So recently installed an Orion XS and BMV-712 into my boat. The Orion is hooked to my AGM starting battery and set to charge my 230aH Litime lithium house. Ideal charging profile for the lithium is 14.4v for absorption/bulk and 13.55v for float. Full charge per the specs is 13.33v. The alternator for the main motor hooked to the starting battery puts out 50 amps at idle and 150 amps at high rpms. Here are the settings I used:
Input Voltage Lockout: 12.6v
Absorption Voltage: 14.4v
Float Voltage: 13.55v
Storage Voltage: 13.55v
Start Voltage: 14.00v
Delayed Start Voltage: 13.3v
Delayed Start Delay: 120 seconds
Voltage Shutdown: 13.00
Input Current: 40amps
Output Current: 20 amps
Everything is correctly hooked up and when I start the boat, I initially see the Charger charging at around 13.55volt and the 712 showing amperage going into the battery. Then after a couple minutes, the house battery voltage drops to 13.30 and the amperage on the 712 shows negative. Since “full charge” on the lithium is 13.33v, it looks like the charger is just shutting off. Input voltage from the starting battery remains consistent at 14.3v.
The really weird part is that while the main motor is running, in the ap it shows that the charge is in absorption mode and is putting out 14.4volts with no amps, however the 712 shows different that no charging is happening. I confirmed the 712 is correct with a multi meter. So it seems the Orion is thinking that its charging but it’s not.
Any idea? I forgot to get actual screen shots and can next time I run the boat, but I did document all my settings.
I used Busman 60 amp resettable breakers on both the inlet and outlet sides of the Orion XS. Neither is tripped. I used 4 gauge wire for both positives and the negative for the Orion. What other broken or disconnected wires would there be? I’ve verified that the BMW712 is measuring correctly with a seperate multi meter.
It just seems like the charger is skipping the Bulk mode and going straight to absorption. But the absorption light is on, but there’s not amps flowing. I have firmware 1.06 and will do an update to 1.08 and restore factory default settings tonight. Then go back and manually enter my settings.
All the ground’s from the starting, house and Orion XS are connected directly to the same ground buss.
I will measure the voltages and resistance tonight. Question, I can’t put the boat in the water today but am I fine hooking an AC DC charger directly to the starting battery only and then turning the system on to perform some checks? As long as the output of the ACDC charger is more than the input for the Orion? Or is there a better way to perform checks without running the outboard motors?
So i struggled getting the system to work when i hooked a 50 amp ac dc charger to the starting battery. The problem was as soon as the Orion XS would kick on and start charging, the charger would bypass Bulk and go straight to absorption. After messing with it for awhile, if i switched it to power supply, let it sit for awhile, then switch back to charger i could make the Bulk restart. I also found a lose connection and after tightening it it seemed like bulk cycle would stay on longer.
In general, what causes the charger to skip bulk even when the house battery its charging is not even 90% charged?
So i think part of the problem was the input voltage was going to 15 volts from the charger. Are you saying that a 15+volt input voltage will trigger the charger to go directly into absorption? The voltage difference between the output of the orion xs and battery itself is only .02 volts.
The alternator on the outboard itself only goes to 14.3 volts.
Also, im running 1.06 firmware and there is no option in the victron connect ap to upload 1.08? Any ideas?
Hi. Forgot to follow up. It ended up being a loae connection on the outlet side of the XS. I re checked all the connections and retightend and everything works great. Charger primarily stays in bulk mode while all my electronics are running so voltage is great.
Thanks