VANILLA POWERED: BUILDING A ROLLING LITHIUM MICROGRID

100Ah to 105Ah.

Look at those numbers quickly and this upgrade appears almost laughably small.

Five extra amp-hours.

Five percent.

Hardly the stuff of an electrical revolution.

Except the numbers on the labels hide what is really happening.

When I replace Vanilla’s existing 100Ah Exide lead-acid leisure battery with a Fogstar Drift 105Ah LiFePO₄ battery, I am not simply installing a battery with five more amp-hours.

I am fundamentally changing the electrical architecture of the campervan.

The Fogstar becomes the central energy reservoir. The 200W PV Logic panel becomes the solar generator. The Victron SmartSolar 75/15 becomes the solar gatekeeper. The Victron Orion Smart 30A becomes the alternator-powered replenishment system. The SmartShunt watches the electrons marching backwards and forwards. My Anderson outlet becomes an energy-transfer port. And my Jackery power stations become secondary mobile storage banks that can be replenished from Vanilla whenever it makes sense.

This is no longer really a leisure-battery upgrade.

It is the beginnings of a tiny rolling microgrid. 🔋⚡🚐

And for someone who enjoys watching battery graphs perhaps slightly more than is medically necessary, this is glorious.

THE FOGSTAR: 105Ah ISN’T THE IMPORTANT NUMBER

Fogstar officially rates the Drift 105Ah at 1,280Wh, with a 100A JBD BMS, Bluetooth monitoring, built-in heating, IP67 protection, a weight of just 10kg, and more than 3,500 cycles at 80% depth of discharge. Fogstar backs it with a 10-year warranty.

Those numbers immediately tell a much more interesting story than 105Ah.

The old Exide and new Fogstar may have broadly similar nominal amp-hour figures, but they behave very differently.

Lead-acid batteries progressively lose voltage as their state of charge falls. Their usable capacity also depends on discharge rate, temperature and how deeply you are prepared to cycle them. Repeatedly beating a lead-acid battery down towards empty is generally not a wonderful recipe for longevity.

That is why campervan users traditionally treat roughly half of a lead-acid battery’s nominal capacity as the comfortable everyday working zone.

A 100Ah battery might therefore feel more like a 50Ah working battery if longevity matters.

Lithium turns that thinking upside down.

Fogstar actually publishes its cycle-life figure at 80% depth of discharge, so an interesting benchmark is:

1,280Wh × 80% = 1,024Wh

That means I can think of roughly a kilowatt-hour of energy as a perfectly credible operating window while remaining within the depth of discharge Fogstar uses for its 3,500+ cycle claim.

That is already dramatically more useful energy than I have been accustomed to treating as routinely available from the Exide.

And lithium has another trick.

Its voltage curve is much flatter.

That matters enormously.

Electrical equipment doesn’t just care whether there are theoretically some amp-hours left somewhere inside a battery.

It cares about voltage.

A lead-acid battery can have remaining energy but still sag significantly under load.

A diesel heater is a perfect example.

The Webasto starts.

The fan wakes.

The glow pin energises.

Current rises.

Battery voltage dips.

On a healthy, charged lead-acid battery that is generally fine.

On a heavily discharged one, the same startup event becomes much more dramatic because the baseline voltage is already lower.

Lithium approaches the problem differently.

The Fogstar should hold its working voltage much more consistently across the majority of its discharge curve.

That means the electrical environment inside Vanilla becomes more stable.

The fridge sees better voltage.

The Webasto sees better voltage.

The water pump sees better voltage.

USB equipment sees better voltage.

The Sargent system sees better voltage.

It isn’t simply that there is more energy available.

The energy is delivered in a form the equipment likes.

That is why I expect the Webasto to be one of the biggest real-world beneficiaries.

Outside might be close to freezing.

The Webasto might have been running for hours.

The fridge might have been cycling all night.

Lights have been used.

Phones have charged.

And yet the battery should still behave much more like a healthy electrical source rather than gradually becoming a tired old sponge.

This is perhaps my favourite part of the whole arrangement.

Vanilla has an Anderson connection fed from the leisure electrical system.

That allows me to take energy stored in the Fogstar and feed it directly into one of my Jackery power stations using the Jackery’s DC input.

One at a time.

That last bit matters.

I am not trying to build some enormous parallel charging contraption that feeds everything simultaneously.

