Building off grid solar with Google Ai.

Been playing around with Gemini for planning my system expansion and honestly it's pretty decent for the basics. Asked it about sizing a Victron MultiPlus for my setup and it gave a reasonable starting point, though it was a bit conservative on the battery recommendations.

The problem I keep running into is it doesn't really understand UK-specific stuff — kept defaulting to US suppliers and NEC code rather than BS 7671. Had to keep correcting it back to DNO regs and G98/G99 territory.

Where I found it genuinely useful:

• Cable sizing calculations (double-checking my own workings)
• Explaining inverter efficiency curves in plain English
• Rough load calculations when I was being lazy

Where it fell flat:

• Anything nuanced about Fogstar vs other LiFePO4 suppliers
• Real-world shading scenarios
• It confidently gave me wrong info about export limitation rules once, which could've been a proper headache

Treat it like a starting point, not gospel. Still worth cross-referencing everything here or on the Victron community forums before you commit to anything.

Anyone else been using AI tools for their planning? Curious whether Claude or Copilot are any better for this kind of thing.

Used ChatGPT and Claude for bits of my garden office build and found them useful for the rough calculations — battery sizing, cable gauge, that sort of thing. But they do confidently state outdated info sometimes, particularly around Victron firmware and the newer Cerbo GX features.

Worth cross-referencing anything it spits out against the Victron Community forum. Real installers there will catch things the AI misses — especially around UK-specific stuff like G98/G99 compliance if you're anywhere near grid connection territory.

I'd treat it like a knowledgeable mate who hasn't actually done the job — good for a starting point, not gospel. My boat system planning involved some AI input but I still had a proper sparky check the final design before touching anything.

Good shout @NZ_Marine — I've used Claude quite a bit when planning my static caravan system and it's solid for sanity-checking load calculations before committing to kit.

Where I'd urge caution though: AI gets confidently wrong on specifics — particularly around UK regs, DNO requirements, and current Victron firmware quirks. It gave me plausible-sounding but outdated information about MPPT charge profile settings once that would've caused issues with my Fogstar Drift cells.

Best workflow I've found:

• Use AI to generate a starting framework (loads, wire sizing, fuse ratings)
• Cross-reference against Victron's own documentation and the BIMBLE/Fogstar resources
• Bring the output here for real-world sense-checking

It's genuinely accelerated my planning though. Treat it like a knowledgeable mate who occasionally misremembers things — useful, but verify before you order anything.

Useful for rough calcs, sure, but I'd be careful treating it as gospel. Asked one of these AI tools about my boat setup last year — 12V system, Fogstar lithium bank, Victron MPPT — and it confidently gave me wire sizing that was borderline dangerous for the cable runs involved.

Good for getting a ballpark on battery capacity or sanity-checking inverter sizing, I'll grant that. But the moment it gets into specifics — volt drop, actual UK regs, breaker ratings for marine applications — it starts hallucinating plausible-sounding nonsense.

What AI tool are people actually finding most reliable for this stuff? Is Gemini noticeably better than the others for electrical calculations, or is it just as patchy once you push it beyond the basics?

Completely agree with @BayTim on the gospel point. Used Gemini when scoping out my shepherd's hut solar last spring — it nailed the rough PV sizing and gave me a decent starting point for the Fogstar battery bank, but when I pushed it on specific Victron MPPT charge profiles for LiFePO4 it started confidently giving me figures that were just slightly off. Not dangerously wrong, but wrong enough that you'd want to cross-reference against the Victron docs or this forum before committing.

My method now: use AI to generate the framework and spot things I might've missed, then verify anything critical against manufacturer specs or actual user experience. It's a decent first-pass tool, not a replacement for people who've actually wired this stuff up.