Looking for information if anyone has done or reasearched a 48V Pylontech install in a campervan. Particulary the alternator charging and grounding aspect.
Is the Orion-Tr Smart 12/48-8A Isolated DC-DC charger suitable for alternator charging? Does it produce enough higher voltage to charge the batteries? Does the Pylontechs BMS need a way to cutoff the Smart charger(like Victron BMS’es) or is there no issue?
How is the grounding aspect solved, to the vehicle chassie after the Smartshunt like a 12V system? Or should I stay away from chassi ground an run two wires to every appliance.
Surprised that more people havent done this, couldnt really find much information on it. Maybe there is a big no-no I’m missing?
Hi Stisler! No Victron specialist here, just fellow DIY/moral support. The specs of the charger you mention give numbers what should work perfectly fine.
What the specs don’t mention: 8A charging at 48V would be (roughly/at least) 32A draw @ 12V. I can’t find what the max allowed draw/input @12V is.
If that would be 8A too, then effectively this would mean max 2A at 48V charging side. I can’t give a good answer on the grounding question.
Around 30A draw at 12V makes sense, since it is a around 400W charger. Also I understand I can install a few of them paralel. So like a 200A alternator should handle ca 3-4 of them. Was just wondering if the voltage it produces is enough to charge a pylontech 48V battery and also does the pylontech need a way to cutoff charging or not.
Please check some video’s on YT about this. Your 200A alternator can do 200A, but usually not for very long. Drawing sustained 200A from it to charge a Lithium battery will almost certainly burn it up.
The charger can raise it’s output voltage to max 60V if needed, it will follow your settings. The pylontech will cutof if needed, just assuming the settings are correct of course. So no issue there. That said: There are some settings which you should get good info about (no expert myself) as you could enter a situation where the Pylon BMS cuts of due to max voltage limit, but your alternator is still charging; this could lead to voltage spikes If I recall correctly.
It may be important for you, or it may not, depending on the region you are in, Pylontech does not have a E certification, so they are not approved to be used in onroad vehicles, at least in europe.
Apart from that, its strongly recommended to use a GX device in your system, such as a Cerbo, which can actively communicate with the batteries BMS, and then use DVCC to control charge/discharge. You still need to set basic voltage levels, but ATC/ATD and charge currents will be handled by the battery BMS through communication automatically.
Other wise you can use the builtin ATC/ATD relays in each pylontech battery to soft-shutdown chargers/loads, before the BMS actually cuts the battery. The BMS cutting the battery off should never be your first choice, that should always be a third line of defense, after setting correct charge voltages and ATC/ATD soft-shutdowns.
Theres a Victron Pylontech manual, its focused on fixed installations, but the info is of course also valid for mobile installs
Oh yes, thats only the XS/1400. So OP would need to use the remote on/off then, and DVCC would not work on the Orions then, thats sad. Thanks for correcting
I have them both, 24/24 400W isolated and the XS 1400. I love the XS, but would have liked it even more if it was isolated too.
Apparently for efficiency reasons Victron opted for the non-isolated way.
@Stisler Regarding the question if it would be a big no-no, charging a 48V from a 12V alternator would mainly have the advantage that -when lithium battery is charged- you could use thinner cables from that battery to the inverter, and go for a higher power inverter. It reduces/halves the current per cell. Current (wattage) on alternator side is limited, or what you design it to be. Doubling the amount of voltage is a relative choice, with relative benefits. Doubling the amount of cells in another way, say two batteries in parallel, or just twice the size of cells, will give a comparable effect.
Thats what I was thinking, that 200A alternator has around 100A of safe capabilty. So 3-4 of the chargers would be 90-120A, which is around the safe zone.
The E-Certification is interesting. Maybe thats why there isnt many installations happening. I’m based in Europe.
What does it mean? Is it the ECE R10 marked thing? Because im pretty sure that many manufacturers do not have this cert. Especially some of the cheaper batteries on the market. Like Renogy, IdealAkku, Powerqueen etc
Yeah, i have planned a Cerbo into my system. But thats why I was asking about the Pylontech cutoff. I guess I could use a inverting on-off cabl, or what ever they are called.
Yes, the ECE marking. AFAIK Victron is the only manufacturer of 48V packs that has it, with its 51.2V NG lithium packs.
Personally id stay with 24V in a vehicle, yes you can use smaller wiring and fuses when using 48V, but charging from 12V is just one issue, theres also far fewer devices that can use 48V directly, making it necessary to again use a 48/12V, or 48/24V, converter. If you can use a 24V device directly, then you are not loosing energy on another conversion. 24V is also very common, both in industrial and vehicle use
I’m thinking I could get a whole lot of battery capacity for much less. If we say I use a mid range 12V battery, I could get like 200AH of lithium for around 1000-1200 eur. For the same price I could get two US3000C 3.5kw batteries which would add up to around 550AH of lithium. Not to mention I could use much thinner cables and also push my Multiplus to 5000 or even 8000 easily. On 12V it is not so safe, more amps plus a 95mm2 cable is not enough for the 5000 Multiplus, I would have to use 2x70 or 95 mm2 or what ever the manual says.
I get the point. On 24V there are more appliances etc. But thinking strictly in terms or AH per Euro, I could net so much more with 48V. Plus PylonTech is a well regarded manufacturer, as for 12 or 24V I would have to use a not so named manufacturers to actually acheive my battery target. With Victron it is obviusly even more expensive.
I choose the 24V route for my boat as in ‘the rest of the appliances are also 24V, so..” But in hindsight thought of the 48V option too. “could have used thinner cables / will draw less current”. Would have had to buy twice amount of cells, half the AH per cell to stay in same budget (but half sized Ah cells tend to be more expensive per Ah). More cells to connect (selfbuild battery), feed all the appliances other than Inverter with DC to DC converter 48v to 24v. mm, one big dc to dc converter? or more, one per apliance? After all, still content with my 24V choice with Quattro 24/5000. This said, 48V looks to be a growing market. I already found anchor winch and airco for 48v too..
Regarding the Pylontech US3000C, 3.5KWH should hold 3500/48=~73Ah cells. I just read someting about Pylontech update which made it possible to now draw 1.0C instead of just 0.8C. So with this update max currentdraw per box would be ~73A. so Max power draw will be 3500W per box (with 0.8C that would have been 2800W). Max. btw, they still advice 37A normal. (0.5C). So you would need quite a number of them for sustained 5KW or 8KW inverter