I want control.

Choose a Jackery.

Connect it.

Transfer energy.

Disconnect it.

Choose another if necessary.

Simple.

But here is the important technical detail.

That is a useful shorthand, but electrically it is not really what happens.

The Anderson connector is simply providing access to Vanilla’s DC supply.

The Jackery decides how much current it is prepared to take.

And Jackery’s official figures explain exactly why I see approximately 90W.

The two large Jackerys have surprisingly conservative car-charging inputs.

Those are Jackery’s own European specifications.

And suddenly the roughly 90W I see makes perfect sense.

Both the Explorer 1000 v2 and Explorer 2000 v2 impose an 8A current limit when charging from a vehicle-type DC source.

Importantly, the 1000 v2 has two DC8020 inputs, but Jackery specifically states that the car-charging current limit remains 8A whether one or two ports are involved. The 2000 v2 uses the same basic principle, with an 8A car-input ceiling.

So fitting an Anderson connector capable of 50A does not magically mean the Jackery will take 50A.

The Anderson might be a motorway.

The Jackery has installed an 8A toll booth.

That is the bottleneck.

Suppose Vanilla’s DC system is sitting around 13.0V.

At 12.5V:

At 13.8V:

Those are theoretical electrical figures at the supply.

Once cable voltage drop, connectors, the Jackery’s charge-control electronics and the actual voltage arriving at its DC input are taken into account, seeing something around 90W on the Jackery display is completely credible.

And Jackery’s own quoted charging times support that.

The 1000 v2 contains 1,070Wh.

Jackery quotes approximately 12 hours from its car charger.

1,070Wh ÷ 12h = 89.2W

Interesting.

Now the 2000 v2.

2,042Wh ÷ 24h = 85.1W

Again, right in the same neighbourhood.

Those calculations are not meant to imply perfect charging efficiency or perfectly linear charging, because neither exists. But they demonstrate beautifully why the real-world car-charging experience lives around the 90W mark rather than 200W, 300W or 500W. Jackery’s official charge times are consistent with that order of magnitude.

At first glance 90W might sound disappointing.

The 1000 v2 can accept up to 400W from suitable solar inputs.

The 2000 v2 can accept up to 400W from suitable solar arrangements too.

So why get excited about 90W?

Because I am not trying to rapid-charge them from the Fogstar.

I am trying to create a slow, predictable energy-transfer path between Vanilla’s fixed battery system and my portable battery system.

That is a completely different objective.

At 90W, the Jackery is only drawing something in the region of 7A from the Fogstar side.

Allow something for losses and real-world conditions and roughly 7 to 8A leaving the leisure system is the kind of figure I should expect.

Against a Fogstar BMS capable of 100A continuous discharge, that is tiny.

It is not remotely stressing the battery.

Fogstar’s BMS could theoretically support vastly larger loads than this. The Anderson-to-Jackery transfer is almost a gentle sip.

There is another important electrical distinction.

The Fogstar’s 100A BMS rating does not mean the Anderson circuit should be fitted with a 100A fuse.

The fuse is there primarily to protect the wiring.

Its rating needs to correspond to the cable size, connector arrangement and expected load of that particular circuit.

The Anderson connector itself may be capable of carrying substantial current, but my Jackery charging arrangement does not require anything remotely approaching the Fogstar’s maximum discharge capability.

That is exactly how I want it.

Huge battery capability.

Modest transfer load.

Plenty of headroom.

Now we can do some proper energy accounting.

If a Jackery receives approximately 90W for one hour, it has received approximately:

90W × 1h = 90Wh

Nothing is perfectly efficient, so the Fogstar will surrender somewhat more than 90Wh to achieve that.

But as a simple planning number, one hour of charging costs roughly 7 to 8Ah from a 12 to 13V leisure system.

That gives me a very useful mental rule.

One hour connected: roughly 90Wh moved.

Five hours connected: roughly 450Wh moved.

Ten hours connected: roughly 900Wh moved.

Compare that with Fogstar’s official 1,280Wh battery energy.

A five-hour 90W session represents:

450Wh ÷ 1,280Wh = 35% of the Fogstar’s nominal stored energy

before conversion losses and Vanilla’s own loads are included.

Ten hours represents around:

900Wh ÷ 1,280Wh = 70%

Again before losses.

That tells me something really important.

The Anderson system is brilliant for top-ups.

