question

fredrikfridborn avatar image
fredrikfridborn asked

Orion Tr Smart Non Isolated 12/12 30a Always in Bulk

Hi,


I just installed my Orion and I manage to charge my battery .


My installation is:

  • Peugeot Boxer 2019 2.0 BlueHDI
  • Orion Tr Smart Non Isolated 12/12 30A
    • Absorption voltage 14.2 (edited) as specified in battery manual
  • LiFePo4 LiTime 230Ah low-temp protection (can't find the manual on the web)
  • Fuses&cabling:
    • Orion + in: 60A fuse ~30 cm from starter battery, ~4m 25mm^2 cable to Orion (stripped to 16mm on both ends)
    • Orion + out: 60A fuse before hooked to battery plus
    • Orion - : to chassis ground


I had some initial issues where the Orion was always in Bulk even with a fully charged battery. I changed the Absorption voltage in VictronConnect to represent the absorption voltage in the battery manual. Then I was in Absorption for 2 hours then Float like expected.

However, now that I've started putting proper loads on the battery and discharging it below the bare minimum (discharging ~50+ Ah) I note that that I'm still not getting out of bulk after running the charger for 2 hours (30A * 2 = 60Ah).


I note that the Orion output voltage was 13.60 for ~30 minutes and didn't increase. I would expect this to reach 14.2 and then we will start the absorption cycle.


I'm wondering:

  1. Do I need to change the Orion settings for my battery somehow?
  2. I expect the Voltage to go up to absorption voltage (14.20), how long should this take?
  3. Right now I've manually disabled the charging in VictronConnect before I figure this out. Is this safe? I note that the app says "for maintenance only" but there's nothing on this in the Orion Manual.
  4. Is it even safe to run Bulk when the battery is fully charged?
  5. What should the Float voltage be set to? My battery manual says >13.33 is 100%, do I need to measure the 100% charged Voltage myself and set that as the Float voltage?

How the Orion looks when I expect the battery to be put in absorption:

orion.jpgHow the SmartBMV looks when I expect the battery to be put in absorption. N.B. the SOC is 100% but I unfortunately haven't reset this since I switched batteries. I'll fix this next time I know I'm at 100%.

bmv.jpg


orion-tr smart
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1 Answer
pwfarnell avatar image
pwfarnell answered ·

At the start of your post you put absorption 12.4V, I assume this is a typo and it was 14.2V.

The BMV may well say the battery is at 100% but based on the figures it is not at 100% but below if it is taking 27.5A at 13.6V. I think your battery SOC is over reading, post a screenshot of your BMV battery settings.

With only a 30A charger into a 230Ah lithium battery it will be in bulk almost until it is full.

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fredrikfridborn avatar image fredrikfridborn commented ·

Thanks for your reply!


With only a 30A charger into a 230Ah lithium battery it will be in bulk almost until it is full.

Alright. Can I safely leave the car idling to keep charging? The voltage is increasing very slowly as mentioned above, do you know if this is expected?

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pwfarnell avatar image pwfarnell fredrikfridborn commented ·

I would say that yes it is OK to leave it idling and keep an eye on it, the voltage will slowly increase. The battery has a lower SOC than the BMV states so you need to address that.

As said above, it could be BMV settings are wrong, post a screenshot of the settings.

Alternatively the wiring for the shunt is not correct and there is a load on the battery that bypasses the shunt. There should only be 1 connection to the battery negative and that is the wire to the battery side of the shunt and there should only be the one battery cable on the battery side of the shunt. All other cables must be on the system (load) side of the shunt, this includes users, chargers, the chassis ground cable, inverters etc.

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fredrikfridborn avatar image fredrikfridborn pwfarnell commented ·

Hi,

Attaching my BMV conf. I have set the charged voltage to 13.3 here but actually that is from the battery manual and this will vary from battery to battery and environment like temperature according to this manual. Not sure what this actually should be to be honest. The only thing I've modified here is the battery capacity, charged voltage and tail current.

bmv1.jpg


It looks like my Voltage actually slowly increased when I kept it idling for a long time. I'm gonna keep doing that will monitoring the process. I notice my battery side 60A fuse blew yesterday when I did this however so I'm trying to figure out what happened there. It's a pretty tight fit so I'm pretty sure it's because the cable was twisted leading to poor connection.


Alternatively the wiring for the shunt is not correct

This should be OK - the shunt + is on battery terminal + and shunt - is on battery terminal -. All loads are on the other side of the shunt.

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