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Hello everyone!
My simple question is: on my boat can I charge the 12V LiFePo4 200Ah battery bank using a 20A lead acid battery charger from off shore via the input Victron Orion-Tr Smart 12-12-30 without damaging the battery bank?
Any opinion is appreciated. Thank you in advance!
I don't believe that will work for multiple reasons. First, the Orion will try to bulk charge at the full 30 amps and your supply is only good for 20 so the Orion will go into lock out. Second, your lead acid charger is not a simple power supply and probably will not behave as such.
@OrangeCrush Thank you so much for helping me to understand that. But what if I use a 40A charger? It is going to be better? I'm a newbie and forgive me if I ask stupid questions...
I was looking at this charger to be used:
Look at the efficiency of the orion, I believe they are 87%.
So a 30a Orion unit draw closer to 35 amps during bulk. You will need at least that much from your power source.
@joeccv Thanks so much for your help. As I could understand using a exterior (off shore) power source like a 40A charger will be alright for my need? The total power installed on my boat (with all loads running in the mean time) is around 1320W (110A x 12V). The standard alternator installed gives 65A. I have a starter battery of 70Ah and an auxiliary home lithium battery of 200Ah. What I want is to charge both batteries from shore by a single charger (via dc-dc for the lithium and directly for the lead one). Is this possible if the shore charger is a 40A and the dc-dc used to charge the lithium is 30A?
joeccv
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I'm somewhat confused, you'll be charging the lead acid battery with the renogy charger and the lithium battery with the orion?
I think if you were trying to power the orion by the charger only, it would not work unless it can be setup as a power supply. But if you are charging the battery via the renogy charger and the orion is between the FLA and LFP battery, it should work as the battery will act like a buffer. I would probably wire the switch on the orion to give you some manual control as well.
@JoeCCV Hello, Sir! I have not enough words to thank you for your help! I tried myself to make a diagram, by searching the Internet and other documentation, in order to upgrade my boat's electrical circuit. Unfortunately I couldn't find here in Romania a qualified person with some experience working with this kind of devices so I decided to give a try myself. I chose to work with Victron and I bought the following devices: Victron Orion Smart DC-DC 12-12-30, Victron SmartSolar MPPT 75-10 (for a solar panel 100W) and a Victron Smart Shunt bmv 712. Additionally I bought a lead-acid charger 20A and a dedicated LiFePo4 charger 30A. In the beginning of this week I practically finished the installation and it seems to work. But I'm still not confident that is alright to use from shore (220V) two chargers (lead and lithium) in the mean time and I suppose that only one lead charger of 40A would be enough to do the job. Here I am and my knowledge ends up. I think if I send you the diagram could help more to understand what I tried to do.
Thank you so much once more!2FBF08A7-9140-4C34-AC97-7DF862A5E181_1_201_a.jpeg
Should work fine. Not sure if the On/Off starter solenoid depicted in the diagram controls the state of the Orion, but if not i would wire the remote input on the Orion to be able to manually switch it off in case you need faster charging or jump starting of the starter battery.
Good luck.
@joeccv Well, Sir, thank you so much for encouraging a perfect newbie like me!:)) Wish you all members a Merry Christmas an a Happy New year! God be with you!
joeccv
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