It is not necessarily sensible to park up, flatten the Fogstar just to fill a giant Jackery, then discover I have donated the energy reserve that was supposed to run my fridge and Webasto.

The van comes first.

The Jackery gets surplus.

That is the operating philosophy.

WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE 1000 v2?

The 1000 v2 officially stores 1,070Wh.

At approximately 90W, a theoretical 10% increase represents:

107Wh ÷ 90W = about 1.2 hours

A 20% increase represents about:

214Wh ÷ 90W = 2.4 hours

A 50% increase represents:

535Wh ÷ 90W = just under 6 hours

A completely empty-to-full charge is therefore roughly a half-day event, entirely consistent with Jackery’s official approximately 12-hour car-charge figure.

So the Anderson is perfect if the 1000 v2 comes back from cinema duty at 55% and I want to quietly raise it to 75 or 80%.

Plug it in.

Forget about it.

Let Vanilla trickle energy across.

No inverter.

No mains charger.

No drama.

Just DC moving to DC.

WHAT ABOUT THE MONSTER 2000 v2?

The 2000 v2 is a different animal.

Jackery officially gives it 2,042Wh of storage and a 2,200W AC inverter.

That means every 10% on its display represents roughly:

204Wh

At 90W that takes around:

204Wh ÷ 90W = 2.3 hours

So adding just 10% to the big 2000 v2 is a couple of hours’ Anderson charging.

Twenty percent needs something around four and a half hours.

Half the battery is roughly:

1,021Wh

1,021Wh ÷ 90W = 11.3 hours

Which again explains why Jackery quotes approximately 24 hours for a complete vehicle charge.

This is why I would never think of the Anderson as a fast charger for the 2000 v2.

It is a range extender.

That is much more interesting.

Suppose the 2000 v2 is at 52%.

Over five hours I might transfer roughly 450Wh before losses.

450Wh represents around 22% of its 2,042Wh capacity.

Suddenly 52% might become something around the low-70s rather than me needing to find EHU.

That is genuinely useful.

THE FOGSTAR CANNOT MAGICALLY FILL THE 2000 v2

This is another fun comparison.

Fogstar officially states 1,280Wh.

Jackery states 2,042Wh for the Explorer 2000 v2.

So even if I emptied the Fogstar completely into the Jackery with zero losses, which obviously I would never do, I would only have enough theoretical energy to add:

1,280 ÷ 2,042 = 62.7%

And if I use Fogstar’s own 80% depth-of-discharge benchmark instead:

1,024Wh ÷ 2,042Wh = 50.1%

before conversion losses.

So one Fogstar is roughly half of the big Jackery’s battery if I keep within that 80% cycling window.

That really puts the size of the 2000 v2 into perspective.

It also explains why I don’t want to treat the leisure battery as merely a Jackery charger.

The Fogstar’s first job remains Vanilla.

The 2000 v2 gets energy when it is sensible to give it energy.

The smaller Explorer 300D is much easier to feed.

Jackery officially rates it at 288Wh.

Its vehicle input is limited to 6A, with a maximum of 96W, and Jackery quotes roughly four hours for a full vehicle charge.

At Vanilla battery voltages the 6A limit becomes important.

At 13.0V:

At 14.2V:

Only at the top of its permitted 16V input range would 6A mathematically equal the full 96W maximum.

So on Vanilla’s normal 12V electrical system I should generally expect the little 300D to draw less power than the two larger Jackerys.

And that agrees nicely with Jackery’s four-hour vehicle charge time.

288Wh ÷ 4h = 72W average

Again, the official figures make sense.

The 300D is almost made for this arrangement.

It is tiny compared with the Fogstar.

A theoretical 80% Fogstar working window is about 1,024Wh.

1,024Wh ÷ 288Wh = 3.55 complete 300D capacities

before losses.

So while the Fogstar could only contribute roughly half of a 2000 v2’s capacity within that benchmark, it could theoretically recharge the little 300D several times.

Different batteries.

Different jobs.

Same energy ecosystem.

This is where the entire system gets clever.

Vanilla has a Victron Orion Smart 12/12-30 DC-DC charger.

Victron rates that unit for 30A continuous output. Their technical data shows around 430W continuous output at 25°C, derating to around 360W at 40°C.

That is vastly more than the Jackery is taking through its car input.

