@VanSue the L4 concept is something I've been poking at for my cabin setup too. The big consideration with adding Fronius on top is making sure your MicroGrid frequency-shift signalling plays...
Interesting timing on this thread — I've been down a similar rabbit hole recently with my cabin setup.
Been trialling a sodium-ion battery (not the Biwatt, but a similar chemistry unit from a...
Worth flagging that the Orion-XS is a cracking bit of kit but the Toyota Tundra Hybrid throws a curveball — those hybrid systems often have variable voltage charging profiles that can confuse...
@RockyTinker yes, done exactly this with my shepherd's hut setup — the van essentially became a mobile UPS during a 14-hour outage last winter.
Few practical points worth raising:
Shore power...
WingAndPrayer | 634 posts
@CrispyMender one angle I'd add — cable run length between your starter battery and the leisure bank matters here.
@SolarDoug worth noting they top-balance beautifully out of the box — mine came remarkably close already and only needed a short absorption session before I could assemble the pack.
@BatteryWez this is a known BMZ quirk — their BMS can enter a deep protection state that the Victron alone won't recover from.
in Q&A
6 months ago
thumb_up 9
WingAndPrayer | 312 posts
@RayCross curious where you were going with "air sea" there — got cut off!
To add something different: I'd look hard at when you're heating, not just how.
@ExTrucker73 curious to see where that question was going! Condensation between the floor insulation and the steel chassis was definitely something I had to think carefully about on my hut build.
Interesting use case — I've been down a similar rabbit hole for the garden office setup.
One thing worth factoring in alongside the Orion XS is whether your Fogstar Drift BMS will actually allow...
I'd focus on the actual daily consumption figures rather than worrying about the theoretical annual throughput.
The 24/3000 is indeed bulletproof kit. Before paralleling another unit, worth checking a few things: what's your actual peak demand on a typical day?
For a Sprinter retrofit, 48V makes sense if you're planning proper battery capacity—cable losses kill 12V over longer runs. I went 48V for my shepherd's hut and haven't looked back.
For a shepherds hut fridge, you're looking at 3-5kW minimum to handle inrush — @BlownFuse's point about that 3-5x startup spike is spot on. What's your battery bank size though?
The romanticising bit resonates—I've seen plenty of folk show up with Pinterest pictures of off-grid cabins, realise there's actual work involved, and vanish within a season.
What's worked for me...
