question

al-ben avatar image
al-ben asked

Orion Smart 12/12-30 not charging during acceleration- Fiat Ducato 9

I’ve got a Fiat Ducato 9 (MJ2022) with start stop. During deceleration, the Orion Smart charger is activated since the voltage reach 14 V (I suppose due to regeneration of the start/stop generator). But during acceleration, the voltage comes down and charging is deactivated. I have seen a minimum voltage of 12.2V. Therefore, I tried in settings something with changing the shutdown voltage to 11V but the effect remains the same (besides, this wouldn’t be a proper solution). Does anyone know what are the settings for this vehicle to avoid a falsy engine shutdown detection?

Thanks & BR Ben


Edit: I changed the Input Voltage Lockout to 12 V and the charger kept on! The voltage of the vehicle in idle (stand-still) position toggled between 12.2 and 12.4 Volt. Status of charger was bulk phase. I’m a bit worried if this settings would lead to an empty starter battery some day but at least I can hold my charger in state on. What do you guys think???

orion-tr smart
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4 Answers
gbzeke avatar image
gbzeke answered ·

If the vehicle was stopped and turned itself off, then, of course, you were using the starter battery to run to Victron Orion DC charger. I would set up a switch to turn on the Orion only when you're on a trip and not in any kind of stop and go traffic. Although you set the cutoff at 12 volts, you could possibly run down and cause premature wear on the starter battery because it's not designed for that purpose.

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alexko avatar image
alexko answered ·

I have a similar problem. I connected the Victron Orion Smart input to the starting battery, and the output to the Lithium battery. It is possible to connect the input directly to the generator, but I do not have time to do this yet.

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

Victron have a document on setting this up

https%3A%2F%2Fwww.victronenergy.com%2Fupload%2Fdocuments%2FEngine-on-detection-set-up-Orion-Tr-Smart-DC-DC-Charger-EN.pdf

You need to set the shutdown above the idle voltage but below the voltage when engine is turned off.

Note the difference between lock out and shut down.

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cresser avatar image
cresser answered ·

I was having a similar problem. Make sure you have not connected the negative wire on the alternator side directly to the battery. Link below is what happened to me.

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/118548/orion-tr-smart-setup-advice-how-low-can-my-input-v.html?childToView=178728#answer-178728


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