Hi - I have two Orion XS chargers connected to my service battery in parallel.
After installing everything I discovered (due to my oversight) that they are seeing the house load as part of the battery current because I don’t have a discreet current sensor in the Orion feedback loop. This means they are staying in Absorption mode for way, way too long and cooking my batteries.
I am working around it in the short term by setting it to timed mode so that it only does absorption for 4hours max, and if my nightly cycle isn’t that deep I’m manually setting it to a low absorption voltage so it doesnt leave them in absorption for too long. This is obviously very tedious.
My existing current sensor is a Nasa Marine battery monitor with no way to output to the chargers.
In the manual for the Orion XS is shows a Smart Shunt, which I assume is the preferred way to get the battery current in to the feedback loop to allow adaptive charging.
My questions:
It shows a VE Direct connection from the Smart Shunt to the Orion XS - but I have two Orion XSs… how does that work? Is there a daisy-chain VE Direct Cable available?
Do I even need the cable if the smart shunt is bluetooth enabled, and I put them all on the same VE Smart Network?
One thing to note: I went with two Orion XSs so that I could power my windlass from the alternators - i.e. get a full 100A through instead of just 50.
I’m getting LiFePO4 batteries in a month, and I’m working on a setup that will let me just drop in the new batteries without changing my solar controller or alternator regulators.
Hi
To monitor the consumption and recharging of the battery, you need to install a battery monitor; the BMV 712 is perfect for this, it is compatible with lead and lithium or a smartshunt if the screen is not necessary.
It will have to be installed between the battery and everything else.
I don’t know if you have a Cerbo GX, it would be the ideal solution to manage everything in DVCC
Where Im located I can only get a BMV 700… if I connect the VE Direct Cable to one Orion, will the other one get the battery current over the VE network?
Hi , an automatic measurment and switch on /of of orion would be the best option.
I did a setup with wifi 4 chanel switch and power on manualy the secondary orion withe remote wifi key .
yes a BMV 700 is OK; the only difference between the 2 is the bluetooth configuration ; after that you just have to connect it to the cerbo GX so that it processes the information.
No, it seems like a bad idea to me; especially to power the same circuit; both must be in charger mode and synchronized; thanks to the shunt installed in the DVCC system of the Cerbo GX, the system will automatically adjust the charger charging current in the event of consumption during charging.
