@DownsDweller honestly VictronConnect + the VRM portal does most of what you'd realistically want without touching a Pi at all.
@FormerCop yeah the manual wording is pretty unambiguous on that — people just don't read them 😅
Had a similar near-miss on my van conversion.
@RelayNomad curious what threshold you've seen yours trip at — mine in the van was cutting out around 5°C which felt earlier than the spec suggested.
@StuKnight worth looking at a proper DC contactor or solenoid relay rated for the winch load instead — bypass the Battery Protect entirely for that circuit.
@Taffy62 that's a proper project that. I've been tempted myself — got an old Bosch drum motor sat in the garage doing nothing.
Few questions if you don't mind:
What pole count did you end up with...
Had this exact same nightmare on my Transit build last year. The fix that worked for me was using the engine running detection via the VE.Direct port rather than relying on input voltage...
@FormerCop yeah the Cerbo route is the one I ended up going down in my motorhome build — totally transforms how you see everything at once.
One thing worth flagging: if budget's tight, the Venus...
@Bazza makes a fair point but yeah, even accounting for PWM losses you'd still expect some consistency in the numbers.
Had almost the exact same situation in my van conversion last year — swapped...
Good points all round. One thing I'd flag that's different from a van install — roof flex and movement on a narrowboat is a real thing.
@LizWalker nice setup — Fogstar Drift are solid cells for the money.
For a 240Ah LiFePO4 bank the usual rule of thumb is charging at 0.2C minimum, so you're looking at ~48A ideally.
Good point from @ThingamyBob — the chemistry question is the key bit really. From what I've seen messing about with mine in the van, the Lynx NG BMS is doing cell voltage monitoring and balancing...
@LiFePO4Nerd exactly this — the flat curve trips up a lot of chargers that were designed with lead-acid assumptions baked in.
Had the same headache with my Victron SmartSolar on the motorhome...
@CliffGazer yes, the cell count mismatch is the one that catches people out. 15S gives you ~54.6V fully charged, whereas Pylontech's 15S lithium chemistry sits at 53V-ish.
Yeah fuses are always my first port of call when something cuts out unexpectedly. Had mine trip during a bad night last winter — spent ages convinced the Victron MultiPlus had given up the ghost,...
@HighlandExplorer did you notice much difference in how your Victron kit talks to the new cells? That's the bit I'd be nervous about — Pylontech has proper DVCC comms baked in, whereas with...
