I have recently fitted an Orion 12-12-30 non-isolated to charge my 150Ah LiFeO4 leisure battery. My campervan does not have a smart alternator.
In case it is relevant: The leisure battery is also connected to solar panels via a Tracer BN MPPT, which I know is functioning correctly (but I’m currently away somewhere with no contribution from the solar!). Both the MPPT and the Orion are connected to the positive leisure battery terminal via their own fuses.
When the engine is running, the Orion recognises the engine turning on correctly, and it very briefly runs in bulk mode, before switching to absorption mode, which I think is all normal. Which makes me think that the issue must be between the Orion and the leisure battery (?)
The voltage on the leisure battery never increases at all, no matter how long the engine is running.
The Orion is set to the default settings for Li ion batteries. I did also try bumping the absorption voltage up a little bit to see if that would have any effect but it didn’t.
Any troubleshooting ideas? The leisure battery isn’t getting any contribution from the solar at the moment. Its voltage has dropped to 11.9V so we are very close to having no power at all for the rest of our trip. Any help will be be very gratefully received!
Because the Bluetooth was showing the correct numbers, I thought it was charging correctly before the trip, but it is only now that we have started draining the leisure battery that it has become clear it isn’t charging.
Sadly we don’t have much in the way of tools with us, beyond screwdrivers and socket sets.
Would the Orion LED show as charging and would the voltages display correctly on the Bluetooth if the earth was no good?
I had (perhaps incorrectly?) assumed that the fact that the Orion green led shows charging and that the Bluetooth display looks ok would mean that the problem would be between the Orion and the leisure battery?
I’ve just tried disconnecting and reconnecting the Orion ground. As soon as it was disconnected, both Orion lights went out. When it was reconnected, the Bluetooth light came back on, and when the engine was turned on, the charging light came on.
Apologies for the slow reply but thought I would update in case anyone reads this when they have a similar issue in the future:
I wasn’t able to sort the problem out on our trip as I didn’t have the tools, spare wires, connections etc that I would need. So we made do with limited solar power by moving to a sunnier location and rationing our electricity use. Once we were back home, I was able to fix it and it is now charging correctly from the DC-DC charger.
The ground was the issue.
The leisure battery ground was connected to the chassis of the van, and the Orion DC-DC charger ground was connected to (a different point on) the chassis of the van. I changed it so that both the leisure battery and the Orion were connected to the same point on the chassis. This fixed it.
I don’t understand why this fixed it. I thought it should work fine as long they are both connected to the chassis. I don’t know why they both needed to be connected to the same place on the chassis but it’s fixed now so all is well that ends well.