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john-granshaw avatar image
john-granshaw asked

Best Victron products for lithium batteries on a sailing yacht

I am installing 604A of EVE Lithium Batteries on my yacht controlled by the REC BMS. I have separated the Charging and Load Busses so that I can disconnect a HVD or LVD separately and the system can recover. I will use the Ready to Charge signal to turn on/off the separate Victron components ahead of any HVD or LVD event. By separating the Charge and Load Busses however, it means I cannot see how I could use the Multiplus II which would have been my preferred option. I also want to install the Cerbo GX and colour monitor to oversee the system. I have 850w of Solar panels in two arrays which output different voltages (hence 2 Solar Controllers) together with a 120A alternator internally regulated. My questions are:

1. my understanding is the Orion TR Smart 30 has no communications other than Bluetooth and the using the Smart Solar 100/50 with the inverting remote cable means I cannot monitor this via the Cerbo GX (only bluetooth) - is this correct?

2. My inclination is to buy the Phoenix IP45 50A charger (VE Direct) rather than the Phoenix 50A charger (which has a Canbus connection). Does the Phoenix 50A charger have a lithium battery charging profile and which, due to the Canbus communication for this and the Phoenix 3Kva inverter, potentially would be a better option. Any advice on this for a sailing boat?

3. Will the Cerbo GX work with my existing MasterVolt shunt or do I need to replace this?

4. Will the Orion TR Smart DC to DC charge controllers conflict with SmartSolar MPPT controllers if I am running the engine?

5. Will the DC to DC charger be able to extract 60Amps from the alternator if the starter battery is fully charged or do I need an external regulator to achieve full output?

I would appreciate some expert guidance to help steer me on the right track and I am open to other system designs if these would be better.
I have attached my proposed system design (excluding the Cerbo GX and only showing the +VE cabling). Component Design v1.pdf

system design
component-design-v1.pdf (117.3 KiB)
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1 Answer
Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

Welcome to the Community!

Although your system design questions should be ideally directed to your authorized Victron distributor or your reputable, experienced systems installer, I can at least address your direct questions:

1. Correct.

2. The Phoenix Smart IP43 charger line (with VE.Direct) does indeed have a lithium profile. You can view the datasheet here.

3. The MasterVolt shunt will not communicate with the Cerbo; you'll need a Victron battery monitor for that.

4. No conflicts, just be sure all chargers are programmed identically to ensure optimal performance.

5. The Orion-Tr Smart DC-DC Charger doesn't connect to your alternator, it connects to your start battery; the 30A output Orion will pull (depending on programming, circuit efficiency, operating temperature, and other variables) between 35-45A from the start battery to deliver a 30A charge to the target battery. With only a 120A alternator I would not advise installing a second Orion-Tr Smart in parallel, since depending on the alternator's actual continuous output capability and chassis loads that it's also supplying, an additional 70-90A constant load on the start battery from 2 Orion-Tr Smarts in parallel could potentially cause damage to the alternator.

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