Settings for Orion XS1400 @50A to deal with input current lower than 50A

DIY
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1

I am finalising a new system on a twin engined boat and trying to get my head around the Orion XS 1400 DC-DC aspects. A lot of detail below but I thought it might help.

Gist of my question is how to ensure the 50A Orion XS 1400 DC-DC charger doesn’t deplete the boat start bank (input side) when there is less than 50A coming into the start bank (which will be the case more often than not), and whether I should be worried about constant cycling if it starts and stops based on voltage.

Components

17.5kVA generator (existing)

2x engine start banks. AGM @ 24v (existing).

2x engine 60A alternators (existing) – may change to larger alternator for house bank, but that is not straightforward for various reasons. Each feeds one 24v start bank.

1000ah @24v lithium house bank - new

Victron Quattro 24/8000-200 - new, for house bank.

Victron Centaur Charger 24/60-3 - new, for each start bank and generator start battery.

2x Victron XS1400 50A @ 24v - new

Cerbo GX MK2 - new

Principal charging for the time being will be periodic generator running, supplemented by alternators via DC-DC when underway. It would be a rare situation when generator and engines running simultaneously, but it could happen, e.g. when running water maker or very heavy loads.

My question relates to settings for the Orion XS DC-DC chargers which are rated to 50A but will often have less than 50A going into the start bank (which is their ‘input’ side).

I want them to work when main engines on and/or when generator is on.

60/3 Charger (i.e. when generator is running) will only put max 30A into each start bank.

Alts will be de-rated a bit and put in around 40A at higher RPM and less at slow cruise into each start bank. Output current on Orions will at least be limited to de-rated alt current.

I’ve heard conflicting messages about whether the Orion XS can sense input current and adjust output current accordingly, or whether you still set input charge start and end voltages, delays, etc. I think it is the latter, in which case (assuming I don’t set the max current of the DC-DC chargers to 30A) should I be worried about the fact I will necessarily be cycling the batteries when charging on the generator, and often doing so when at idle RPM via the alternator?

If so, one option would be to use the 60/3 charger relay as an input to the Cerbo GX to trigger a rule to set max charge on the Orions to 30A when that is the charge source for the start banks, and live with the alternator issue (which presumably is an issue for all DC-DC chargers connected to a start bank)?

Any comments gratefully accepted.

Thanks in advance.

2

How should the Orion detect the current from the alternator? You would need a sensor for that.

It can only sense the input voltage and depending on your settings it will reduce the output current if the input voltage drops.
That’s described in the manual and you also can use the demo library in VictronConnect to take a look at the available settings.

3

The Orion has a setting for the input current limit so if you wanted you could set the input current limit to say 35A. You can always use VictronConnect app in demo mode to explore what settings are available.

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4

Thanks - this has confirmed my suspicion that it could not read input current and adjust (notwithstanding what I had been told), although I did wonder if it could get that from the other Victron charger in relation to what it was outputting? Ideally I wouldn’t limit it to 35A because there is a use scenario in which each alt will be putting out 50A or so in which case I want to use it all the available capacity of the XS1400.

I can use a relay from the 60/3 charger and have the Cerbo limit the XS1400 to 30A when relying on the 60/3 charger, which then leaves me with the choice of accepting the cycling at alternator idle speeds and having the benefit of more charge at higher RPMs, which presumably must be a reasonably common scenario?

Thanks again.

5

Then the system falls back to the input voltage control pointed out by M_Lange which will regulate the current to stop the engine battery from being depleted.