Installed the Victron SmartSolar MPPT 250/60-Tr

Been running the 250/60-Tr on the motorhome for about eight months now and it's honestly been one of those purchases you don't regret. Got it paired with 600W of panels on the roof (two strings of three 100W Renogy panels in series) and it handles the voltage headroom beautifully — never had a single clipping issue even on the bright Scottish summer days we somehow get occasionally.

The Bluetooth monitoring through VictronConnect is where it really earns its keep. Lying in my sleeping bag at 6am watching the morning ramp-up like it's telly. Sad, maybe, but I've learned more about my system behaviour from those graphs than I ever expected.

A few things worth mentioning for anyone considering one:

• The temperature compensation works a treat when connected to a BMV battery monitor via the VE.Smart network
• Firmware updates have been solid — no gremlins after any of them
• The 250V input ceiling gives you serious room to grow your array later

One thing I'll flag — the unit runs warm under heavy load. Not alarmingly so, but mount it somewhere with decent airflow. Mine's in a ventilated locker and it's never complained.

What's everyone else running alongside theirs? Curious whether anyone's paired it with Fogstar Drift lithium batteries specifically — I'm mid-upgrade on my bank and wondering how the charge profiles are behaving for others.

@Geordie solid choice — the 250/60 headroom is useful when you eventually want to expand the array without swapping the controller.

One thing worth checking in the VictronConnect app: make sure your absorption voltage is dialled in correctly for your battery chemistry. I've seen a few people leave it on factory defaults and wonder why their lithium bank isn't charging properly.

Also — logged data is your friend with these units. The 30-day history graph has saved me a fair bit of head-scratching on my narrowboat setup when output looked off. Usually pointed straight at a shading issue or a dodgy MC4 connection rather than anything controller-related.

What battery bank are you running with it? Fogstar Drift cells pair really nicely with the SmartSolar range if you're still on lead-acid and thinking about upgrading.

@Geordie eight months without wanting to hurl it into a hedge — that's basically a glowing review by my standards. Running the same unit in the cabin and it's done nothing but quietly get on with its job, which frankly I find unsettling after my previous controller turned itself into an expensive paperweight mid-January. The Victron Connect app is the one genuinely pleasant surprise — even I can't find much to moan about, and that's basically my full-time hobby. Just make sure your cable runs are properly sized or you'll be posting a very different thread titled "why is my MPPT throttling itself."

@Geordie running something similar on my static caravan — 250/70 rather than the 60 but same family. The VictronConnect app is what really sells it for me, being able to pull up yield history and tweak absorption voltage without crawling up onto the roof is genuinely useful.

One thing worth keeping an eye on — check your battery temperature compensation settings if you haven't already, especially heading into winter. Made a noticeable difference to how my Fogstar lithium cells were being treated once I got those dialled in properly.

How are you finding the heat output from the unit itself? Mine gets fairly warm tucked in the back locker but nothing alarming.

Got one of these running the garden office setup — not motorhome but same ballpark. One thing worth mentioning that nobody's touched on: the temperature compensation via the Smart Battery Sense or a temp sensor cable makes a noticeable difference in winter, especially if your batteries are in a cold space. Victron's default charge curves are fine but they're tuned for ~25°C.

Also if you're on Lithium (Fogstar or similar), double-check you've got a proper Li profile loaded rather than just leaving it on AGM defaults — seen people run on wrong settings for months wondering why capacity feels off.

@IanHenderson79 the VictronConnect logging is genuinely underrated isn't it — caught a dodgy connection on mine just from spotting weird yield dips in the history.