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yeknom asked

Practicality of using two parallel connected Orion TR Smart 12/12 -30 to speed up charging.

Practicality of using two parallel connected Orion TR Smart 12/12 -30 to speed up charging of two parallel connected 100 Ah LiFePO4 batteries. Alternator of our van is not smart, 105 amp. Concerns: 1) Will this amount of load on the alternator overwork it too much? 2) Will the alternator only be able to deliver such a small additional amperage with a second Orion that the addition of a second unit is not worth it? 3) Is there a way to know how much charging amperage is available from an alternator without over-stressing it? 4) Would it be smarter to install a larger capacity alternator?

MultiPlus Quattro Inverter Chargerbattery chargingorion-tr smartalternator
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Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

Hi @yeknom, welcome to the Community!

A good general rule of thumb (though indeed this widely varies across manufacturers) is that an alternator is capable of safely outputting a maximum continuous current of 50% of its rated maximum output. As such, I would only consider your 105A alternator as safely capable of outputting ~50A continuous.

Given that the Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-30 will pull around ~34-35A from your source battery, and also given that you still need to power your chassis loads (ie, headlights, heater/AC blower, etc), I would definitely not add a second Orion to the loads on your alternator, as there's a very real chance that it would, sooner or later, cause your alternator to prematurely fail.

In purely practical terms, yes, adding a second Orion in parallel will double the charge rate of your target battery, and that may well be desirable... but I would absolutely advise upgrading your alternator first so that you don't find yourself unexpectedly stranded with a burnt out alternator somewhere.

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yeknom avatar image yeknom commented ·

I very much appreciate your feedback Justin. Your comments make total sense.

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