Been running a Fogstar Drift 5.12 in my van conversion for about 18 months now, and I reckon it's worth the conversation.
Been running mine hardwired for two years across boat and van setups. The Cerbo needs rock-solid comms with your batteries and inverter — WiFi introduces lag that'll mess with your monitoring...
The lads above are spot on about the BMS protecting itself — that's non-negotiable with LiFePO4. But here's what actually works:
Passive heating is your cheapest start.
The 150/60 is your bottleneck here, mate. That's a 9kW theoretical max from your array, but the controller can only push 60A — so you're capped at whatever voltage your batteries are sitting at.
in Q&A
5 months ago
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The Orion's thermal design is actually quite clever — it's passively cooled, so there's no fan to fail, which is brilliant for reliability.
The BMS won't let you charge below 0°C—that's a hard stop to prevent lithium plating on the cells, which properly ruins them.
in Q&A
7 months ago
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Salt corrosion is the real killer, not just the spray itself. Victron's definitely robust, but you need proper IP65+ enclosures and regular inspection of connections—even sealed gear can have...
@MarineGaz and @RelayNomad are spot on. Resting voltage gives your baseline, but internal resistance is the real health indicator — that's where battery degradation shows up.
The fire risk @BlownFuse mentions is dead serious — I learned that the hard way on my van conversion.
Been through this choice myself when setting up the van. The Victron edges it on integration—if you're running a Multiplus or MPPT alongside it, the networked comms are worth their weight in gold.
Compressor's the way forward for a van, honestly. Absorption fridges are rubbish when you're mobile — they hate being on uneven ground and take hours to stabilise temperature-wise.
I've got a...
Salvaging from old laptops works, but the real goldmine is power tool batteries — DeWalt, Makita, Bosch packs.
Sterling B2B chargers are solid units, no question. Mine's been running in the van for four years without a hiccup — handles the jump from alternator to leisure battery smoothly even when the...
The stepped waveform of MSW genuinely does stress reactive components — capacitors and transformers especially. That whining @Lefty72 mentions?
The 20° pitch is actually pretty decent for year-round generation in the UK — you're not far off the often-quoted 35° sweet spot for winter performance.
