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jmf27614 asked

Lockout Voltage is activated prior to Shutdown voltage (Orion T-Smart Dc-Dc isolated) when ignition is turned off

We have installed the Orion T-Smart DC-DC charger (isolated) with Remote Key on-off. (Diagram (a) in Ch. 4.4 in the manual). The values are Alternator=Regular, Engine Shutdown Start Voltage/Shutdown are respectively: 14V/13.5V. The values for Lockout Voltage/Restart are respectively: 13.0V/13.3V. When ignition starts, Bulk or Absorption charge starts after the input voltage reaches 14V. When the ignition is turned off, it continues charging until the input voltage drops to 13.0V, (Output is still 14.2V) when Charging is turned OFF ("disabled due to Input voltage lock-out"). Almost immediately after that, the message shown is "disabled due to Input voltage lockout, Engine shutdown detected". Why is the Engine shutdown not recognized at 13.5V as indicated in the Shutdown values? (The Shutdown switch is enabled). Thanks!

orion-tr smart
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veryactivelife answered ·

Here are two things to consider in helping to understand what is happening. The first is that engine detection voltage shutdown voltage must be reached for 60 seconds before shutdown will take place. This allows charging to continue when there is a momentary dip below the shutdown voltage. The second thing is that the lockout function is used to protect the battery from being drained below a set voltage as in the case where engine detection is not enabled. It sounds like your voltage is dropping down to 13V setting before the 60 seconds are up and causing the lockout.

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Engine-on-detection-set-up-Orion-Tr-Smart-DC-DC-Charger-EN.pdf

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jmf27614 answered ·

Thanks for your explanation. I believe you're correct about the timing. I plugged in a Battery Tender to the cigarette lighter outlet to trickle charge the Chassis battery. Once the voltage reached 13.3V (The Lockout Restart Voltage) the message changed to "disabled due to Engine shutdown detected". So my next question is; how does the Orion detect engine shutdown? Purely by voltage? Or is it dependent upon the ignition switch? I'd like to charge the chassis battery using an external battery charger (with the engine off) - so what happens then when the battery voltage exceeds the shutdown start voltage? Does it start charging the house batteries as well? We have the ignition ground wire attached to the "L" pin and the ignition live wire attached to the "H" pin. There is no wire-bridge attached as shown in figure 4, the setup looks like figure 3(a) in the manual.

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veryactivelife avatar image veryactivelife commented ·

Connecting the Orion-tr Smart to the ignition is redundant. The L and H pins are intended for a manual remote switch. When engine detection is enabled this is what turns the charger on and off.

Putting a battery tender on the starter battery will increase the voltage enough to start the charger. You can override this by simply turning the charger off in the app. A remote switch as mentioned in the previous paragraph will also disable the charger. In my setup I put a switchable circuit breaker at the starter battery which can disconnect the charger from the starter battery. I prefer disabling it in the app so that the charger continues to monitor the voltage at the starter battery and I can easily see the starter battery voltage.

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jmf27614 avatar image jmf27614 veryactivelife commented ·

I'm going to cut and paste the answer to the other question I posted here as they are related. Basically the fix for this question was also the fix for my other question. We found the documentation on the remote on/off very confusing (as did others given the number of questions I reviewed that were similar.

I have answers to my questions.

a) The only requirement for the remote input on/off (ie. switching the Orion charger off when the ignition is off) is to wire the H-pin with the ignition switch wire from the Trombetta (the blue/yellow one). Wiring the ground wire (brown one) to the L-pin in addition to the ignition switch wire causes a mal-function of the Engine Shutdown/Remote Input On/Off function as described above. It also causes an issue when charging the chassis battery with an external source as the charger will still turn on even when the ignition is off.

We proved this by testing.

1. Prior to removing the ground wire I ran a battery-tender using house battery power to the chassis battery via the cigarette lighter socket. Once the voltage reached the shutdown start voltage (14V) the Orion switched onto Absorption charge and then immediately shut off (probably due to current/voltage surge). The voltage dropped and then started rising again. Having proved that the Remote Input was not working as expected, we then:

2. Removed the ground wire from the L-pin, leaving the ignition wire attached to the H-pin. Then retested. Once the Orion reached shutdown start voltage, it switched to Absorption mode. When shutting off the engine using the ignition switch, the display showed OFF "disabled due to Remote Input inactive", followed by OFF "disabled due to Engine Shutdown detected", followed by OFF "disabled due to both input voltage lockout and engine shutdown detected." This is the expected behavior.

3. We then attached an exterior charger to the Chassis battery to charge it. Once the voltage reached 14V, the display showed OFF "charge is disabled due to Remote input inactive". Again, this is the expected behavior.

Hopefully, this will be helpful to anyone trying to upgrade their Trombetta solenoid with a Victron Orion Tr-Smart 12/12-30 Charger for a 2019 Thor Siesta (or other Sprinter RV which has a regular alternator). Our purpose was to ensure that the alternator and/or Solenoid didn't burn up when we swapped out our Lead Acid batteries for Lithium.

The system is now working perfectly and I'm very happy with the Tr-Smart charger.

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