question

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pinkish-panther asked

Orion Non-Isolated, but intstalled behind a battery isolator

This is not yet installed, before cutting existing wires I thought I'd reach out.

My boat has an isolator already installed to prevent bleeding between the 2 start batteries and the House/Leisure when the engine is not running. In this scenario I've assumed I would put the Orion between the Isolator and my house battery (intent is to protect my 70A alternators overheating with the new LiFePO4 battery)

My question is, will this be Ok? I assume the Orion will only power up when the engine is running since the input will not have power due to the isolation. I'm also thinking I can run a switched connection to the input side from the house battery to the input to allow configuration without running the engine. It would be switched off at all other times.

Of course this may not matter if the Orion is also able to draw power off the output side of its connection - I was unable to determine if this is the case with the documentation.

Thanks in advance!


orion-tr smart
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1 Answer
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pinkish-panther answered ·

So, with some trial and error I was able to get this working.

I also have a battery charger connected on the inside of my battery isolator, I left it there and cut the wire going from the isolator to the battery and put the Orion in that path. (Note that I had to use a 6 gauge wire for ground - I've seen that question in other places, without the thick wire voltage dropped and caused the Orion to cut out).

With the engine not running the Orion is powered off, however if I turn on the battery charger it will power up the Orion allowing configuration changes without starting the engine.

I've run a few cycles using the battery charger and it all seems to work, I won't be able to test with the engines until summer.

Hope this helps someone!

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