Hi Everyone,

Until recently, I was charing while driving roughly between 18A and 27A, therefore quite ok. I know it's not 30A, but apparently nothing alarming from what I read here and there.

I had one night of very cold weather - -20°C - in Norway and in the morrning, the battery dropped to 4° (therefore could not be charged at that temperature) and a warning that one cell dropped below the recommended voltage or something like that.

I obviously immediately turned on the engine to charge the battery, which temperature increased to 5° and therefore could be charged.

The battery charged well up to 100% that day and even was rebalanced, therefore I did not worry. However, since then, the battery is only charging between 5A and 10A which is really low and worries me a little. It seems that the Orion Tr Smart 12/12 30A does not draw sufficient current. I am not so sure why would that be, and why would it change from a week ago since I did not touch anything.

Would anyone have faced the same issue, or would know what might have happened here and what should I do?

I have the following items installed in my RV:

• Victron Smart Battery LifPo4 160Ah
• Victron Orion TR Smart 12/12 30A non isolated
• Victron BMV 712
• Victron Battery Protect 65A
• Victron Cyrix-Li Charger
• Converter 600W Gianel (other than Victron)

Hey Guys,

Question Part.1 - I have two solar king 100ah lithiums in parallel - I have recently bought an Orion 12/12/30amp DC-DC charger and was wondering if there is a best practice when it comes to making the output connections; essentially, a or b? Assuming the wiring was exactly the same lengths in each case.

Question Part.2 - Following on from that, would your advice change if there was an Victron 100/50 MPPT connected to the bottom bus bars as well?

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Victron-Wiring-Orion.jpg

Many thanks in advance, Peter

I've been a big fan of victron stuff for ages now and get great performance from my small 100/20 mppt smart solar.

I've installed an Orion 12-12/18 in my camper trailer to charge our AGM battery bank while on the road.

When it first turns on, I get about 16a but this rapidly decreases to about 8a. This is having a big impact on the state of charge at the end of the day's driving.

Anyway, I've read the other threads and am aware of the derating at high temps. I can't really monitor the temps while on the road so opened up the battery compartment and give it the touch test. I wouldn't say it felt hot, or even warm before the charge current dropped down.

There's a real lack of useful information in the connect application. Very vague.

It's all cables with 16mm² cable and the fact it runs well for the first few seconds makes me think something else is up.

Could it be a configuration problem or do they just derate at very low temps?

I'm pretty miffed about it. The lack of ve networking doesn't help matters. All round I think the Orion range fails to meet expectations but would love some insight into possible fixes.

I have a 100 W panel charging a 100AH lead acid starter battery (SB) through a Smart MPPT. When the 'engine on' voltage signal is given an Orion DC-DC takes input from the SB and charges a 300AH house bank (HB). (Currently also lead acid but possibly Lithium in the future.)

If the HB has a significant draw it causes the SB to give the 'engine off' signal and until the SB has recovered, a few seconds usually , the Orion sleeps. This results in the voltage in both HB & SB cycling around near the float voltage until either the demand drops or the panel provides enough power to keep everyone in the absorption phase, or later float.

My QUESTION is this. Does this cycling have any detrimental effect on either the batteries or the Orion?

This is of course an issue when the boat engine is off. When the engine is on the alternator has enough power to hold the start battery up whatever the Orion chooses to draw. Most of the time boat engines are not running however.

Hi all,

I am trying to understand the best way to charge both Lithium (House) and Led Acid (Start) incorporating a WakeSpeed regulator.

There are various diagrams online but it’s not totally clear how the combined setup works.

Would one of the two set ups below work? Or does anyone have a simple diagram to visualise the correct approach? Thanks.

[image]

Hi all,

I'm planning to set up a DC-DC Orion converter to charge a Victron LiFePO4 house battery in charger mode (coupled to a starter battery, the latter powered by an alternator). Does the chemistry of the two batteries have to be the same? In other words, do I have to replace the engine starter battery with a LiFePO4 starter battery (for example, a pair of DL+ 12V Dakotas for a 24V system)?

Hi all.

I currently have a Phoenix IP43 Smart charger for 3 battery starting banks on my boat.

One of those banks is the starbord engine start battery, also charged from that engine's alternator when running.

I want to install a 30amp Smart isolated DC-DC charger to charge the house bank from the starboard starter battery when that engine is running.

My question is - when the Phoenix smart charger is running when connected to shore power, will the DC-DC charger also turn on to charge the house bank?

I don't want that to happen as I have a seperate inverter/charger for the house bank when on shore power.

Can I program the DC-DC charger not to run if the Phoenix is, maybe?

I hope that makes sense

Cheers

Tony

Hi everyone. Current have a 12-12-30 isolated orion in my camper trailer. I am having the cable upgraded to suit a length of approx 10m from 4wd start battery to camper.

