Enclosed trailer outfitted with 24v SOK battery and victron gear including multiplus II, MPPT, Orion 24v to 12v converter, Ekrano, Dc to DC charger from vehicle to trailer, etc.
I am looking to add charging for my powersports batteries inside trailer. For example, maintain and charge snowmobile and atv batteries off the trailers 24volt battery thru victron components. Ideally I wanted capability for 4 battery banks because I have 4 powersports vehicles I would like to maintain batteries on.
If I installed a victron dc-dc charger/converter (24v to 12v) would it need to be an isolated charger in this use case scenario? Obviously the snowmobile and ATV 12v batteries are grounded to the vehicles frame. So I guess in theory this kind of makes it the same as charging from a tow vehicle with its own ground to trailer where they say isolated is ideal. Am I correct to assume that I would want isolated chargers in this instance?
I am also curious… say I wanted to use an XS1400 for the enhanced efficiency and reporting back to my Ekrano…. could I simply use a grounding bus bar and wire back my powersports battery charging leads negatives to this ground bar and then also connect that ground bar to the XS 1400 chargers ground (which also grounds back to trailer frame and 24v battery). This in essence grounds the atv and snowmobile 12v batteries directly to the trailers 24v victron system ground. Or is this a major no-no.
I am also contending with just going with an IP43 but then I am converting from 24v to 120v thru multiplus II then back to 12v obvious, so I am not sure how much extra power I would be wasting doing it this way, versus the 24v to 12v dc method. This trailer with almost never be on shore power with solar or DC charge from vehicle being the only means of input power to that 24 volt battery most of the time. The IP43 has a 3 bank model, but I think I would still be short a bank…. a bit confused whether that 3 bank model can also power the 4th lower output lead as well.
Keep in mind that all dual and triple output chargers from victron use just one common charge stage for all two/three outputs, meaning they all output the same voltage together. They are not individual chargers in a single enclosure.
As for the XS1400 negative, you would essentially create a config like its shown in section 3.3, an input battery (24V), an output battery (12V) and a negative connecting both systems. Wheter that negative is one common busbar or split into two doesnt really matter, the key point is that they are the same negative. I assume you plan to use a single XS1400 to charge all four vehicles in parallel? Then its essentially the same as mentioned above, there will be only a single charge voltage across them all. Not necessarily an issue, but could be depending on the chemistry and SOC of those batteries. Ideally you would use one charger per battery, but that gets expensive.
To the isolation, i dont think its necessary in this example. The vehicles are loaded/enclosed by the trailer, so its likely that they already share a common negative simply by touching eachother. I also see no benefit of keeping them isolated. One exception could be if a vehicle uses a positive ground, but thats very uncommon nowadays.
That is a shame they use a common charge state. I did not know that, i figured it would manage each bank independently.
I would not be using a single XS1400 to charge all four vehicles in parallel. I think it is best to have each charging bank independent, this way the charger can charge each battery “better”. It can see each batteries voltage and charge state. I think I risk potentially overcharging and other issues if I tried to charge all three batteries as a whole in parallel. They are all different capacities etc. So I agree with you that ideally one charger per battery. However, if I did the xs1400 method, its gonna be quite expensive, just like you mention. Looks like an orion-tr smart 24/12-20 could get the job done, for a lot less cost however it doesn’t have VE direct and is less efficient with less features.
As for the isolation, I am not sure, and I hear what you are saying that they might already share a common ground simply by touching. The trailer floor is wood however and then covered in a plastic decking material. The ATV’s tires are rubber as are the snowmobile tracks… so I can’t imagine there is any real earth ground on these vehicles. The frame of them acts as the earth ground.
Sadly a common mistake, one that ive also walked into myself. Same for Orion non-Smart not being chargers but simply power supplies, also very common mistake.
For the batteries its surely better to use individual chargers.
I dont see the need for isolation, but you can do either. If you use isolated Orions, then theres the possibility that the negatives might still be common due to metal on metal contact, but that should not be an issue in of itself. If you use unisolated, then you can at least be certain.
Ok, so I guess the dual/triple output chargers are out of the question now and I did see the non-smart orions are essentially just power supplies so those are out. Looks like the Orion-TR Smarts do not have a storage charging mode, so I am taking them off my list. Ideally I’d like direct communication with the Ekrano, which limits me to ve.direct models, however output current needs to be adjustable to like 2amp rates as ATV has 5ah batteries and I can’t do that on a 120v charger like the IP43 and the IP22 and 65 don’t have VE. Direct. The IP43 is right up there in price with XS1400. Boy this is really becoming difficult to find solution.
My assumption is VE smart charger like the IP22 can’t communicate directly with the Ekrano, which means I can’t view the IP22 remotely?
Officially the IP22s dont have VE.direct, but if remember correctly the PCB has a header which is VE.direct and it even communicated with a Cerbo, but it was someone elses experiment, so i dont know any details. It was presented either here or on the old forum