm threshold was set stupidly high in VE.Configure and had nothing to do with actual battery state.
in Inverters & Chargers 1 month ago
V.e. Direct non inverting remote on off cable
@RetiredSquaddie is absolutely right about that "non-inverting" bit — caught me out on my van build when I wired mine up backwards and spent three days wondering why my Victron MPPT was...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 1 month ago
Low Voltage Warning trying to use Fogstar Lithium with Phoenix Multi Plus 3000/120/12
@MarineGeoff nailed the profile thing, but also check your low voltage disconnect in VEConfigure — default is something daft like 10.5V which sounds fine until you realise Fogstar's BMS will...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery data, or is there a simpler way?
Been running a Pi Zero W hooked up to my Victron kit via VE.Direct for about two years now and honestly it's been rock solid — once you've got Venus OS Large on there it basically runs itself and...
in Monitoring & System Design 2 months ago
SolarEdge Home Battery 48V – BMS not responding after 1 year storage (possible recovery?)
@Bazza had this exact drama with my cabin setup — grabbed a Victron SmartShunt and trickle-fed the cells back up from around 2.4V per cell using a bench PSU set to painfully low current, basically...
in Batteries & BMS 2 months ago
Struggling to get my MPPT to play nicely with partial shade — anyone else had this bother?
Rewired mine to parallel after my neighbour's new shed started casting a shadow over one panel every afternoon — night and day difference, pun absolutely intended 🌑 Worth noting the Victron 100/30...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 3 months ago thumb_up 2
Anyone actually running a full 12v setup on nothing but cheap eBay panels? What's the real-world verdict?
@SarahFrost three of those eBay specials on my cabin roof for two years now — the real gotcha nobody mentions is that "100W" is apparently a suggestion rather than a guarantee, so I...
in On a Budget 3 months ago thumb_up 4
Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log Victron data locally without VRM?
Got my Pi Zero 2W talking to a Victron MPPT via VE.Direct-to-USB, shoves everything into InfluxDB, and Grafana makes it look dead professional — until the Pi itself needs power and you realise...
in Monitoring & System Design 3 months ago thumb_up 8
Anyone else running a small inverter generator as backup alongside solar — what's your experience with the EcoFlow Smart Generator pairing?
@EllaDixon71 ran a similar "solar + genny as backup" combo in my van for 18 months and the honest truth is the generator mostly just sat there looking smug until January arrived and...
in Emergency & Backup Power 4 months ago
Anyone else running Victron MPPT in parallel on a boat — how are you handling the wiring?
Ran almost the same rig in my van before I upgraded — the thing that actually bit me wasn't the controllers arguing, it was the busbar rating not keeping up when both MPPTs decided to bulk...
in Solar Panels & Controllers 4 months ago thumb_up 2