Imagine a healthy charging situation where the Orion is delivering around 30A.

At 14.2V:

Now connect the 1000 v2.

Jackery takes roughly 90W.

At 14.2V that is equivalent to:

So in crude current terms:

30A arriving from Orion

minus about 6 to 7A disappearing towards Jackery

leaves roughly 23A available for Vanilla’s battery and other loads

before fridge, lighting, Webasto or other equipment is taken into account.

That is massive.

The Jackery does not overwhelm the charging system.

Quite the opposite.

The Orion can comfortably outrun it.

Imagine leaving a campsite.

The Fogstar sits at 65%.

The 1000 v2 sits at 45%.

I connect the Jackery to the Anderson.

Start Vanilla.

The Orion wakes.

Perhaps around 400W starts flowing into the leisure system.

The Jackery removes roughly 90W.

That still leaves perhaps 300W or so, depending on temperatures, battery voltage and other loads, available for the Fogstar and Vanilla.

Instead of the Jackery draining my leisure battery while driving, the alternator can effectively cover its demand while still replenishing the Fogstar.

That completely changes how I think about the Anderson connection.

It isn’t just:

Fogstar → Jackery.

While driving it becomes:

Alternator → Orion → 12V system → Fogstar and Jackery.

The Fogstar effectively becomes the electrical shock absorber in the middle.

That is a much cleverer system.

This is where Victron monitoring gets entertaining.

Provided the Anderson circuit return is wired on the system side of the SmartShunt, the shunt will see the Jackery load.

Connect the Jackery.

The SmartShunt should immediately show additional current leaving the battery/system.

Start the engine.

Orion output rises.

Now the SmartShunt can show whether the battery is still discharging or whether the incoming Orion current has reversed the balance and started charging it.

So I could see something conceptually like:

Jackery taking about 7A.

Vanilla consuming another few amps.

Orion supplying 30A.

Fogstar still gaining the remainder.

The exact numbers will constantly move, which is precisely why the SmartShunt is so useful.

I don’t need to guess.

I can watch the energy budget in real time.

There is one wiring caveat here.

If a load bypasses the shunt on the negative side and connects directly back to the battery negative, the SmartShunt cannot see it.

The shunt only knows about current that physically passes through it.

That is one detail I will want correct in the final installation because I want Victron’s state-of-charge calculation to include every electron leaving the battery.

Yes.

I really do want to count the electrons.

Welcome to NIX. 😂

Vanilla’s 200W PV Logic panel feeds a Victron SmartSolar MPPT 75/15.

Victron officially rates the 75/15 for a maximum 15A battery charging current, with nominal PV capacity of up to 220W on a 12V battery system.

That makes the controller a good match for the 200W roof panel.

Now imagine one of those glorious conditions where I have previously seen something around 130 to 136W coming from the roof.

Suppose solar is producing 136W.

The Jackery is consuming around 90W.

136W solar

minus 90W Jackery

leaves 46W

before Vanilla’s own loads and conversion losses.

That means on a very good sunny period the solar installation can cover most, or sometimes essentially all, of the Jackery’s modest Anderson draw.

If the fridge compressor happens to be off at that moment, battery discharge might be tiny.

If the panel falls to 70W, then the Fogstar simply supplies the shortfall.

It all happens automatically.

This is what makes the system feel less like separate batteries and more like an electrical network.

Follow an individual packet of energy.

Sunlight lands on Vanilla.

The PV Logic panel converts it into DC electricity.

The Victron MPPT tracks the panel’s maximum power point.

The controller converts that solar power into an appropriate battery-charging voltage.

The Fogstar absorbs it.

Later I plug in the 1000 v2.

Power leaves the leisure system through the Anderson connector.

It enters the Jackery through DC8020.

The Jackery’s internal charging electronics convert and control it.

Energy is stored in another LiFePO₄ battery.

Later that same stored energy might run my projector, an appliance or some other 230V load.

Sunlight from the roof has effectively migrated into a portable power station.

That is absurdly satisfying.

Now consider the best case.

Driving on a sunny day.

Orion contributing maybe hundreds of watts.

Solar adding another 100W or more.

Jackery taking roughly 90W.

Vanilla’s own loads taking whatever they require.

The Fogstar receives whatever is left.

The Jackery load suddenly looks tiny within the overall energy flow.

That is where the 90W limitation becomes an advantage rather than a nuisance.

