question

Sorry, but this is for your dealer.

I was refunded, but no answer to why this happened. This was close to causing a fire and burning down the boat.

I would be happy to mail this to Victron to look into further.

How were the wires connected? It looks like the source of 'ignition' might be the terminal (overtorqued or undertorqued), causing the connector to heatup. Since the device is mounted vertically, the fire did go in the upward direction, which matches the image which appears to have less damage on the top.
If the fets were the source, I would expect the PCB traces near the connector to be in better condition.
To me, it does look like a terminal/wiring failure tbh.

Did you torque the connector to spec?

The breakers are blue seas 40A on the + input and + output legs. The house bank was at 100% as I just took it off the shore power. There was no load on the house at the time. This happened fast, just after starting the engines ( under 2 minutes), not enough time to overhead, there is also an ignition delay of 90 seconds, so this all happened right about the time the ignition delay was met.

The output + wire is the only thing that survived without a scratch. All wires are 6AWG marine wires. The input + and ground are both still connected to the Victron, the screws to clamp the wires are not visible enough to loosen to remove and cannot be pulled out.

Ferrules were used and crimped with head shrink. The connections to the unit were solid. torqued the connector to spec. It does not appear there was a loose connection.

Are there other possibilities than loose wire? Alternator, battery? The unit always got hot when in use, could that have contributed to an internal failure?

The unit was mounted vertically on a 12 x 12 x 1/8 Inch Aluminum Sheet Plate to help dissipate the heat, glad I did that and read on this forum the units get hot. Wires were secured in place, just below the unit. The unit was always hot to the touch when in use, I could not leave my hand on the unit for long.

The remote ignition switch was also connected and looks to have heat damage also.

Here is a pic of the output + crimp, the other wires cannot be removed.

Here is a pic of the hatch cover, which is about 5 inches above the Victron.

The instructions listed the Torque as 1.6Nm and that was done. These wires were in there tight and could not be wiggled or moved at all and were fastened in place. Pre and post install, the wires are securely connected to the Victron.

To give your idea this was caused by a bad connection the benefit of the doubt, Wires were installed per specs, correct breakers, wire size, not corroded, not loose, could not be pulled out or wiggled. Ferrules were used and properly insulated. Pre and post install, the wires are security in place. Ground wire securely in place.

Yet this thing can still burn up to the point of a fire without any safeguards, fuses or heat related fail safes? I hope there is more to this than just that or this will be my last Victron.

Any other owners have one of these burn up? Why does the unit run at 45-56 Celsius when in use? Could the alternator be part of this?

https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/Orion-Tr_Smart_DC-DC_Charger_-_Isolated/en/installation.html

This is unfortunately the result of a (visibly) poorly-crimped ferrule (from which I must assume the other two were similar) and loosening connections due to heat-cycling in the connector; heat cycling will occur in any case and as such all connections should be checked regularly in any installation, but of course when there is a poor crimp in the circuit that generates higher resistance and thus more heat and thus higher resistance etc, this heat cycling and its resultant effects are exacerbated.

It's good of the seller to issue a refund, though frankly a bit irresponsible since it's not a warranty issue and would have been an ideal opportunity to have a very serious discussion about the literal life-or-death critical importance of good connections in a DC system.

The fuses did not blow because it's not their job to blow in this instance - the fuses exist to protect the wire, and we can see that the wire is fine. There was no short-circuit, nor excessive heating of the wire; the heat is at the terminal connection, which can only arise due to poor contact -in this case, specifically poor contact at the DC input side- and is a clear case of a commendable attempt being made to install properly, but without the benefit of experience and seriousness to ensure that the proper methodology was used.

It's very fortunate that everyone is okay and no serious damage occurred, and I sincerely hope that this experience can be taken as a lesson going forward as well, to not only double-check everything else currently in the installation, but also to motivate and ensure more rigorous application of proper installation tools and techniques going forward.

im adding an Orion to my system soon between my house batts and an auxiliary, so for science I tried with and without a crimp tool. Negative was crimped, and the ferrule is on tight. Positive I slid on there and torqued it to spec in the Orion then removed it. The ferrule could still be pulled off the hot wire after I removed it.

Something else on crimps. The correct size for the wire must be used. And the insulator is colour coded to show the size.

The unit worked for 120 hours this year (per engine hours) in this configuration and burned up in 30 seconds with no load on a cold morning. These are interesting and promising theories, over crimped, under crimped, not crimped enough, loose wires, loosening connections due to heat-cycling. These wires were and are tight, I still cannot remove or pull them out and I can see that they are still connected all the way through to the end of the ferrule.

I hope you are correct, yet if you are, then there are several design flaws that should be addressed, especially prior to being placed in a marine environment again. Even in a mobile environment would give me pause. Sounds like internal failure or bad rectifier is not a possibility.

Glad we have this forum to review this issue to supplement the Victron support and installation manual. If this forum and YouTube were not available, I might not have taken all the precautions for heat. I learned a lot even before I purchased.

Yes all were ok, Wife and son jumped on the dock while things were sorted out. One hour later, we would have been 25 miles offshore in 55 F degree water- so lucky for sure. If this did not spike and shut down the engine computer, I would not have known until this was too late. Thank you for asking !

