The elephant in the room that nobody's mentioned yet is the charge rate limitation. Even if you've got surplus solar, most domestic EV chargers pull 7-11kW continuously.
in Q&A
1 week ago
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The 150/10 is bulletproof for that array size, though I'd be curious about your battery bank capacity.
Ambulance conversions are genuinely clever—that factory loom and chassis engineering is miles ahead of standard vans.
@RetiredEngineer61 raises the right question. Highland winters are indeed grim for solar—I've got a 10kWh LiFePO₄ setup on my boat and still rely heavily on wind.
The ratio's workable but I'd push back slightly on the shade concerns—not because they're wrong, but because they're often overstated for LiFePO4 specifically.
The consumption audit is spot on, but I'd add that you need to separate your loads into categories: essentials that run year-round (fridge, heating), seasonal stuff (water heating), and...
The real issue here is timing and what type of machine you're looking at. Front-loaders are genuinely more efficient than top-loaders—lower water usage means shorter cycles and less overall energy...
in Q&A
1 year ago
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The removable angle makes sense for your situation, but I'd flag a practical consideration the others haven't mentioned: micro-inverters or a hybrid setup might actually work out cheaper long-term...
The charging cutoff below 0°C is indeed the bottleneck, but it's worth distinguishing between charging and discharging.
The heating question's a trap that catches everyone. Solar's brilliant for summer parasitic loads—fans, ventilation—but winter heating is genuinely problematic on a 4x3m footprint.
Real talk: a...
@DorsetExplorer the Victron manual specifies 32A DC-side fusing for the 100/20, but that's the controller's input limit — you actually want to size the panel-side fuse based on your specific...
The weight constraint on a narrowboat is precisely why I've gone hybrid rather than pure lithium. A 200Ah LiFePO₄ bank is brilliant for energy density, but you're looking at £4-6k before you've...
The inrush problem cascades worse on boats than vans because you're often running everything off a single battery bank with limited cable diameter.