It prevents the Jackery from greedily swallowing several hundred watts from the leisure system.

Instead it takes a steady little stream.

The rest remains available to Vanilla.

The electrical hierarchy stays sensible.

Fogstar recommends lithium charging in roughly the 14.2 to 14.4V bulk region, with around 13.5 to 13.8V float. For Victron equipment, Fogstar specifically recommends 14.2V absorption/bulk and 13.5V float, with lithium temperature compensation disabled.

Fogstar also describes roughly 20 to 30% of battery capacity as a typical recommended charging-current range.

On a 105Ah battery, that corresponds approximately to:

21A to 31.5A.

That puts the 30A Orion almost perfectly in that region on its own.

However, on a brilliant sunny day the SmartSolar could theoretically add up to another 15A.

So in extreme circumstances the combined chargers could potentially offer more current than the Orion alone.

That doesn’t automatically mean anything is wrong. Charge controllers respond to battery voltage and their configured charging algorithms, and maximum ratings are not the same as constant real-world output.

But it is exactly the sort of reason why setting all the Victron equipment properly matters.

The system should be engineered.

Not merely connected.

Then there is Vanilla’s Sargent EC155.

Sargent’s own documentation says the EC155 incorporates a fixed 13.8V charger/power supply capable of up to 12A or 155W.

And there is a particularly important detail.

That 12A is shared between habitation loads and battery charging.

Sargent gives the example that if the van is consuming 6A, only another 6A remains available for battery charging. If habitation loads reach 12A, there is no charging current left.

That makes the EC155 very different from the Orion.

The Orion is a serious 30A battery charger.

The EC155 is primarily a fixed-voltage 13.8V power supply that can also charge a battery.

Fogstar’s preferred Victron lithium settings are 14.2V absorption and 13.5V float.

The Sargent’s fixed 13.8V therefore sits around the upper end of Fogstar’s general float region but does not provide the 14.2V charging stage that the dedicated Victron lithium profile can.

That does not make the EC155 an exploding lithium death machine.

It simply means I would rather have the final installation assessed properly so the dedicated lithium-capable charging hardware does the important battery management.

The Victron gear is where the clever charging lives.

The Fogstar’s heater arrangement is fascinating.

Fogstar says its heating pads activate when the battery is being charged at 0°C or below.

Crucially, the heater does not warm the cells by quietly draining the battery.

It is powered by the incoming charging source.

Fogstar says the heating pads require at least 4A of incoming current and consume about 36W.

That means on a freezing morning the electrical sequence could be something like this:

Battery below zero.

Orion starts supplying charge.

Fogstar BMS detects low temperature.

Incoming energy goes to the heating system.

Cells warm.

When battery temperature reaches a safe charging region, charging is permitted.

That is clever.

The battery protects itself.

And it makes the Orion particularly valuable in winter because 30A of potential incoming current is vastly above the minimum needed to activate the heating pads.

Weak winter solar may be another matter.

If the panel is producing very little current on a dark December morning, it may not reach the threshold required to operate the battery heater effectively.

Start Vanilla and the Orion solves that problem very quickly.

This is why I love looking at the system as a whole.

Every component covers a weakness somewhere else.

Fogstar rates the Drift 105Ah BMS for 100A continuous discharge.

At roughly 12V that represents around:

of DC power in very round numbers.

The 90W Jackery transfer therefore represents less than one tenth of the battery’s continuous BMS capability.

Even combine:

fridge,

Webasto,

lighting,

USB charging,

water pump,

electronics,

and Jackery charging,

and the Fogstar still has enormous current headroom compared with the old leisure-battery use case.

The limitation in everyday Vanilla life is far more likely to be stored energy capacity than instantaneous current capability.

That distinction matters.

The Fogstar can deliver power very quickly.

What I still have to manage is how many watt-hours I consume over hours or days.

Power is how fast I am spending.

Energy is how much money is in the bank.

This whole upgrade becomes easier to understand once those two ideas are separated.

90W is a rate.

If the Jackery says 90W, that tells me how quickly energy is being transferred at that instant.

90Wh is an amount of energy.

If 90W continues for one hour, 90Wh has moved.

Continue for ten hours:

900Wh.

That distinction is absolutely central to off-grid electrical planning.

The Fogstar stores 1,280Wh.

The 1000 v2 stores 1,070Wh.

