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white-russsian avatar image
white-russsian asked

Alternator Current Limiter without Smart BMS CL 12/200

Hi everyone, I am currently planning to replace the existing electricity system on my 34ft sail boat and have 2 questions that I was unable to answer despite extensive googling / forum reading. Would appreciate your help.

Goal: I am trying to figure out an alternative to the Smart BMS CL 12/200 that will allow me to limit the current drawn on my alternator when charging my 160Ah lithium house battery.

Rationale: While the Smart BMS CL seems to be perfect for this job, it does not have a VE.bus port that would allow me to connect it to a Cerbo GX which I need to display energy system data on my B&G/Navico chart plotter.

My planned setup: sail boat with onboard diesel engine and solar cells as sole sources of electricity (decidedly no allowance for shore power as it lives on a mooring). 12v circuit. Lead acid starter battery and victron smart lithium as hope battery. SmartSolar MPPT and 2 BatteryProtects currently by the Smart BMS CL. Phoenix VE inverter. This is still in planning phase so I could change it all up if necessary.

Second question: if I keep the current planned setup with the Smart BMS CL, how can I make sure the solar charger also charges the start battery?



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2 Answers
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kevgermany answered ·

Check, but I think the cerbo can control the limiter. But I think you should really be using a charger like the Orion smart to charge the lithium. The cerbo can control that as well. Hopefully someone will correct me if necessary.


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hjohnson avatar image
hjohnson answered ·

It’s not going to be cheap, but your best bet is going to be with something like the Wakespeed WS500 external alternator regulator. It explicitly integrates with the Victron system to control its output in response to the needs of the BMS. Additionally, it has nice features such as setting a minimum rpm to start charging, the ability to add a toggle switch to halve the power when needed, and a bunch of related features.

What we’ll be able to do is that when motoring in good weather, give 3 of our 10HP to the alternator to get 70A, but if things get hairy, flip the switch and drop that to 1.5HP and have that much more oomph on our wheel.

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Related Resources

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic

VictronConnect VE.Bus charging manual