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Neo Nos avatar image
Neo Nos asked

Victron BMS 12-200 Alternator Charging Safe for LIthium?

I am confused why there is so few and very expensive devices created to charge Lithium from Alternator, even the Orion from VIctron all at capacities of 30Amps or 60Amps for more expensive... yet the BMS 12-200 has a no big deal little feature to charge from Alternator at 100-200AMPs easy in such a small device? It makes me think that the Smart BMS doesn't have the lithium charging profiles and may be bad for the batteries? Yet I would think Victron would not place this in a Lithium battery BMS system if that were the case? Is it because it has access to the BMS data that it can do this without a lot of circuitry? I also have an Orion 30 12v, which one should I use mainly and the other I would like to only run when the engine is at high speeds. Which I plan for it to be the BMS but again I am wondering how this is possible when Orions are more expensive than the BMS? Why didn't Victron just create this higher capacity system instead of the Orion that shys away easy as 30amps, and 60amps?

BMSorion-tr smartalternator
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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image
Matthias Lange - DE answered ·

With the BMS 12-200 the voltage of the alternator needs to be higher than the voltage of the lithium battery (over 14V). Many newer cars only get to around 13V.
And the BMS 12-200 doesn't have a charging algorithm.

The Orion can boost the alternator voltage up to charge the lithium battery with a charging algorithm.

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Neo Nos avatar image Neo Nos commented ·

Thank you Matthias. My Van does go up to 14.4V when running and 13.6 I think when off so that works fine but, Doesn't the BMS then ruin the battery when it needs to be in absorption of float state charging?

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