The 2000 v2 stores 2,042Wh.

The 300D stores 288Wh.

Those are buckets.

The Anderson connection gives me a tap that flows at roughly 90W into the bigger Jackerys.

A bigger bucket does not make the tap flow faster.

That is why the 2000 v2 takes approximately twice as long as the 1000 v2 through exactly the same connection.

Same tap.

Twice the bucket.

This is also why I have no desire to charge multiple Jackerys from the Fogstar simultaneously.

One unit means one predictable DC load.

The SmartShunt clearly shows it.

The Fogstar app clearly shows what is happening.

The Jackery clearly shows incoming watts.

If I connected several systems in parallel, I would increase current, increase wiring complexity and make energy management less transparent.

I would rather choose.

The 1000 v2 needs energy?

Connect it.

The 2000 v2 has had a hard evening?

Give it the Anderson.

The 300D needs topping up?

Easy.

Once the chosen Jackery has enough energy, disconnect it.

The Fogstar goes back to looking after Vanilla.

That is beautifully simple.

The Fogstar is not there to sacrifice itself for the Jackerys.

It is there to run Vanilla.

So my real electrical priority becomes:

Vanilla stays healthy first.

Fridge stays running.

Webasto remains available.

Lighting and habitation systems continue normally.

Then surplus energy can migrate into the Jackery fleet.

That surplus may come from stored Fogstar energy.

It may come from solar.

It may come from the Orion.

Most likely it will be a mixture of all three.

That is what makes the arrangement clever.

I am not really charging a Jackery from the Fogstar.

I am charging a Jackery from Vanilla’s energy system.

The Fogstar just happens to be the central buffer.

Parked at night:

Fogstar → Vanilla loads.

Parked in daylight:

Solar → MPPT → Vanilla loads + Fogstar.

Jackery connected in daylight:

Solar + Fogstar → Anderson → Jackery.

Driving:

Alternator → Orion → Fogstar + Vanilla.

Driving with Jackery attached:

Alternator → Orion → Vanilla system → Jackery + Fogstar.

Driving in sunshine with Jackery attached:

Alternator + solar → Orion + MPPT → Vanilla electrical bus → Fogstar + Jackery + habitation loads.

That last one is the full orchestra.

Two charging sources.

One central battery.

One portable battery being replenished.

Vanilla carrying on regardless.

Rapid charging is impressive.

But slow charging is fascinating.

At 90W I can actually watch the system breathe.

Jackery state of charge slowly rises.

Fogstar state of charge changes.

SmartShunt current moves positive and negative depending on sun, driving and appliances.

MPPT power rises when clouds move away.

Orion appears when the engine starts.

Fridge compressor starts and the load increases.

Webasto goes through startup and the current spikes.

Then everything settles again.

The entire campervan becomes a live electrical laboratory.

And unlike an experiment on a bench, this one has beer in the fridge. 🍺

Friday afternoon.

Fogstar at 100%.

1000 v2 at 90%.

2000 v2 at 95%.

300D full.

Arrive.

Engine off.

Orion disappears.

Solar harvest continues while there is daylight.

Fridge cycles.

Lights come on.

Temperature falls.

Webasto starts.

Friday night consumes energy.

Saturday morning arrives.

Fogstar perhaps sits somewhere around 70%.

Solar starts contributing.

The 1000 v2 has run some entertainment equipment and is down around 60%.

Do I immediately connect it?

Maybe not.

The Fogstar is still responsible for another cold night.

By midday the sun is strong.

PV is producing 120W.

Now I connect the 1000 v2.

Around 90W moves into Jackery.

Solar is covering most of that transfer.

The Fogstar barely notices except for whatever Vanilla itself is using.

Three hours later the 1000 v2 has received something approaching 270Wh before losses.

That represents roughly a quarter of its entire capacity.

Disconnect.

Keep the remaining solar going into Fogstar.

Saturday night arrives.

Webasto runs again.

Sunday morning I start Vanilla and drive.

Orion comes alive.

If the Fogstar needs charging, it gets serious current.

If one Jackery also needs topping up, I can connect it.

The Orion’s 30A capability comfortably exceeds the approximately 7A associated with the 90W Jackery transfer.

By the time I get home I may have replenished both systems substantially.

That is a genuine off-grid strategy.

This is also why having both systems makes sense.

