Hello,
I hope you can help me, I am new to the Victron Community.
Background:
My van is a ford transit custom 2016 with a 12v roof-mounted air conditioning unit. (it actually steps up to 24v inside the unit). I transport animals.
The power supply is provided by the vans alternator (i think or from the engine battery) and into an Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30A non-isolated DC-DC charger, which charge's 2x 100 amp calcium leisure battery, in parallel. (couldn't afford lithium, yet!)
My auto electrician has installed the system and so far it's ok-ish. I have taken a number of meter readings on the batteries and noticed the batteries seem to be at a constant 12v.
Which is odd, at 12v they are technically discharged.
I connected with the app and noticed that the Orion-Tr Smart is set up as "power supply mode" and the output voltage is set to 12v. Which may explain the 12v readings i have.
When I run a multimeter across the battery and increase this setting to 12.2v it increases straight away (engine on).
My question is, would I be better to
1. Set the voltage higher so the battery's charge? e.g. 12.7v
or
2. reconfigure the Orion to be in "charge mode" ?
It just seems odd to have the battery not fully charged, whilst in "power supply mode, output set to 12v) but if that setting at 12v, I can see why.
I run the air con for 2-3 hours per day, it draws 14 amp hours. Unless set to max then it can draw 40amp hours. (ouch!)
This exercise and set-up has been a bit of an experiment for myself and my auto electrician but if it goes well I will be installing it on further vans.
Thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.
Many thanks!
