Victron Orion XS 50 amp B2B charger

[Lunatic]

Installed Orion XS 50Amp DC to DC charger a couple of weeks ago (thanks for all your help!). Seemed to work flawlessly until today. When leisure battery was below 80% it charged at 40+ amps and 500-600 watts. When the battery was 80+ % the charging slowed down as expected. Engine off – Orion off. Perfect.

Today it was strange. Although battery stated it was 67% on the Victron BMS, the Orion would only charge at 200 watts and about 15 amps. The unit was not warm.

I have an NC3 V6 Sprinter from 2008 and have used the “Regular” alternator setting. I have a voltmeter plugged into cigarette lighter to see starter voltage (when running and when off). Voltage goes up nicely when engine running.

As another test, on the Orion APP, I disabled the “Engine shutdown detection”. Immediately, the charge went up to 600 watts and 45 amps. One error I did get was the “Engine shutdown detection”.

The leisure battery is new and when it was first 100% charged, I set the Victron Smart BMV battery setting to “Synchronize SOC to 100%. I notice today that the Smart BMV reading jumped from 67% to over 90% for no apparent reason. I have thought of resetting the “Synchronize SOC to 100%” again once I have fully charged the battery at home.

Any help would be appreciated, as we are off on a big trip in 10 days.

Seems like the Orion is working as it should but something wrong with a setting??

Thanks in advance. Ian

[pwfarnell]

On the Orion check all your cables to make sure nothing has vibrated loose, especially on the input and ground. A loose input or ground cable will cause the Orion to see a lower voltage at the input and reduce charge current. Use a multimeter to check the start battery voltage is the same as on the Orion input terminals when charging. You could check your plug in voltmeter against the VictronConnect app, but best to use one device.

For help on BMV settings see

Battery monitor jumping to 100% or reporting a high SOC with low Volts / the BMS shuts down

This topic covers the reported SOC being out of sync with the actual battery voltage or state. It covers BMV battery monitors, SmartShunts, Lynx BMSs and Lynx Shunts and will just be called shunt below. It is also assumed that the shunt is monitoring the domestic / house / cabin battery bank and not engine start / bow thruster / winch / caravan mover battery banks. The problems may be one or more of the following and is often linked to mobile applications with small solar systems. The SOC jum…

[Lunatic]

Great information, thanks! I am a beginner with all this, so will need some help please. Here is what I have in my system:

1. New 180AH lithium LIPO 4 battery

2. Victron smart blue charger

3. Victron MPPT 20/100 solar charger with 160 watt portable solar panel.

4. Victron Orion XS 50AMP DC to DC charger

5. Victron BMS

There are many settings on all these units and want to make sure they all charge the battery 100%. I have set the MPPT, Orion and Smart blue mains charger to the Lithium LIPO setting. I do not see where or how you set the BMS to LIPO battery setting?

My suspicion is that the BMS thinks the battery is at 100% when it is nowhere near 100%. I am considering charging the battery overnight using the plug in smart blue charger and then tomorrow morning manually setting the “State of charge” on the BMS battery screen to 100%. Would that do the trick? Attached are a couple of screen shots from the BMS and the Orion. I set the Orion to “Smart alternator” as with the normal alternator setting the shutdown voltage seemed high?

When the LIPO battery is fully charged at 100%, what should the voltage read? 13.4 or more?

If someone can suggest changes to these settings to make the units work together better and maximize the charge on the leisure battery, I would really appreciate it!

