question

Andrew Ford avatar image
Andrew Ford asked

Why is the Orion performance so poor?

I've been a big fan of victron stuff for ages now and get great performance from my small 100/20 mppt smart solar.

I've installed an Orion 12-12/18 in my camper trailer to charge our AGM battery bank while on the road.

When it first turns on, I get about 16a but this rapidly decreases to about 8a. This is having a big impact on the state of charge at the end of the day's driving.

Anyway, I've read the other threads and am aware of the derating at high temps. I can't really monitor the temps while on the road so opened up the battery compartment and give it the touch test. I wouldn't say it felt hot, or even warm before the charge current dropped down.

There's a real lack of useful information in the connect application. Very vague.

It's all cables with 16mm² cable and the fact it runs well for the first few seconds makes me think something else is up.

Could it be a configuration problem or do they just derate at very low temps?

I'm pretty miffed about it. The lack of ve networking doesn't help matters. All round I think the Orion range fails to meet expectations but would love some insight into possible fixes.

orion dc-dc
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4 Answers
kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

Please post screen shots of the settings and the first page when in low charge mode.

What batteries is it charging and what are the manufacturer charge settings?

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Andrew Ford avatar image
Andrew Ford answered ·

Screenshot_2023-03-27-08-24-53-01_30b6efbd53acd6f273baafa7ca03da38.jpg

The batteries are Volta VT12100 100ah batteries x 3 in parallel.

https://www.marketdirect.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/image-1-100-Ah-AGM-Battery.jpg

Cycle use 14.6-15.0v

screenshot-2023-03-27-10-34-20-53-30b6efbd53acd6f2.jpg


Very hard to monitor what's going on in real time due to poor bluetooth transmission from the camper to our vehicle cab. Looking at the trends, it seems to settle around 10a.

Is it possible to get any info from the orion around WHY it is putting out so little current, like is it too hot? It would be fantastic if it included this information on the screen.


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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

If you click on the cog, top right, you'll get to the settings I requested. Need to see the first page, battery settings and possibly engine shutdown detection.

Orions don't display current, you need a battery monitor for that, sorry. If you have access to a current clamp meter, it would be interesting to see the current.

Is the Orion getting warm or hot?

If the signal is weak, please get someone to run the tow vehicle while you connect from inside the trailer.

Initial guess is that the battery settings are wrong. But input voltage is lower than expected, might not be enough power getting to the Orion. Could be smart alternator or high resistance between the alternator and Orion.

Is the MPPT working at the same time? Should be. It would be good to see the figures from that.

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Andrew Ford avatar image
Andrew Ford answered ·

The very first link in my post should show the settings. It would fail every time I tried to embed it. I don't know why.

I know they don't display current. My comment is more about how ridiculous it is that they do not.

It's also ridiculous that it doesn't display temperature if it's so finicky about it. It does get warm but I wouldn't say hot. How hot is too hot? Impossible to tell because it gives you no data.

It's not a smart alternator. All wire from alternator to Orion is 16mm². I'll get the multimeter out and check resistance. What would be acceptable?

The mppt works fine. I generally don't run them together but am installing a new panel that will hopefully charge while we are on the road and or parked. With camper folded up.

Mppt is connected to a folding 160w panel. It regularly hits 160w. Never had a problem with that. I used the same charging settings for the Orion as I did with the mppt as they had worked well.

Thanks for your help


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