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aldervai avatar image
aldervai asked

Caravan PMS Compatibility with Lithium

Hi folks,

My first post having bought quite a bit of Victron stuff in the past. It's all been great so I haven't had a need to explore forums.

However, I have recently upgraded my new campervan to a lithium battery setup, with the Orion 12/30 DC charger. The existing setup is this Power Management System, that routes the power from the battery to the various systems, whilst also providing fuse and rcd breakers.

The system has a 240v input from shore power, that can run wired 240v sockets inside the camper, but also charge the battery if the charger switch is enabled.

My question is, can I use this with a lithium battery? I know the Orion is good for lithium, which is great, but I'm unsure about this. Also, I've installed a Phoenix inverter which I have wired to a separate internal 240v socket.

Would I have to change to a Multiplus and then have a separate control panel instead? Thoughts and opinions very welcome. Thanks.



bonuspms3campercharger-3589181249.jpg
Lithium Battery
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6 Answers
matt1309 avatar image
matt1309 answered ·

I imagine it will depend what the control panel is doing. Is the control panel is simple turning on other devices? ie turning on an inverter or charge controller (charger like the orion). Then as long as those external devices support lithium then i imagine you're fine. However if the management system itself is doing the charging then you'd likely need to check the manual to see if you can edit the charge profile of the device to work with lithium batteries.


If it's able to take shore power and charge a battery to me that implies that it's doing some charging itself so you'll need to tweak the charge criteria to work with lithium. However if the way it's doing that is by simply turning on an external charger. Then just double check that external charger.

I know the Multiplus has the functionality you're referring to but nothing to say this PMS can't be used with your current setup just have to check how it works.

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nigely avatar image
nigely answered ·

I have one of these pms 3 units in my camper when I fitted a lithium battery a caravan electrician advised disconnecting the internal charger and fitting a separate charger bought a Victron charger which is wired directly to the battery and plugs in to the mains socket. there is a spare Trip in the 240v side but that’s for the future.

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aldervai avatar image
aldervai answered ·

Thanks for the great info guys! Yeah, it's an internal charger and I'm not sure it's able to be modified. So my option is either to add a separate charger for offshore power and disconnect the PMS units charger, or change my Phoenix inverter to a multiplus, and remove the panel altogether, replacing it with a Lynx distributor. Let's see how many shekels are in the bank account. Thanks again!

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nigely avatar image
nigely answered ·

Just a thought the internal charger works of one of the breakers so just turn it off for now. The PM's unit is nice to have as it contains the 12v fuses for the auxiliaries and switches to isolate everything.

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aldervai avatar image
aldervai answered ·

Alrighty, an update from Roamer, the lithium battery company, says this is good to go. He said it will charge slowly from shore power but will get the job done at no risk to the battery. So no need to change things out!


Here are the charger specifications from the PMS. I'll get it all hooked up and will update with my findings in a while. Thanks.

img-9921.jpeg


img-9921.jpeg (140.6 KiB)
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barrywike avatar image
barrywike answered ·

Any update on this? Interested to do the same thing myself.

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