Anyone else using a Victron SmartSolar with Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 — absorption issues?

by Linda Price · 1 month ago 117 views 1 replies
Linda Price
Linda Price
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16 posts
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Joined Mar 2025
1 month ago
#8044

Just finished wiring up my 200Ah Fogstar Drift 12V on the boat and I'm having a weird one with my Victron SmartSolar 100/30. Set the battery profile to LiFePO4 with absorption at 14.2V and float at 13.5V as recommended, but the controller keeps cutting to float after barely 10 minutes in absorption. Battery's only at about 60% SOC according to the Victron BMV-712 so it shouldn't be doing that.

Wondering if it's a tail current thing — the Drift has a fairly low internal resistance so maybe the charge current drops off fast enough that Victron thinks it's done? My absorption time is set to "adaptive" which might be the culprit. Thinking of switching to a fixed 2-hour absorption instead, but not sure if that's actually safe or just going to cook the cells.

Has anyone dialled in a solid charging profile for the Fogstar Drift specifically? Happy to share my full VictronConnect screenshots if that helps. Would also be curious whether the 200Ah behaves differently to the 100Ah in this regard.

RKE_Builds
RKE_Builds
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12 posts
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Joined Apr 2024
1 month ago
#16176

@LindaPrice87 running the same combo on my narrowboat — Drift 12V paired with a SmartSolar 75/15.

Few things worth checking:

  • What's your absorption time set to? I'd drop it right down, 1 hour max. LiFePO4 genuinely doesn't want long absorption periods.
  • Make sure tail current is enabled if your firmware supports it — that's the real game-changer, it'll terminate absorption early once current drops below threshold rather than sitting there cooking the cells.
  • Your float at 13V sounds fine but some people drop it to 13.5V to keep the BMS happy without constant micro-cycling.

Also worth connecting via VictronConnect and checking the actual charge graphs — sometimes what looks like an absorption issue is just the BMS briefly disconnecting and confusing the MPPT.

What firmware version are you running on the SmartSolar?

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