I'm doing a electric conversion on my boat, so ill have a large 30kw 48v bank for propulsion, and a smaller 8kw 12v bank for the rest on the boat.
The 48v bank charges from a victron multiplus2 48/5000/70, and I want to have a dcdc from 48v to 12v. But the Orion 48-12 isn't a dcdc charger, so I want to know if I can run a orion tr 48-12 to a mppt solar controller to charge the 12v
Both 48 and 12v are Lifepo4
You might get it to work with a 48/24 if such a beast exists. But the 48/12 definitely won't work, the input voltage will be too low.
I'm driving my boat on 48V. Single bank for both motor and house. Using three 48/12s for 12V loads. I think that if you manage correctly, a single bank will work fine. But I'm not in the water yet.
Would I be able to use a orion smart dcdc charger 12/12 instead of mppt?
FWIW - I am using an MPPT100/30 as a DCDC charger in my caravan fed from a 48V supply in the car. It is as a replacement for an Orion Smart 12/12/30 (that struggled with voltage drop on undersized cables). The 48V comes from a cheap 12-48V converter mounted in the car.
The setup works a treat and gets around all the problems with the Orion Smart - lack of current control, almost no monitoring, overheating and no VRM integration. The MPPT does everything - and much cheaper. And is a bonus extra solar input if needed.
The caution here - my MPPT is not directly connected to a battery - which can supply unlimited current. That could be risky for the MPPT as it scans for the MPP. My 12-48V converter acts as a current limiter and will never supply dangerous current because it has overload and short circuit protection built in.
I know Victron will frown on this - but it works.
Cheers
Phil
Agreed. The original question was about charging a 12V battery from a 48V source, so this won't be an issue.
My main point is to NOT do this with a direct connection to a 48V battery on the MPPT's PV side; make sure there is some sort of current limiting device between the battery and MPPT's input.