At moment if I turn off engine shutdown detection, input is only 9.8v ( due to cable size ) but it is drawing 56amps.

If I am using the correct size cable, wirh engine shutdown detection enabled, and in bulk mode will the orion always draw 50plus amps, or is it up this high due to the inadequate cable size.

Hi

I have a Orion 12/12 30 . Can i still have my rvs nordelektrika ne 237 (15amp)charger installed and in use at same Time With the Orion? I have one 160ah Lifepo.

I am trying to figure out what is the correct circuit breaker size to use for the installation of my Orion DC - DC 24/24 -17. I am using 10mm2 cable from the Orion to input (van batteries), 6mm2 from Lynx distributor to Orion.

Calculations using the formula: Current (Amps) = Power (Watts) / Voltage (Volt) suggests a minimum 25 amp circuit breaker, therefore I consider a 30amp.

However, I have read in another post, that I may use a 40amp Mega fuse in my lynx distributor (as that is the smallest mega fuse available), does this also mean I should use a 40 amp circuit breaker as well?

Any help, much appreciated

I'm looking at DC-DC converters, as I'd like to supply my HF radio equipment with a clean source of 14.2V to minimize transmit IMD. My power is via LiFePO 4 batteries, and to maximize efficiency, I am thinking about using a 24V configuration with a Orion 24/12-25 to drop this to 14.2V. Maximum current demand is 23A @ 13.8V.

How RF noisy is the 24/12-25 in the 0-30MHz range? The setup will be relatively close to the radio and antenna, so minimal EMI is ideal, at least in the spectrum in question. I've heard that Victron is generally quite good in this realm, but hadn't found any reviews/data about these DC - DC units.

Hi everyone. i have a 12-12/30 Isolated DCDC charger in my camper trailer.

1. I am only able to get about 12-15amps output. I have changed settings but still the same. If I disable the engine shutdown detection and input voltage lockout I can see 30amp output through the bmv. But with those features enable the output drops. When disabled input voltage drops to 9/10v but 30amp output. When enabled input is about 13.3v but output is 13amps.

<Using Victron Orion 12/12 30 non-isolated DC Charger (purchased in Feb 2021 installed Nov 21)to charge two lifepo4 100Ah batteries (no solar).

After seemingly working well initially, after a two week trip in the summer (July 2022) I found myself with batteries down, no indication on the BMV-712. Later, using the charger I noticed (and paying attention) it was not staying in Bulk charge after initial switch on for more than a couple of minutes when it was obvious that it was required. I drove in absorption charge for many hours on the last two days of the trip so that I had some recovery in capacity and had no immediate problems. I thought it was a problem with the battery/BMS until I discovered on here with the charger that it was a common problem noted a year+ or so ago and apparently was corrected with a prior firmware update. I forget the reference numbers, but I was using #9 at the time, and have updated to #10. I have seen other mentions of people with problems post the apparent fix by the firmware update, for this circumstance and I believe some form of it continues

There was no indication of why that was occurring or the fix. Has the circumstance been evaluated further, because I have the same problem as described now, that has not been fixed. No matter the status of my battery state, the Bulk charge phase lasts no more than say 3 to 4 minutes when there is an obvious need.

Asking to see if there has been subsequent discovery/fix of this situation, or what the prior cause was.

Thanks>

For our caravan I am looking to upgrade/optimise the 12V system.

At the moment there is a 90Ah 12V lead-acid battery which when we are off-grid runs the lights and 12V outlet to charge phones/tablets.

When plugged in the battery is charged from the mains 230V supply using a Reich C-Go 20A charger. This charger in turn, also acts as an isolator for the 12V coming from the car. So when the caravan is plugged in the car and the engine is running the caravan battery is also charged from the car.

I want to replace the lead-acid battery for a LiFePO4 battery but I need to limit the current to protect the car and wiring between the car battery and the caravan. Ideally I want to limit the current from the car to 10A because of the small gauge wires that re typically used in cars and caravans in Europe.

My first idea was to take a Victron Orion smart DC-DC converter which basically does everything I want except two things. The most important thing is that there is no way to limit the current. The smallest version is 18A DC which is to much for my application. The second disappointment is that it doesn't have VE smart networking. Victron sadly never gives out information on when or even if devices get an update.

The Victron 25A Buck-Boost converter does have the current limiting function that I seek but it is more than twice the price of the Orion. It also lacks VE smart networking and you need to use an ancient Windows application to change the settings.

What would be a good and cost effective solution to my wishes? I don't mind spending money but I don't want to overpay for equipment that is half finished.

I would really like to see that Victron takes one of their smart solar MPPT chargers and create a truly smart DC-DC converter from it. I looked into using a MPPT charger for my application but I quickly learned that it is a bad idea because of how the MPPT system works.

hi. Do you mind if I use 2 different cables for the Orion dc dc charger? Ancor awg 6 for positive, 6 awg for negative non-marine.

Thanks