hello all, I have a yacht that has a standard lead acid battery and a 280ah lifpro eco worthy house battery, the lifpro is charged via solar with victron controllers and 230 v charger. all good while on shore or off shoer in the sun but i want to charge the lifpro from the alternator with my engine start battery. I had planned to use the Victron Energy Smart BMS 12/100 but have now found that it only works with Victron batterys, is there any other Victron products that will work ?
The orion DC to DC or the orion XS is designed for alternator charging.
Brilliant Thanks, I did look at that but wasnt sure it would work, just read the whole download manual Seems obvious now 
Thanks again
Hello again one last question before i buy this been looking at Victron Energy Orion XS 12/12-50A DC-DC Battery Charger My alternator is 100a not sure if it will take that as its a 50a output ? other than that it will be fine
You could always put two in parallel…
But bear in mind that most “100A” alternators don’t like supplying rated current for long periods of time, they overheat and can burn out – they’re really designed for charging LA batteries where the current drops off relatively quickly as they charge, not LFP batteries which will happily accept lots of current right up to 100% SoC.
If you do put two Orions in parallel to allow 100A charging, you really need to put a temperature sensor on the alternator to cut back current (e.g. turn one Orion off) when it gets too hot.
Usually an alternator is sized to do the job for the already existing ecosystem of the vehicle it is in.
For the most part adding an Orion means either not switching on some auxiliary items while charging or upgrading the alternator.
And no 100A alternator has other jobs so don’t add two DC chargers to it to take full advantage of it.
More than likely you will need the Orion XS so you can tune it down (on its input current limit) to match what your alternator can provide on top of its own business.
If you open up victron connect you can play with a demo product to learn some of its features.
An alternator rated 100A has to charge the start battery and maybe also run some lights, fuel pump, instruments, radios etc when the engine is running so it will not have 100A of headroom for charging the house battery as well. At idle or low rpm, it may struggle to produce the full rated current.
The Orion XS will charge in parallel with your solar charger so you also need to ensure that the combined charge current from both can’t exceed the house battery’s max. permissible charging current when you’re motoring in sunny weather. I would stick with a single 50A Orion XS.
BTW I am assuming your start and house batteries are both 12V? It gets a little more complicated if voltages are mixed.
You also have the option to upgrade your alternator if you want to charge at more than 50A.
thanks Yes all 12 volt My house is a 28a Lifpro4 by Eco worthy and can take a big charge but i only charge at max 50a anyway solar puts in about 12 a. Sounds like it will all work I may get the Victron Energy Orion XS 1400 to give me a larger voltage if needed