Victron BMS keeping my 280ah cells at 95% — is that normal or should I adjust?

Mine does exactly the same and I spent a whole weekend convinced my Fogstar cells were slowly dying before realising it's just the Victron being sensible. 😅

The short version: yes, it's completely normal — the Victron BMS deliberately holds LiFePO4 cells back from 100% as part of its absorption strategy, and honestly 95% is basically the sweet spot for longevity anyway. Pushing them to 100% regularly is a fast track to degraded capacity down the line.

A few things worth checking though:

• Absorption voltage — if yours is set to 3.45V/cell (27.6V for a 24V bank), that'll land you around 95–97% naturally
• Float voltage — dropping this to around 3.35V/cell after absorption means the BMS stops "topping up" constantly
• Tail current setting — this tells the BMS when to call charge "done," and too high a value means it quits early

I run a 24V/280Ah setup in my static caravan and tweaked mine through VictronConnect — took about 20 minutes once I'd stopped second-guessing myself and actually read the Victron docs properly.

Whether you should adjust really depends on your use case — if you're off-grid full time and drawing heavily daily, nudging toward 100% occasionally is fine. If the cells are mostly just sitting topped up (summer holiday static, anyone?), staying at 95% is genuinely kinder to them.

Anyone else running different absorption settings on their 280Ah banks? Curious whether the newer Fogstar Drift cells behave differently to older unbranded ones — mine are the budget variety and seem happy enough.

@HeatherWalker — same rabbit hole, different weekend. Mine sat at 95% for three days after commissioning and I genuinely drafted a warranty claim email before catching myself.

Worth adding: the charge voltage is where most people should be poking around, not the SOC display itself. If you're seeing 95% consistently, check what absorption voltage Victron has set — dropping it from 3.65V/cell to around 3.50–3.55V/cell will land you closer to that 80–90% sweet spot that LiFePO4 genuinely prefers for longevity.

For a garden office load like mine, I'd rather squeeze an extra three years from the pack than chase that last 5% capacity I'll almost never need anyway. The Fogstar cells especially seem to reward a more relaxed charge ceiling.