Thank you. Ian

[chrigu]

Are these current (as of today) settings? Because in your first post you mentioned that you set the engine running detection to regular alternator, which would be correct for your vehicle/its age. But now your back on smart alternator.
Im not completely sure how the Orion XS behaves on regular alternator mode, but on smart alternator mode it will gradually decrease the charge current once it hits the stop voltage. In essence, the stop voltage will be held steady, by lowering the charge current. Make sure that the input voltage stays above that.
Now the charge current can also be limited due to the output voltage, if it raises, then this means the battery is getting full.
Or it could be a connection issue, both on input and output side. Check the cabling, crimps, fuses

Now for the shunt, i assume your absorption voltage in the chargers (Orion XS, MPPT and 230V charger) are all set to 14.4V, then the charged detection voltage of 14.2V, or absorption voltage minus 0.2V, would be correct. Thats the most important setting for a correct SOC reset.
Adjust the peukert to 1.05 and charge efficiency to 99% since you are using lifepo.
Should the shunt now reset to 100% too early, then adjust the tail current down. Its currently at 4%, and with a capacity set at 180AH, this means an effective tail current of 7.2A.

If the charge current falls below that (while the voltage is above charge detection voltage and for the charged detection time) then the SOC is reset to 100%.
Now 7,2A could be a bit high. Try it out, if it is, then adjust down to 3%, then try again, repeat. Ultimately not very crucial, if the tail current is too high then that simply means that the reset to 100% happens too early, but rather a bit early that not at all (if the charged detection voltage is too high)

In general, check your charge settings, most of the time, you can lower both absorption and float voltages, and max absorption time. Since any one of the available charge sources will be available almost daily, you could lower the max absorption time to maybe 15min, also look into adaptive absorption.

[pwfarnell]

You state a 180Ah battery and Victron BMS. That is not specific enough, exactly what type of battery. Secondly, what you call a BMS is sctually a battery monitor, not a BMS (Battery Management System) which controls the battery and shuts the system down if there are problems.

The battery will arrive around 45-50% SOC but the battery monitor will start at 100% because it does not know any better until it is fully charged for the first time. Knowledgeable users will manually set the SOC to 50% on a new battery. It does not need telling it is lithium.

There are comprehensive manuals for each device, these should be read thoroughly to understand things. Go yo victronenergy.vom and choose products and drill down till you get to the manuals.

Roughly, a lithium battery at rest will be around 13.5V full and 13.2V at 50%.

[Lunatic]

I am sorry everyone, but I am new to this and find it all very complicated. Thanks and to clarify.

1. Victron BMV 712 Smart is the unit installed at the battery.
2. Battery is a Kepworth 180AH LIPO 4 battery. Image attached.

I will review the notes above and manuals for the BMV 712 and Orion. I will also change the setting on the Orion to “Regular alternator”. I have confirmed that the starter battery current (Voltmeter) is the same as is showing as INPUT on the Orion XS, so no connection issues?

Would anyone be prepared to assist via a WHATSAPP call? If so, that would be great.

Thanks, Ian

[pwfarnell]

Looks like a drop in battery with a built in BMS that manages the battery and shuts it down if there is a problem so that should be OK. They quote max charge voltage of 14.6V but normally with lithium you can easily get away with 14.2 or 14.4V, gentler on the cells and there is hardly any capacity increase between 14.2V and 14.4V charging. The only thing I will say is that it does not have Bluetooth so you have no way to view what is happening in the battery. When you first charge it, if the cells are out of balance it may shut down charging if one cell is too high even if the total voltage is OK. This is another reason for charging with a slightly lower voltage when new.

[Lunatic]

Update!

1. Changed the Orion setting to “Regular alternator”
2. Set absorption voltage to 14.4 (was 14.2)
3. Adjusted peukert to 1.05 (was 1.25)
4. Increased charge efficiency to 99% (was 95%)

What if I plug in the 230v mains Victron blue smart charger overnight. Is it fair to say that the LIPO battery would be at 100% charged by the morning (likely on Absorption charge)? If so, what if I then set the “State of charge” manually to 100%.

At least then I would know the battery and BMV 712 are in sync?

Thanks. Ian

[pwfarnell]

Put it on charge and when it is full, the BMV will set itself to 100%. I think a lot of your issues stem from the wrong BMV settings so it was not accurate. Let it do its job.

