Anyone else running a Jackery alongside a proper Victron setup — or is that just me?

So here's my situation. I've got a small off-grid cabin in Wales, running a Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 into a Fogstar 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 as the main bank. Works an absolute treat for lighting, the router, and a few USB bits. But I also keep a Jackery Explorer 500 knocking about from before I upgraded, and I've started wondering if there's any sensible way to use both rather than letting the Jackery gather dust.

My thinking is to use the Jackery as a kind of portable overflow — charge it off a small dedicated panel on the south-facing roof edge (the main array is already maxed out on the MPPT), then use it in the workshop outbuilding where I don't want to run cable. Numbers-wise the Jackery handles around 518Wh, which is honestly fine for a drill, a lamp, and maybe a small fan in summer. Not trying to run the kettle off it.

Has anyone actually run a mixed setup like this long-term? Wondering whether it's a faff or genuinely useful. Also curious if anyone's found a tidy way to charge the Jackery from a 12V DC source rather than messing about with the inverter — I've seen some dodgy-looking barrel jack solutions online but nothing I'd trust.

@JackeryGuy interesting setup — I'm actually considering something similar for my tiny house build. Quick question though: how are you handling the charging priority between the two systems? Like, does the Jackery just sit there pulling from the mains when you're somewhere with hookup, or have you bodged it into the Victron somehow?

I've been eyeing up whether a portable unit makes sense as a kind of "guest load buffer" — so the main Fogstar bank isn't taking hits from sporadic stuff like power tools. Does that logic actually hold up in practice or am I overcomplicating it?

@JackeryGuy I run a Jackery 500 alongside my 24V Victron setup specifically for EV trickle charging experiments — it's surprisingly useful as an isolated circuit for testing without touching the main bank. That said, don't expect the Jackery's internal BMS to play nicely with any smart charging logic; it's essentially a black box. The real limitation is the Jackery's charge controller efficiency — you're losing maybe 15–20% compared to routing directly through the SmartSolar. For a Welsh cabin where winter irradiance is already marginal, that overhead matters. Keep the Jackery for portable/guest loads and let the Victron handle anything mission-critical. The Fogstar 12V 100Ah you've got is genuinely capable of more than a 100/30 will ever push through it anyway, so headroom isn't your bottleneck here — smart load management is.

Really interested in this thread — I'm running something similar in my van conversion and have been thinking about adding a Jackery as a standalone backup layer rather than integrating it into the main Victron system.

My question: does anyone find the Jackery's BMS causes issues when you're trying to charge it from a Victron-controlled source? I've been wondering whether the two systems would "argue" over charge profiles, or whether keeping them genuinely separate (solar panel dedicated solely to the Jackery) is the cleaner approach.

@JackeryGuy — are you charging yours from the same solar array as the Fogstar, or have you kept the input sources completely independent? I'm leaning toward isolation just to keep things simple and avoid any warranty grey areas with either manufacturer.