The Fogstar and Jackerys do different jobs.

Fogstar is integrated.

Always connected.

Always ready.

It runs the essential campervan infrastructure.

The Jackerys are portable high-power reservoirs.

The big units contain powerful pure-sine-wave inverters.

The 1000 v2 can provide up to 1,500W AC.

The 2000 v2 can provide up to 2,200W AC.

That is where the serious 230V work belongs.

Microwave.

Induction.

Projector system.

Chargers.

Other mains equipment.

Let the Jackery inverter deal with that.

The Fogstar can concentrate on maintaining the van.

That division of labour is elegant.

The 300D is particularly neat because Jackery designed it without an AC inverter.

It is a 288Wh DC-focused power station intended for things such as phones, laptops, cameras and other DC/USB equipment.

That makes it electrically efficient for exactly those jobs.

There is no point taking DC from a battery, converting it to 230V AC, plugging in a USB adapter and converting it straight back to low-voltage DC if the device can simply be powered directly.

DC battery → USB-C → device.

Short chain.

Fewer conversions.

Less wasted energy.

The same philosophy applies to my Anderson charging arrangement.

Fogstar DC → Anderson → Jackery DC input.

I am avoiding an unnecessary 12V → 230V → DC round trip.

There are still conversion losses inside the Jackery charger.

Physics never gives anything away completely free.

But the route is sensible.

The more I think about it, the more I actually like the fact that Jackery car charging is modest.

If the 2000 v2 suddenly tried to pull 400W from the leisure battery, that would be around 30A at 13V.

Add fridge.

Add heater.

Add everything else.

Suddenly I would have a substantial continuous leisure-system load.

At approximately 90W, none of that happens.

The transfer is gentle.

Predictable.

Easy on wiring.

Easy to monitor.

Easy for the Fogstar.

And when the Orion is operating, easy for the alternator-charging system to outrun.

It is slow enough to be safe and manageable, but fast enough that several hours genuinely matter.

That is a very nice balance.

The Fogstar gives me more than usable capacity.

It gives me flexibility.

Energy arrives from different places.

Solar.

Alternator.

EHU when appropriate.

Energy leaves in different directions.

Fridge.

Webasto.

Lighting.

Water pump.

Electronics.

Jackery.

And instead of treating every system independently, I can now think about Vanilla as one energy network.

That is the part I find genuinely exciting.

105Ah IS THE LEAST INTERESTING NUMBER ON THE BATTERY

The old battery says 100Ah.

The new one says 105Ah.

That sounds almost identical.

But the actual story is:

1,280Wh of stored lithium energy.

100A BMS.

Approximately 10kg.

Bluetooth monitoring.

Integrated low-temperature protection and heating.

Thousands of deep cycles.

Much flatter voltage behaviour.

30A alternator charging from the Orion.

Up to 15A from the SmartSolar controller.

200W sitting on the roof waiting for photons.

Approximately 90W available to trickle energy into the big Jackerys.

Around 70 to 85W territory for the 300D depending on system voltage and charge control.

And every single bit of it observable.

Voltage.

Current.

Watts.

Amp-hours.

Watt-hours.

State of charge.

Solar yield.

Alternator charging.

Jackery input.

Battery temperature.

This isn’t a battery upgrade.

It is telemetry with somewhere to sleep. 😂

Vanilla is becoming electrically self-sufficient in a way that would have been ridiculous for a little campervan not so many years ago.

She can generate electricity from sunlight.

She can generate it while travelling.

She can store it efficiently.

She can monitor it.

She can distribute it.

She can transfer it into portable energy banks.

She can turn those banks into serious 230V mains power.

And she can do all of it while keeping the fridge cold and the Webasto warm.

The most amusing part is that the centrepiece of this entire upgrade still has 105Ah printed on the side.

Five more amp-hours than before.

Technically true.

Practically meaningless.

What I am really installing is a 1.28kWh intelligent lithium reservoir connected to solar, alternator charging, monitoring, heating, habitation loads and a DC energy-transfer network feeding three additional power stations.

That sounds rather more interesting.

Fogstar stores it.

Victron manages it.

Solar creates it.

The alternator replaces it.

Anderson moves it.

Jackery carries it.

Vanilla uses it.

And I get to sit there watching the graphs.

Perfect. 🔋☀️⚡🚐

FOGSTAR 105Ah // 1,280Wh