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robvdhorst asked

Connect Orion to secondary battery

Can I connect my Orion 12/12 30A non-isolated charger to the secondary battery of my VW T5. My car comes with a secondary, auxiliary, battery conveniently located under the drivers seat. Can I use this battery instead of the starter battery, to connect to?

battery chargingorion dc-dc
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kevgermany answered ·

In principle, yes. But depending on what you want to do it may not work well. The Orion is always on, unless you either switch manually, electrically or use engine detection. Engine detection relies on charge voltage on its input to turn on. A resting aux battery will not provide this. If always on, there's a standby current even with no load.

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robvdhorst answered ·

Okay. I checked this morning and the secondary battery has a voltage of 12.8 V with the engine off and 14.3 V with the engine running and when the engine shuts down, the voltage decreases slowly back to 12.8 V. So, the Orion charger should be able to detect engine start and shutdown, right? I could set the start voltage to 14.2 V and the shutdown voltage to 14.0 V ?

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·

Yes. Might change if you have a 'smart' alternator.

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