[Lunatic]

Thanks. I have changed all the BMV 712 settings as recommended and plugged in the mains charger a couple of hours ago. Attached are screen prints of the BMV 712 (showing 100%) and also the Victron ip smart charger settings (not much to change). I am planning on leaving it plugged in for the rest of the day. With the settings on the screen shot attached, does this mean that the BMV 712 will reset to 100% when it knows the battery is 100%?

[Lunatic]

What is the “Synchronize SOC to 100%” with the button SYNCHRONIZE to the right of it mean? Should I be selecting synchronize?

Thanks, Ian

[chrigu]

@Lunatic

Set absorption voltage to 14.4 (was 14.2)

Thats the wrong way round now. You want the chargers to charge to 14.4V (but confirm this with the battery specs) and then set the BMVs “Charged detection voltage” 0.2V lower, so in this example 14.2V

The button to synchronise to 100% is there to manually synchronise/reset to 100% SOC. But if the automatic synchronisation is set up correctly, then you never need to do it manually

[Lunatic]

OK, I will switch the 14.2 and 14.4 around! Battery specs talk about 14.6, so I will set to 14.4.

How do I know if the automatic synchronization is set up correctly? Is there some other setting I should be checking?

Thanks.

[chrigu]

The automatic synchronisation works correctly if the SOC on the BMV reads 100% when the chargers change to float, even after a few partial dis-/charge cycles.
If you are watching the SOC by the end of the charge, then its possible that it takes a jump, for example, from 95% up to 100%, this means it reset to 100% automatically, but maybe a bit early.
If the SOC never goes to 100%, then it probably has not reset correctly. Thats somewhat normal if the main charge was coming from an MPPT/Solar, since you cant fully control the power coming in from the sun (the sun could disappear before the battery is full, so absorption voltage is not reached and held for long enough). But it should not happen when using an Orion or a mains charger

Heres a few days of partial recharges, followed by a full charge at the end

VRM doesnt show it quite accurately due to the time zoom, but it went to 100% smoothly

It hit 100%, stayed there for 15min (my max absorption time), then the charger switched to float, so the SOC went down a bit, then again stayed flat for the rest of the drive while the charger was in float, until i parked the car again

[Lunatic]

Thanks for the charts and info. Update. My BMV shows 100% and yet the IP22 mains charger is still working on bulk charge. 4 screens attached - 2 from the BMV and 2 from the IP22. Should I just leave the IP22 plugged in and wait for it to go to absorption charge. Anything I can do to make sure that when the lithium is 100% charged, the BMV also registers 100%. Ian

[chrigu]

Its possible that the BMV synchronised to 100% too early, but id leave it as is. Youve changed many settings recently, id observe again on the next charge cycle.

[Lunatic]

OK. I will just leave it plugged in and see where it goes today. One concern I have is that it shows 13.4v right now, which is great. When we were camping last few days and the charge went down to say 75%, the voltage dropped to 13.1 and eventually down to 12.8. From what you mentioned earlier, even at 50%, the voltage should be 13.2. Mine seems lower. Anything I can do to change that? Ian

[chrigu]

@pwfarnell

Roughly, a lithium battery at rest will be around 13.5V full and 13.2V at 50%.

You mean this from pwfarnell. Thats in general. Mine was at 13.1V last week when it came down to 50% SOC, and was at 12.75V 25% SOC.

Voltage is related to state of charge, but not exclusively. The same 50% SOC can read 13.2V at no load and 12.8V at 10A load for example

[Lunatic]

OK, I understand. So (to be perfect) the automatic SOC should register 100% at the moment the charge goes from Bulk to Absorption. Is that correct? If I can be close to that point, I could manually set SOC to 100%. Would that put the battery in sync with the BMV 712?

[chrigu]

@Lunatic

Bulk to Absorption.

From absorption to float

@Lunatic

If I can be close to that point, I could manually set SOC to 100%.

Yes

@Lunatic

Would that put the battery in sync with the BMV 712?

Yes, but currently theres no need to. The BMV is already showing 100% while the charger is still charging, so the BMV will not count further up, it just stays at 100%. It will only start to count down on the SOC once the current flow reverses, so once the battery gets discharged again.