The Busbar

Rod Collins (MaineSail / Marine How To) reports that the DIY LiFePO4 house bank he built from GBS prismatic cells in 2009 — date-stamped May 2009, in service on his boat since early 2010 — has just turned 17 and still meets roughly 100% of its original rated capacity on a calibrated capacity test. By his earlier accounting the bank had passed 2,500 cycles, most around 80% depth of discharge, by 2023. It's one documented bank, not a study — but it's a rare long-horizon data point on LFP calendar life, and the practices Collins credits are the usual unglamorous ones: never park it full, no float, conservative voltages.

Venus OS v3.73 landed on 19 May. The headline fix for existing installs: a Dynamic ESS bug that caused the Multi RS to throttle solar production while charging from the grid is resolved. The release also adds support for the VM-3P5A energy meter, Carlo Gavazzi EM530-RG and EM530-MV meters, and three new Bluetooth tank senders (Mopeka Pro-200B, Garnet SeeLeveL SOUL and 709-BTP7). A point release, but the DESS fix matters to anyone running a Multi RS on Dynamic ESS.

Governor Wes Moore signed HB 1532 (the Utility RELIEF Act) on 12 May, putting Maryland's plug-in solar provisions on the books. Residential customers may run portable PV up to 1,200W per utility meter from 1 October; devices rated 391W or less are exempt from UL certification; systems above that must be UL-listed (or by an equivalent national lab). No utility fees, no interconnection process — but customers must notify their utility and may be required to pay for an automatic locking disconnect switch. Maryland is the fifth US state to legalise plug-in solar, days before Colorado's HB 26-1007 (1,920W cap) follows.

REDARC has its biggest North-American product week of the year. The RS3 pure-sine inverter range — 1200W, 2000W and 3000W with integrated automatic transfer switches, RV-C compatibility, and full output to 104°F — is now listed and priced on the US site, with the 3000W variant at $1,319. The RS3 family debuts at Overland Expo West in Flagstaff (15–17 May), alongside the new REDWorks pre-wired Power Panel range (Scout 25 to QuickFit 100A) and a stripped-down REDVision Essentials Display. The combined launch is REDARC's strongest US-installer pitch in years.

Ben Stein's LiFePO4 cycle-life test on the Panbo bench has passed 1,100 cycles on the original WattCycle 100Ah Mini and 500 cycles on a newly added Blue Heron 100Ah Extreme Series. WattCycle's degradation rate has slowed and projections now point at 3,000–4,000 cycles to 80 % SOH — well short of the 5,000-cycle marketing claim, but more than enough for serious marine use.

Battle Born published a technical note on 31 March arguing that the failures documented across forums, autopsies, and Will Prowse's bench are an intentional 'passive thermal fuse' that triggers around 85 °C. Will Prowse and RV-electricity's Mike Sokol have both responded — Prowse with a video disputing the framing, Sokol with a controlled load-bank test now under way.

Victron's new Microgrid solution lets separate, standalone inverter/charger installations synchronise on a shared AC bus using frequency droop — no communication cabling between units, no central controller, scalable to 400kW with existing MultiPlus and Quattro hardware.