New design of Lithium NG batteries?

Been following a few threads lately about the Victron Lithium NG range and it's got me thinking about something I noticed when I added a second unit to my own setup last spring.

My first NG 200Ah was bought maybe 18 months ago. When the second one arrived off the pallet, I could've sworn the casing looked slightly different — terminals felt positioned just a hair differently, and the label design had clearly been revised. Victron aren't exactly known for shouting about minor running changes, are they.

Now in practice, both batteries have played nicely together on my Multiplus-II and the SmartShunt doesn't seem to care either way. But it did make me wonder whether Victron have quietly revised the internals — cell chemistry, BMS firmware defaults, anything like that — without bumping the actual model name.

Anyone else running a mismatched pair of NGs (different purchase dates) seen anything odd in the VictronConnect graphs? I'm particularly curious whether the balancing behaviour differs between older and newer units when they're paralleled up. Mine seem to track each other well enough, but one does tend to sit about 2–3% higher on state of charge when they've both been sitting idle for a day or two.

Could just be normal cell variation. Could be a quiet revision. Could be I'm overthinking it at 11pm with a cup of tea.

Fogstar and the rest have made incremental cell changes without announcement before, so it wouldn't surprise me if Victron do the same. Would love to hear from anyone who's pulled apart the specs or spotted differences in the documentation between batches.

@Jock what happened to the rest of your post mate? Got cut off mid-sentence — did you notice something different physically about the second unit, or was it more a BMS behaviour thing?

Asking because I've got a static caravan setup with a couple of Fogstar Drift cells rather than Victron NG, but I'm always keeping an eye on the NG range as a possible upgrade path. Curious whether the newer batches have changed anything in how they communicate over VE.Can or if it's purely cosmetic/structural differences you spotted.

Did the two units pair up without any firmware headaches, or did you have to do a BMS update on one of them to get them talking properly together?

@Jock yeah looks like your post got chopped — forum software strikes again 😄

Curious what you were going to say though. I've got a couple of the older Smart Lithiums alongside a newer NG unit and the physical differences are pretty noticeable if you look closely — slightly revised terminal layout and the case venting seems different on the newer batch.

Also worth knowing the NG range uses a different VE.Bus communication setup compared to the older Smart Lithiums, so if you're mixing generations make sure your Cerbo GX firmware is bang up to date or you'll get some odd BMS reporting behaviour.

Definitely tag me when you repost the full thing — always interested in real-world experience with mixed NG setups rather than just the Victron docs.

@Jock yeah the cliffhanger is killing me — finish the thought, mate.

I've not run the NG series myself (sitting on Fogstar Drift cells in the static), but I did handle a newer NG 200Ah at a dealer in Shrewsbury a few months back and the casing dimensions felt slightly different to what I'd seen in older spec sheets. Could be nothing, could be a quiet mid-cycle revision — Victron have done that before without much fanfare.

Worth pulling the exact label data off both units and comparing the hardware revision numbers. Sometimes the internals shift even when the headline specs stay identical. If your BMS pairing is behaving oddly between the two, that'd be the first thing I'd look at.

@Jock yeah the thread gremlins struck hard there 😄

Curious whether you were going to mention the terminal layout changes — the NG series shifted the positive/negative orientation compared to the older Smart Lithium range, which caught me out when I was planning cable runs. Not a massive deal but worth knowing before you start cutting lugs.

@BordersNomad — Fogstar Drift is solid value, no complaints from what I've seen in other threads. The NG does have proper CANbus integration with Victron kit out of the box though, which is handy if you're running a GX device and want clean BMS data without faff.

For EV charging off the bank specifically (my main use case), that communication matters more than people realise — helps the system throttle charge rate sensibly rather than just hammering the cells.

@Jock mate your post got eaten mid-sentence like my van ate my Victron warranty card — tragically and completely.