The changes I would suggest-

1. Proximity- separate the wire mounts so the +,- leads are not so close, with no physical separation.
2. Heat- fix the heat issue. Way to hot, not enough cooling fins. Extreme caution noted when mounting, add a fan.
3. The word heat does not appear in the installation manual.
4. Add to installation manual, imperfect wire connection will lead to fire.
5. Add 50 hour connection check on the Bluetooth app to remind every 50 hours.
6. Add alarm when heat is above 55C or appropriate value.
7. Add heat graph history to Bluetooth.
8. Alert via Bluetooth for faults or alerts.
9. Failsafe- if the unit is on fire, it should have a fuse the blows.
10. Redesign how the wires mount. A nut and bolt mount is industry standard in marine environment.
11. Other units do not have this heat issue- might be time to redesign.

Just some thoughts for designers of the DC to DC chargers.

These are good and constructive suggestions!

Although the free Victron Wiring book has them all inside and is a great read, even for professionals.

I can add to this list of ideas that my "emergency car charger" delievered with my 2015 Nissan Leaf electric car has a thermistor in its custom-made "standard" wall plug as an added security temperature probe, in case of a loose connections ... in the wall socket!

Thermistors are cheap and easy to integrate, and given the Victron market it could make sense to add such temperature probes near high amperage connections in the Victron units themselves. It could actually save money to Victron because of these returns, and avoid bad stories.

Even professionals make human errors, and most professionals don't have thermal cameras to detect loose crimpings (it's easy to make an error on the crimping tool setting, and a bit of extra heat is invisible).

I would add a few more suggestion for Victron @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) to that list (different units, but obviously similar cable clamps:

- Use stronger clamping connectors (for the MPPT 100/20 at least), specified at 0.7 Nm ! Yes, zero point seven. Seriously ? did you try to screw at 0.7 Nm with a torque-meter ? The ferule isn't even compressed with 0.7 Nm. I had to up the torque to around 1.1-1.2 Nm (torque-measured) to get a firm connection (didn't want to go higher because of the tiny screws' specified max torque).

- The MPPT 150/35 has only 1.6 Nm (any serious electrical gear for high amperages has between 2.1 and 3.6 Nm torque spec). These are really small torques for such currents.

- Additionally the Wirebox M for MPPT 150/35's wire-clamp is too small for 16 mm² hallogen-free wires (actually wires are too near of each other, the small screw doesn't have the space between them). Even the Wirebox S's screw cuts a bit into the cable insulation, which is not good.

- For MPPT 150/35, it is specified for 16 mm², but a 16 mm² wire with ferrule doesn't fit in. Either 10 mm² with ferrule (but then distance must be short) or 16 mm² without ferrule are the maximum that can fit in.

- And write the specified torque onto the case, near the corresponding screw/bolt (Hager does that now finally for electrical gear, and solar inverter makers Fronius and Huawei do it too). I spend time writing and sticking stickers each time on Victron equipment, as finding the information in the manual each time (when screwing, when checking, and when inspecting) is time-consuming.

- Create a few new "products" "Victron professional DC wiring toolkit" with the right tools for given cable sizes, including cutting, crimping, torque-metered wrenches. Make the detailed list and sources available for people missing only one tool. Those tools-"products" could then be "rented" or resold by one-time installers.

This is all good info and discussion. Confirms the connection points to the DC2DC as well as heat dissipation are great places for Victron to make some design changes as well documentation. A fuse to prevent the unit from fire is #1 in my book before I would put this in a boat or RV.

The connection screw/clamp design appears to be the same as the solar controllers, not sure which design came first solar or DC2DC. Don’t believe solar is receiving 140A at 14.2, charging at 13.6 at 30A like the DC to DC Chargers in a marine environment.

Again grateful for the forum to work out the design/testing and documentation.

Having had a look at Orion-Tr Smart 12-30 specs and diagrams, I would add a few other suspects to examine carefully before putting any brand of charger in replacement of this one, as already stated above by others:

- State of the connections to that starter battery, which should be before the Orion (no direct connection to the starter, to avoid over-voltages/currents into the Orion, starter battery is acting as a strong capacitor/voltage regulator, and if there is a cable/connection issue between generator or starter and starter battery, it should not put Orion in direct link with generator).

- State of the alternator-side input/starter battery: Is it still solid (and e.g. able to start the engine without overheating its wires/connections)

- Alternator's voltage limiter.

Also, if it's a ferrule issue, then you would have probably had the same issue with any/most other chargers as well. Except for the Nissan Leaf charger, I haven't seen temperature probes near wire terminals anywhere yet, even though it sounds like a cheap and effective safety measure.

Anyway, curious to see if other ideas arrise and what you decide as replacement :-)

I'll just add that Victron sell tens of thousands of these and similar DC:DC chargers. While there's always an opportunity to improve the product, the current range is very safe and successful. Correctly installed, there's no safety issue. Switching to another brand is your prerogative. But I doubt you'll find anything better.

I guess my answer to that is, I respectfully disagree, or just not as convinced as you. The unit burned up in 30 seconds with no load at engine start up, a few seconds later and this was an open flame in a fiberglass hatch. The crimp in question lasted 120 hours of use on a boat in the Atlantic. The wires were secured in place about 4 inches from termination. So, the theory again is the crimp failed at hour 121 and poof- a fire resulted instantly, makes it hard to add a Victron back. I would be happy to mail this all to Victron support to evaluate. I might be swayed if I saw this in a test lab.

Zero thermal protection, known very high operating, Zero alerts of overheating, Zero protection from full on fire. Nope, Victron DC2DC is not going back on my boat.

I'm thinking you created a ground loop

And your engine ground is bad

So you pulled a ground from your home battery true your orion to your starter

This compromised the fiberglass and when your alternator fired up their was a dead short already

Is this possible or not ?