I have a ford transit custom van with a euro 6 engine/ smart alternator. I want the orion to start charging my leisure batteries automatically once the engine is running and to stop once the engine is turned off. What settings will I need to set? I have three 100AH lithium Batteries.
Hello @Phasor, please see the Orion-Tr Smart User Manual for the answers to your questions; pages 1,2, and 3 directly address your use-case although of course you should also read the rest of the manual as well.
Thank you Justin. I have read through the manual. Is it as simple as setting a turn on voltage and turn off voltage I do not want to use any connection to the ignition. do i set the input voltage lock-out or use the engine detection voltage settings or both?
regards,
Phasor
@Phasor, you'll use the engine detection voltage settings - set the voltage appropriately so that the unit will turn on and start charging when your engine is running, and will shut down when it is not. For an average 12v alternator/start battery system, I would consider setting the "on" voltage around ~13.6v and the off voltage around ~13.2v.
I have a Ford Ranger with Smart Alternator and it seems to maintain the start battery at 80% due to the regenerative charging. I suspect the Transit may be the same.
In order to charge my lithium battery correctly, I have set Engine shutdown detection on my Orion-TR Smart at 12.6V and restart at 12.7V.
@theotherphil, on one hand, if it works for you then certainly go for it... on the other hand, those settings are highly inadvisable for a couple of reasons:
1. Your shutdown and restart voltages are both below the natural resting voltage of your battery, so you're draining your start battery after your engine is off; and
2. You should set your restart voltage several tenths higher than your shutdown voltage because vbatt will rebound after the load of the Orion is removed, thus causing the Orion to restart if the restart voltage is too close to the shutdown voltage, so you'll be getting a series of off-on-off-on-off cycles that are unnecessary.
Transit alternators generally put out ~13.6v - 14.4v, so to ensure that the Orion isn't on and draining the start battery when the motor is off, shutdown voltage should be around 13.2v and restart voltage should be around 13.6v.
Thanks for the reply Justin but your assumption is that the transit is using a traditional alternator setup, when in fact it is a Euro 6 spec and is using a smart alternator setup. My Ford Ranger is an Australian 2014 model and has Smart Charge and regenerative braking where the ECU maintains a 80% SOC...the start battery is never charged to 100%. There are good periods of time when driving where the alternator isn’t running at all (I have seen 11.8V indicated when using forscan hooked into the OBD port). The Transit is based on the Ranger platform and is also using this technology as it is part of the Euro 5 and Euro 6 emissions standards.
”Regenerative braking is only effective if the starter battery has some spare storage capacity to absorb the charge created by the alternator during deceleration. If the starter battery was fully charged the electrical energy created would be wasted and so the ECU aims to maintain the battery at around 80% state of charge (low enough to have spare storage capacity but high enough to guarantee engine starting if required).”
https://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/auxiliary-battery-charging-in-vehicles-with-smart-alternators.html
Using the default settings on the Victron meant that while the Orion-TR Smart started charging on cranking, it would shutdown approx 10mins into my drive.
Immediately after shutting down my engine, my start battery is at 12.7V. The Orion-TR Smart switches off within 2mins of engine shutdown.
This is a pic of the Forscan app showing 79% SOC immediately after engine shutdown...
And this is the Victron Connect App showing starter voltage 2mins after engine shutdown...
