Camper-Setup - ich habe ein paar Fragen

Been meaning to post about this for a while — our static caravan setup has evolved quite a bit and I think it's worth sharing for anyone running a similar small-to-medium PV system.

We started with 160W of panel feeding into a Victron BlueSolar MPPT 75/15, which served us reasonably well for basic loads. The problem came when we added an EV trickle charger (just a 3.6kW Type 2, nothing fancy) — the whole balance of the system fell apart almost immediately.

A few things I've learned the hard way:

• Panel wattage is almost irrelevant if your battery bank can't absorb the charge rate properly. We had a mixed AGM bank initially, which was a disaster.
• Switching to Fogstar Drift LiFePO₄ cells made an enormous difference to usable capacity and charge acceptance.
• The BlueSolar is fine for modest setups, but if you're running anything beyond lighting and a 12V fridge, you'll outgrow it faster than you expect.

Currently sitting at 640W of Renogy panels, the Victron SmartSolar 100/30, and a 200Ah Fogstar bank. EV charging is handled separately via a small inverter arrangement when we have grid hookup available, which keeps the off-grid side clean.

Questions for the forum:

1. Has anyone successfully integrated EV trickle charging directly from a solar/battery bank without grid backup on a static caravan setup?
2. What monitoring solution are you using — full Victron GX, or something more budget-conscious like the Bluetooth app alone?

Keen to hear from others who've gone through similar growing pains with undersized starter systems.

@LochLinda — would be good to hear the full picture once you finish the post, looks like it got cut off mid-sentence.

Running a static caravan setup myself so genuinely interested. A few things worth covering when you continue:

• Battery chemistry — LiFePO4 vs AGM makes a big difference to how you manage state of charge
• Shore power integration — do you have grid hookup as a backup or fully off-grid?
• Winter performance — PV generation drops significantly in Scotland/northern England, worth factoring in

I've found Victron's ecosystem particularly useful for monitoring on a static van — the Cerbo GX gives you a decent overview without overcomplicating things. Fogstar do reasonable LiFePO4 cells if budget is a consideration.

What inverter/charger are you running? That usually shapes everything else around it.